Week 6 – A Collaborative Reflection
To wrap up EDCI 338 on a positive note, I am reviewing and providing feedback for my peer, Emma’s blog post titled: “Who Needs to Know About Your PLN?”, published on August 3rd, 2026.
Who Needs to Know About Your PLN? – Emma’s Archive
The Hook
Emma began her post with an incredible hook that grabbed my attention immediately: “Against popular belief, school might actually be about more than just grades” (Turner, 2026). The first sentence sets the tone for the rest that is to come, and for me, this showed me the content, theme, and humour that was to come. While reading along, it was easy to keep engaged as paragraphs were broken up easily by new headings or videos and the general layout was reader friendly.
Throughout the read, great hooks continued to come my way. In the 13th paragraph of the blog post, Emma wrote: The article Empowering Older Adults’ Informal, Self-Directed Learning: Harnessing the Potential of Online Personal Learning Networks by Morrison & McCutheon shows that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.” (Turner, 2026). Despite this hook being much farther into the blog, it brought my attention back with its balance of academic information and a humour-based cliche.
Content & Accuracy
Certain academic aspects of Emma’s blog post that stood out to me was how effectively she connected course concepts to her own experiences. As someone also in the teaching program at UVic, I found her reminder that “I am probably in the best place to network right here, right now” (Turner, 2026), especially relatable, because it highlighted the opportunities already around us in these key undergraduate years. I also appreciated how she reflected on her Visitor & Resident Map in her 5th paragraph and recognized that her “personal and professional identities overlap,” bringing together course themes. I was also impressed by her use of research, including a new source from Morrison and McCutheon (2019), which added another perspective to her discussion and furthered my understanding as both a reader and peer in this course. Finally, ending with Qualman’s (2012) message to “treat others how you want to be treated” was a simple but powerful way to bring her already strong blog post to a close.
Special shoutout to Emma’s use of humour which made the blog engaging, especially when describing AI in comparison to: “true, egotistical, first-born-child, HUMAN intelligence” (Turner, 2026). I may not be a first-born child, but I know that ego all too well from my brother…
A Little Additional Resource
To close off the 11th paragraph, Emma stated her raw opinion on AI in education: “I sincerely doubt that generative AI is the best way to be equitable and accessible. Teaching is perhaps the most human profession and thus cannot be taken over by a robot” (Turner, 2026). This statement was relatable as a current education student and reminded me of a video I had seen recently.
In a TEDTalk that took place in Vancouver B.C., Matt Wu a non-profit leader and advocate speaks on the crucial topic of AI in Education. I can relate to how a lot of education students are fed content about the positives of AI in our field, how it will change our lives, and all the ways we MUST adopt it… but we rarely hear about the purpose and importance of us as human teachers. I believe this resource would be a great one to either include or to just support your current standing on AI in Education, and the topic of your blog post. Especially with the strong standing you have on AI, supporting it with a resource, especially a recent, local one to us, can develop your argument quite well!
Matt Wu (April 2026), Vancouver B.C.
Overall Feedback
To conclude, Emma’s blog was engaging, thoughtful, personal, and successfully brought together course concepts, extended research, humour, and her own experiences in a way that was relatable and reflective of her learning throughout the class.
Emma, I absolutely love your blog and had a wonderful time speaking to your strengths as a blogger, amazing job! – Priya