How May Diversity and Inclusion Contribute to a PLN?

This week’s discussion made me think about how much diversity and inclusion can contribute to my Personal Learning Network (PLN). Before this, I mostly thought of a PLN as a way to connect with people who have similar interests and career goals. However, through my research experience in Health Information Science, I have realized that some of the most valuable learning happens when people bring different exnperiences, knowledge, and perspectives to the same topic.

As a research assistant at the university, I have had the opportunity to work with researchers who have different areas of expertise. My research has involved topics such as clinical information systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digital health. Working on research projects has shown me that these topics cannot be understood from only one perspective. For example, when looking at the use of AI in healthcare, there are technical questions about how the technology works, but there are also questions about privacy, usability, patient experiences, clinical workflows, and how the technology affects healthcare professionals.

This connects with the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing discussed by Bartlett, Marshall, and Marshall (2012). The idea of bringing together different ways of knowing helped me understand why diversity can make a PLN stronger. When people approach the same problem from different backgrounds and experiences, they can identify things that someone working from only one perspective might miss.I have also experienced this through conferences and research collaborations, where I have interacted with students, researchers, and professionals from different areas of health and technology. These connections have expanded my understanding beyond what I learn in my courses.

For me, diversity and inclusion make a PLN more than just a network of contacts. They create an opportunity to learn from perspectives that challenge my assumptions and help me approach problems differently. In health informatics, where technology directly affects patients and healthcare professionals, having a diverse PLN can help me develop a broader and more thoughtful understanding of the problems I hope to work on in the future.