Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

What is it? I define a PLN as how a person gains knowledge from their interactions with others throughout their daily routines. A person interacts and makes connections with the others around them for a reason. For example someone who wants to learn about growing tomatoes could go chat with a local gardener at a home improvement store, or search the web for a blog on the topic, or tweet the question they have regarding the topic.  Wikipedia defines a PLN as “an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment. In a PLN, a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection.” (2013)

Why is this important? As a teacher it is very important to develop your professional skills and collaborate with other educators. Creating a good personal learning network helps you stay current with the best teaching practices and allows you to gain feedback from other in your field.  Several sites have already been created for educators to use in their PLN. Students have so many networks these days, we can show them how to gain useful knowledge from them and connect with experts in topics of interest. 

How can we utilize this in k-12 classrooms?  Students can benefit so much from having a personal learning network. Twitter is resource that all students should utilize to strengthen their networks.  In my own classroom I could use twitter to post resources for my students. I can use it to also communicate easily with parents and keep them informed on what it going on in the classroom. In our reading for this week a teacher created a board in her class to look like the twitter site, and had student hand write “posts” about what books they recommend others read. This allows every student to have a voice. In a traditional setting not every student participates in discussions. This can be cause by a student being shy or just not having enough time for everyone to talk out loud.  Another way this can be used in the classroom is by posting an opened ended question relating to a topic being discussed in the class, and having the students shares their thoughts. A teacher can use this to help guide instruction, you can see how students are thinking and maybe what you need to address again for better understanding. Students can also explore and dig deeper themselves on a topic. Say you are discussing weather patterns found in the US. Twitter can allow student in Ohio to chat with students in Alaska and discuss how the weather is different and the same. The teacher is giving more responsibility to the student.  Students learn how to connect with others and contribute their knowledge while gaining knowledge.  

If you want more information about this topic check out these sites:

http://edupln.ning.com/profiles/members/

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/05/5-personal-learning-networks-plns-for-educators/

http://gettingsmart.com/2012/01/personal-learning-networks-for-educators-10-tips/