Ning and the Personal Learning Network

As I mentioned in a previous post, developing a Personal Learning Network is an idea that I have recently become aware of and that I find exciting and very important.  Being connected is essential to being informed, knowledgeable and well-rounded professional in the 21st century.  Because of all the technology and tools available to us, this knowledge and information can now be more personal and relevant to each person than ever before and the potential for growth is tremendous.  This can only be a benefit to you as the professional, to your colleagues, and most importantly, to your students as well.    

I think Ning is an excellent tool to be help with creating this Personal Learning Network.  At Ning you can connect with not just a random group of people, but with people who are interested in and passionate about the same issues that you are and can help you bring up new ideas and resources.  In fact, there is a network on Ning specifically dedicated to Educators’ Personal Learning Networks.  The network contains a vast array of resources from articles to podcasts to tutorials and apps as well as a forum where educators can interact to further enhance the experience.  As educators, it is crucial that we be continually learning and growing and becoming as connected and  knowledgeable as possible.  Don’t wait!  Start creating your Personal Learning Network today!

Finish This Sentence: A Learner is Like a.......

It took me quite a while to come up with a good analogy to complete this thought.  When I first began to think about how I would represent a learner as an analogy in relation to Connectivism,  I thought of a spider. 

A learner is like a spider constructing his or her own web of knowledge, connections, and experiences.  As I pondered this analogy further I began to think that this was not the most apt one.  A spider creates its own web, but rarely interacts with other spiders.  Connectivism is also about the connectedness of learners and how we benefit from our interactions with each other.  As George Siemens says in the video The Changing Nature of Knowledge,  “The learners themselves, the connections they form with each other, the connections they form with databases, with other sources of knowledge, is really a primary point of learning,……the network becomes the learning, the network the learners create.”  This led me to think of the learner as a bee or an ant.   

Bees and ants both live in communities and construct networks for themselves and for the others in the community where they live.  There is an interconnection to what they do and they benefit from what the other members of the community do.  As I thought about this analogy, I realized that there was a piece missing from that, too. While learners are actively creating their own learning networks, they are evolving and changing.   

So would a more apt analogy be that learners are more like caterpillars evolving or metamorphosing into butterflies?   

 Participating in this interconnected network of knowledge causes the learner to change and evolve.  However, this didn’t exactly sit right with me either because although the butterfly interacts with and helps the flowers interact with each other, and is an integral part of how the plants interact with each other, the butterfly itself only changes once, and doesn't spend very much time interacting with and benefiting from interacting with other butterflies.  I thought about it some more and finally, it came to me….

A learner is like a drop of water.  A drop of water is part of a world-wide network or system.  A drop of water is constantly changing and adapting…at different times it exists as a solid, liquid, or gas.  It may spend time on its own or with others.  It goes through complicated processes and undergoes dynamic and fundamental changes. It affects and is affected by all that it interacts with.  As it grows, or as many drops come together they become stronger or more amplified, even able to dig through stone, like how a learning network grows and becomes stronger or more amplified. As George Siemens says in Connectivism:  A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, "Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing."  This to me better represents a learner in our interconnected world.   Alone we can do little, but as our connections and knowledge grow we have the power to move mountains.

Personal Learning Networks

As I was looking at different blogs for this week, I came across one of the 2011 edublog winners.  A Principal’s Reflections is written by Eric Sheninger, a high school administrator from Bergen County, New Jersey, to share his views on educational leadership, effective technology integration, best practices, and creating a student-centered learning culture.  He also documents his journey to becoming a connected learner, leader, and educator.  Not only does the blog provide amazing resources, ideas, and reflections for educators, but it is also an example of how to become more connected and incorporate technology in an effective and useful way.  I particularly enjoyed his post 'Connectedness as the Standard', about Professional Learning Networks and the importance of being connected.  

Wikipedia defines Personal Learning Network (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.  On Principal Sheninger’s blog, I found his great overview of a PLN as well.  Now, the connections in a PLN are not only face-to-face.  With technology available today, this network also includes ways that we can engage through technology.  It seems like in a world that has so much to offer and that is changing so rapidly, creating your own PLN is a way to control all of these resources and information in a personal way that is most beneficial to the individual learner.  This also reminded me of the video we watched last week, The Networked Student, which I think is really a way to help students incorporate what they are learning into their own PLN.  As we have all learned in our education classes, tailoring your teaching to meet the needs of each student is critical.  This seems like an amazing way to be able to do this.  

Interestingly, after doing some research, it seems that the major book that has been written on the subject was co-authored by Will Richardson, the author of our textbook.  

I’m really excited about this idea and look forward to undertaking the adventure of creating my own Personal Learning Network!