Journal Entry #6

Growing Your Personal Learning Network (NETS-T 3 & 5)

Warlick, David. (2009). Grow your personal learning network. Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(6), retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-march-april-2009.aspx

     This article written by David Warlick discusses the changes taking place in professional and personal information gathering. Not so long before this article was written, the process of gathering new ideas, helpful tools and resources was a long and tedious process. Many times we needed to research books, friends and mentors to find the answers. With technology, this all changed. Warlick discusses that while the idea of creating a resource pool is unchanged, the methods used to contact those in our pools of resources has changed. He first discusses that we still use friends, co-workers and others we come into contact with. What has changed is that now we have differing methods of how to remain in contact with those we deem beneficial to our growth. We now maintain relationships in three differing methods. The first being personally maintained synchronous connections which may use Twitter, Skype and teleconferencing. The second are personally and socially semi-synchronous connections create discussions that are maintained by the individual, but may not be real time, tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and texting. The final method to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is with the use of dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. These tools allow the user to specify guidelines to a chosen site or tool and have the “researched” information delivered to them, rather than searching personally. Warlick then discusses how to begin creating a PLN of your own without becoming overwhelmed. Most of the tips he provides are smart, organization based and easy to follow. He advises to first start small, create lists, devote appropriate amounts of time and find individuals who filter data well to do some of that work for you. Overall, the article is a brief discussion of what PLN’s are, how they have changed and simple unintimidating steps to follow for a novice PLN creator to follow. 

Question 1: How has the use of technology based PLN’s changed education?

Answer- As a result of the changes in technology, teachers and students are now exposed to many more ideas and topics to discuss. As a result of the vast amounts of information, educators are able to create more dynamic meaningful lessons without spending the huge amounts of time needed to research and create them. As a result learning can be more enjoyable for the students and educators. 

Question 2: What are some ways a beginning educator or student of education could use a PLN?

Answer: From my experience in this course and exposure to the social networking tools available, I plan to use sites such as Twitter and Diigo to help in finishing my Master’s thesis. I have a huge amount of data to collect and using others to help me gather promising information is a great use of technology and my time.