Third Grader: I can't wait until I graduate from college because then I will know everything I need to know. I won't have to learn stuff all the time.
Me: I graduated from college and I learn new things every day.
Third Grader: Well then you must not have been a very good student.
Me: I graduated from college and I learn new things every day.
Third Grader: Well then you must not have been a very good student.
I love to learn. I find it exciting to know we all have the potential to be better versions of ourselves at the end of the day then we were when we woke up. I believe you can learn something from every experience you have, and every person you encounter. However, too much learning can result in information overload. In today’s connected world where anyone with an internet-enabled device can have their own broadcasting channel via social media, this can occur quickly. Therefore, we cannot just be collectors of information, we must be curators. Curation is the process of taking in information and deciding what is important, according to Robert Scoble. This requires us to determine what information we want to take in, who we want to listen to, and what we are going to contribute. In making these decisions we are creating our own personal learning network (PLN). Below is a mind map of how my personal learning network appears today. PLNs are ever-changing as we curate information and form new connections.
PLNs allow us to surround ourselves with others who possess the knowledge and skills we want to learn in a globally-connected environment via the internet. In a TEDx talk on curation of information, Steven Rosenbaum boiled it down to three key points. While I value his descriptions of the points, for the purpose of this post I am going to strip them away and repurpose the titles as the three steps of creating a PLN: 1) Choose your digital clothing, 2) Listening is more powerful than speaking, and 3) In a noisy world, customers embrace clarity.
How to Build Your Own Personal Learning Network
1. Choose Your Digital Clothing.
We all wear many hats and play different roles throughout the course of a single day. Choose one of these roles to build a PLN around. The PLN diagramed above is only for my career in education. I also have PLNs for my other roles in life such as being a gluten-free vegetarian and most recently, a cake pop maker. In short, choose one hat and build your outfit around it.
2. Listening is more powerful than speaking.
I often tell my students, “You have two ears and one mouth. This means you should listen twice as much as you speak.” This holds true in reference to personal learning networks as well. As you collect sources and build connections you take in a lot of information. Hence, before sharing information with others, you must evaluate which are the best sources and synthesize the information within them.
3. In a noisy world, customers embrace clarity.
People are bombarded with information all day long. Therefore, it is important to say what you have to say as clearly as possible. I think people who talk a lot (and by talk I mean post, update, tweet, favorite, like, etc) are often ignored. News feeds become cluttered by the same people and it becomes annoying. I know I have unfollowed people for this reason. If you want your voice to be heard, you must think about what you want to say before you take to the keyboard. My high school yearbook quote applies here, “It is often the softest spoken who have the most to say.”
We all wear many hats and play different roles throughout the course of a single day. Choose one of these roles to build a PLN around. The PLN diagramed above is only for my career in education. I also have PLNs for my other roles in life such as being a gluten-free vegetarian and most recently, a cake pop maker. In short, choose one hat and build your outfit around it.
2. Listening is more powerful than speaking.
I often tell my students, “You have two ears and one mouth. This means you should listen twice as much as you speak.” This holds true in reference to personal learning networks as well. As you collect sources and build connections you take in a lot of information. Hence, before sharing information with others, you must evaluate which are the best sources and synthesize the information within them.
3. In a noisy world, customers embrace clarity.
People are bombarded with information all day long. Therefore, it is important to say what you have to say as clearly as possible. I think people who talk a lot (and by talk I mean post, update, tweet, favorite, like, etc) are often ignored. News feeds become cluttered by the same people and it becomes annoying. I know I have unfollowed people for this reason. If you want your voice to be heard, you must think about what you want to say before you take to the keyboard. My high school yearbook quote applies here, “It is often the softest spoken who have the most to say.”
As I stated at the beginning of the post, I love to learn. I have been learning from my personal learning network for quite some time, I just didn’t realize it had an official title. Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers have been amazing sources of teaching material, and I don’t know what I would have done this past year without the knowledge and advice I received from teachers in my Facebook groups. I also did not realize how important what I post, tweet, or pin may be to others who are learning from me. Creating the mind map of my PLN really brought this to my attention. In Personal Learning Networks for Educators: 10 Tips (2012), Dr. Mark Wagner perfectly summed up the importance of PLNs for educators, “All educators (and learners) can benefit from extending their own personal learning network online – beyond the walls of their schools, the boundaries of their districts, and the limits of their experiences.”