Journal 6 - NETS III & V

"Grow Your Personal Learning Network" -David Warlick

Warlick, David (March 2009). Grow Your Own Personal Learning Network . Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved March 5, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/

Personal learning networks (PLNs) are tools to help you stay connected with people and new information. There are three main different types of PLNs. The first is the "personally maintained synchronous connections," which is how you would traditionally keep in touch with people and get new information. New tools such as chat, instant and text messaging, and teleconferencing websites are a more sofisicated way of keeping in contact and staying up-to-date on this type of PLN. The second type of PLN is the "personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections." This type of PLN is more broad than the first. Questions that you have are posted by you onto tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and other networking tools. Not only can people who are in your community answer your question but also people from all over the world who sees your post can answer your question. There are not limitations to who can answer your questions. People who answer your posted questions are usually those who are interested in the same topic.

The third type of PLN is the "dynamically maintained asynchronous connections". This type of PLN is different from the others in that it connects you with the information that you are interested in. The main tool used to gather up all these information and to bring it to you is the aggregator RSS. RSS is also known as really simple syndication. Syndication is a process in which a part of a website is brought to you through another network such as Google, Blogline, or Yahoo. Many websites now have the RSS icon. To get updates from these websites brought to you instead of you going to the website, you simply click on the RSS icon and connect the web page to another webpage such as Google. So now when you are on your Google account, all the websites that you are interested in are loaded and ready for you to check for updates.

All these PLNs are really helpful in keeping you connected with not only people who you do not get to see on a daily basis but also new information of interest to you. I think that PLNs are extremely helpful for educators since the world is continuously developing new technologies and there are always new tools that can help you do a certain job better than before. As educators, you need to be in the network with all the new tools because you are teaching the next generations tools that they can use to be successful in life. It would not be fair to your students if you are not up-to-date with the new tools. You would be doing them a disservice by not being connected with the new tools available out there.

Question 1: What is one of main types of PLN?

One of the main type of PLNs is called the "dynamically maintained asynchronous
connections." This type of PLN connects you with information of interest to you through a tool called RSS feeds. RSS feeds take parts of a website and make the information on that website available onto another website such as Blogline and Google. Through websites such as Google, you can have access to any updates on the websites that you choose to place an RSS feed through to Google. Without having to go through a list of websites to check for new information, the information is being brought to you.

Question 2: What are some useful PLN tools?

One really useful PLN tool is social bookmarking websites such as Delicious. Delicious is a tool used to help you organize all your resources, research resources that others have found useful for a specific topic, and keep you connected with new information through networking with other people's bookmarks. Delicious helps you to get the most useful resources available instead of having to sift through handfuls of websites. Another useful PLN tool is the RSS aggregator. This tool allows for information to be brought to you instead of the other way around. Facebook is also another useful tool to keep in contact with people that you do not see on a daily basis. It allows for you to keep in touch with distant friends without running up your phone bill.