Hello PLNs
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of attending a conference. The experience was not just about learning new things, but also about connecting with peers who shared similar roles and understood the day-to-day struggles.
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Like me many that I spoke with also had the desire to do more, but were often limited by time and resources. It was a refreshing change to see and hear about the innovative approaches others were taking in their programs. This collective energy and understanding left me inspired and ready to implement new ideas in my department.
In the blog post Stages of PLN Adoption by Jeff Utecht, he includes the image below (see bottom of post) to illustrate how PLNs work.
During/after the conference, I was in the immersion stage of adopting a Personal Learning Network (PLN). I was eager to absorb everything, from getting contact information to joining email lists and following various social media pages. However, the excitement soon turned into a challenge when I returned to work. The task of keeping up with the new platforms, tools, and people added to my already long list of to-dos, making it overwhelming at times.
Reading more about PLNs reminded me that it's okay not to read and follow every post. It's my Personal Learning Network, and if information coming from too many directions can be overwhelming, it might not be as helpful as I thought it would be.
I'm keeping in mind that more information doesn't always equal better outcomes as I continue to develop my PLN.
I have always loved attending professional conferences for the reason of being able to learn. Whether it is to learn about others and their experiences or new information related to theme of the conference. I think using a conference to relate the stages of PLN adoption was a great choice. Also, your statement about trying to keep up with new and evolving PLN platforms reminds me of a time when I was younger listening to my dad talk about his job. He was very annoyed because he kept trying to get his organization to "hop on" what was then called Twitter, because that was supposed to be the up-and-coming platform to use. However, he kept getting denied because other platforms were still more popular. I think when it comes to utilizing PLNs people need to be open minded and have the want to try something new. Especially for organizations who have a goal of being innovative.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post! I agree that your PLN needs to be useful for *you* and as you say, more is not necessarily better! Step 2 of your image does a nice job of reminding us of that. PLNs are not stagnant; we are always adding/eliminating elements of our PLN as we grow and move in our careers. We are also a bit artificial in this class because we are (1) focusing on digital PLN elements only and, as you pointed out, there are LOTS of non-digital and in-person elements that can be part of our PLN. And, of course, (2) we are focusing on technology and learning content for your PLN in this class. In your *actual* PLN, you will including relevant information for your current/aspirational position whether digital or non-digital (examples: first-year student issues/concerns/challenges, higher education trends, instructional design/lesson planning, new student/employee orientation, etc.)
ReplyDelete"I'm keeping in mind that more information doesn't always equal better outcomes as I continue to develop my PLN." -- My favorite line of the whole post. As I struggle with somewhat getting started in the class because some technology and blogs are way out of my comfort zone, I really enjoyed reading your blog post and the image you attached. As I am slowly learning everything for this class, I am going to refer back to it. Thank you for your insight in this post, it was refreshing, and I could relate to it a lot.
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