Developing Your Professional Learning Network
“Building a personal learning network requires that you not only seek to learn from others, but that you also help others in the network learn. Even when you are a novice in a field of learning, you can still make contributions.“ (Daniel R. Tobin)
Creating a personal/professional learning network allows you to connect and collaborate with educators around the world. Sharing and learning from one another ultimately makes us all better teachers! Check out the resources and tools below which can help you to create and grow your PLN.
Social Networking
Social networking sites help to connect users so that they can communicate, collaborate and share information. The Common Craft Show hosted by Lee LeFever has created a video which helps to explain social networking and how it can be used.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking sites allow users to bookmark websites which they in turn can share with their network of friends and colleagues. The Common Craft Show hosted by Lee LeFever has created a video which helps to explain social bookmarking and how it can be used.
Diigo Resources
Diigo Overview - Video overview of Diigo and how it can be used to organize your bookmarking, collaborating, and sharing of online information.
Diigo Educator account - Set up your free Diigo Educator account that allows you to also create accounts for your students.
Video Tutorial: An Introduction to Diigo for Educators - This video lasts about ten minutes and gives a good overview of using the educator account.
Twitter
Twitter is a great tool to use in getting your PLN started. Thousands of educators use Twitter to share information and collaborate with other educators around the world. The video below created by The Common Craft Show provides a basic introduction to Twitter.
Twitter Resources:
Twitter Tutorial: Part 1 - This video tutorial shows how to set up your new Twitter account and talks briefly about following and followers on Twitter.
Twitter Tutorial: Part 2 - This video tutorial discusses how to start posting "tweets" and the various ways to communicate within Twitter.
Twitter Tutorial: Part 3 - This video tutorial discusses the use of hash tags (#) within Twitter.
Twitter Tutorial: Part 4 - This video tutorial discusses using Twitter Search available at http://search.twitter.com
Twitter Tutorial: Part 5 - The final tutorial with some final thoughts on using Twitter.
How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN - Great article which also gives examples of educational chats to follow on Twitter.
5 Things to Get Your Twitter Network Off the Ground - Great post by Tom Barrett. You can follow him on Twitter at tombarrett.
Twitter - Professional Social Networking in Education - This is a site I created for a presentation I gave at the 2010 Southeast Regional EDUCAUSE Conference.
The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter - Probably contains more than you'd ever want to know about Twitter but still a great resource.