Blog Post #6

A personal learning network (PLN) sounds big, scary, and complicated when in reality it is simple and wonderful. After researching and looking at the materials provided by Dr. Strange I have fallen in love with the idea of having a PLN. A PLN is best described as a group of people and tools available to help you at any given moment. PLNs allow free access to professionals all around the world. A PLN can be comprised of anything from social media, pod-casting, and even blogging.


As I begin to develop my own PLN I have noticed how much information I can obtain through social media, especially Twitter. I spend a substantial amount of time on twitter reading topics ranging from hairstyles for rainy weather to opinions on whether or not our government is efficient. Now with the guidance of Dr. Strange I am now following educators and professionals all across the world and obtaining information from them one tweet at a time. With one simple search I am able to have answers almost immediately. As a future educator this will be beneficial. There is not a single person on this earth who is all knowing. There will be times when I do not have all the answers for my students. What would be a better or more efficient way to obtain those answers than through my PLN?

Creating a strong PLN will take some time but with the help of people like Dr. Strange and Michael Fawcett I will eventually have an incredible network to rely on. In order to organize and keep track of my PLN I chose to use symbaloo. After watching Welcome to My PLE I really liked how simple and efficient the program was. I set my internet browsers to open straight to symbaloo so that I am only one click away from any part of my network. I cannot wait to see how detailed and helpful my PLN will become as time goes by.