Professional Learning Networks

Overview

Every person in the workplace has their own PLN or Professional Learning Network. This network may be as limited as to the individuals they work with, or may be as broad as finding resources from around the globe. A Professional Learning Network (sometimes also called a Personal Learning Network) is an individual's connections and the resources they have access to in order to further their learning in their profession or in life.

Regardless of one's place in their career, or the number of years of experience, everyone has the capacity to play two roles, the learner and the mentor. From the standpoint of educators, even a first year teacher has experiences and advice they can pass along to pre-service teachers and students of education. As teachers develop through the years, they gain valuable experiences and insights, those "tricks of the trade", that they will pass along to their fellow teachers. At the same time, they will continue to seek, discover, and create knowledge and experiences to add to their toolbox. And even the most veteran of teachers will know that they can always learn something new from other colleagues. It is this learning and teaching give and take that builds the foundation of every educator's PLN.

While every educator or professional naturally has their own informal PLN, it is difficult to maintain and expand that network without some planning and intention. Educators should take the time to list out or even mind-map their learning networks to get a written or visual layout of their connections and resources, and to make a plan for expanding that network. The information below will help educators organize and develop their PLNs in and out of the school setting and begin to tap into the wealth of resources they can discover and, or contribute to online.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. " - William Shakespeare

Sample PLN Communities

Nearly every subject, topic, and content area related to education has its own PLN community. Below are just a few examples of PLN communities that can be found on the most common social media sites.

Pinterest Education - a collection of Boards and Pins labeled or tagged under Education

Facebook: Special Education Teachers group - a public community for special education teachers to share resources and ideas

Twitter: #DigitalCitizenship - this hashtag search shows all public posts related to the topic of digital citizenship

Instragram: #middleschoolscience - this hashtag search shows all public posts related to middle school science.

Digital Resources to Build a PLN

In order to access and organize the wealth of resources, connections, and already established professional networks and communities, educators need to locate them and utilize appropriate technologies. Included below are a list of a few online resources with information to help create and grow a PLN.

How to Develop a PLN Within a School

Teachers within a school or department can create a closed PLN for use with just a few colleagues in order to share resources and ideas. By creating this closed network, the discussions and information shared can be highly focused. A school or department PLN can enhance professional learning activities, assist with co-planning and collaboration, or simply provide a way for teachers to share ideas.

These steps will help in creating a school-wide PLN

Survey and determine what online technologies fellow teachers are using and which can be accessed within the school system. This could be as simple as creating a shared folder in Google Drive. Other useful options may be creating a Google+ Community, a shared Pinterest Board, a Facebook Group, or a team website, wiki, or LMS group page. Each of these have permission settings to restrict and manage group members, and thus keeping the resources within the team. Sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, or blogs are more public, so information would not just be shared locally.
Create the group resource and invite members to join. After selecting the appropriate technologies (as above), the facilitator of the group will invite staff to join the community. Since staff often have varying levels of technological experience, it may be help to offer some technical support or set aside a time for staff to attend an orientation on the selected technology.
Now is the time to populate the resource. This is where each PLN will vary based on the intent and needs of the community. Ideas for using the resource include:
- A shared depository for classroom resources
- A collaborative space for building curricular/cross-curricular activities
- Pose questions for staff to engage in on-going discussion of a given topic
- Use the PLN space to further and enhance other Professional Learning opportunities or school-wide initiatives

One way to get everyone started and on-board with the PLN is to host a meeting, professional learning session, or a just a fun staff-building event where the PLN will be initiated and used. This way everyone has a chance to see it in action, everyone has the opportunity to get hands-on involvement and support as needed, and this can begin to build personal investment into the PLN.

>> PRO TIP: Set your norms and expectations for the network and its use. A school network may not be the place for posting baby pictures, making retirement announcements, and showing off vacation photos... or maybe it is. Each network space should have norms in place to everyone knows what types of posts should be made and which should be avoided. Depending on its use, some schools may even set expectations for how often staff can or should post on the network.

4. Provide purpose and opportunities for continued participation in the network. A PLN is most effective when it allows for and encourages on-going participation. By posing questions, info quests, resource requests and so-on, the network continues to evolve and develop over time, becoming a truly interactive and engaging space for staff to communicate.

"Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow." - William Pollard

How to Develop a PLN Outside of School

Developing a personal professional learning network is a great way to connect and interact with other professionals from around the country or around the world. Educators can utilize a plethora of resources to build this network. Here are a few strategies to get started and expand a network.

Start with familiar networks. Teachers who already use sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest can easily find useful resources and follow other professionals. These initial connections for the basis for a PLN.

>> PRO TIP: Some educators will want to keep their professional and personal lives separate on social media. In this case, a teacher can create an alternate account dedicated to professional activities. When using this strategy, educators can create a series of professional accounts using the same profile image, short bio text, and even a special moniker (e.g. "mrkteaches") in order to create a consistent brand image across accounts.

Once familiar with their selected networks, the next step is to begin actively engaging those networks by posting or re-sharing content of their own choosing. As mentioned above, every professional is both the learner and the mentor. By re-sharing or re-tweeting the content of others, educators are showing their support and approval of an idea. The frequency or volume by which this content is shared and re-shared builds trends and can be more easily searched by others. In this way, even a user with no direct followers contributes to the greater community.
Educators can invite others to follow them. Often times the simple act of following someone will create a reciprocal relationship in which the other professional will follow them back. As users post and re-share via their network, other educators will often find value in these resources and want to stay up to date, and thus will choose to follow the account. Some educators will include their professional website or social media usernames on business cards or e-mail signatures as ways of encourage others to follow them.

>> PRO TIP: Post Often. Users who post on a consistent basis with high quality content will typically develop the most followers. It's that consistent presence and useful resources that other professionals will be drawn to. In addition, most of the social networks will prioritize posts (called impressions) from users who have more followers and who post more frequently.

Maintenance of a PLN takes time and effort. It's impossible to view, read, and share all of the resources found online. Educators should set goals or schedules for the amount of time they will spend on developing and maintaining their PLN each week. It may not be possible to consistently and actively maintain multiple accounts across platforms. By choosing the ones they are most familiar with, or simply use the most, they can focus their sharing and network building on these select sites.
Creating new topics and networks can lead to more personal connections and, or more specific content development. Similar to creating the local, closed network above, an educator can use the power of their open networks to create spaces for sharing ideas and asking questions on very specific topics. In this way, a teacher who is working on a specific topic, say "Digital Citizenship", can interact, obtain, and share ideas, suggestions, activities, and resources with other's teaching this topic from around the country or around the world.

NEXT: A Sample Professional Learning Network

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