0.5+Personal+Learning+Networks

**The aim of this site is to help you gain the skills to build your own personal learning network (PLN)!**
> Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are all about using web tools such as blogs, wiki, twitter, facebook to create connects with others which extend our learning, increases our reflection while enabling us to learn together as part of a global community. PLNs increase our opportunities to ask questions and receive help compared to our normal daily face-to-face interactions. > > Best of a PLN is it's personal! You make all the choices: > It's really important that you use these tools for your personal learning first before using them with your students so you gain greater understanding of how to use them effectively and to realize their importance for empowering personal learning! > > The idea of this site is to provide you with central location for resources and "how to" guides so that you can start building your own PLN. Most of the resources on this sites have been compiled from information from my other web sites. Remember as you use this information. Each of us has our own preference of what online tools works best for us. > > The tips and advice provided on this site is for building your PLN is based on the responses of over 160 people to my [|online survey]. > > **The questions asked in the survey were:** > The information on setting up your PLN is broken into two sections: > If you are new to these tools you will probably want to refer to information in both sections. >
 * 1) What tools you use!
 * 2) Who you connect with!
 * 3) How you want to learn!
 * 4) When you want to learn![[image:pln3.jpg align="right"]]
 * 1) What's the most important thing you've learned from your PLN?
 * 2) Rank tools in terms of importance in your PLN
 * 3) What 5 tools would you recommend as a starting point to building a PLN?
 * 4) What are your 5 tips for new people to get them started building their own PLN?
 * 1) The 5 Tops Tools for Building Your PLN - these sections background information, helpful resources and tips
 * 2) PLN Workshop - this section is designed specifically for participants at hands-on workshops

**Get started by working through the list of 5 top tools, in any order, to start building your own PLN:[[image:navigation.jpg align="right"]]**
> > **NOTE:** The order of the tools in the list doesn't represent priority -- the idea is you//work through them in any order!// > > >
 * Set up your own Twitter Account
 * Start your own blog
 * Subscribe to blogs
 * Start using a Social Bookmarking tool
 * Join a Ning community

**As you work through the tools remember these( tips of advice from my PLN:**
> Here are the links to my other sites: >
 * 1) Start slowly and find mentor(s) to help you.
 * 2) Use the same username across tools
 * 3) Share as much as you take
 * 4) Ask as much as you answer
 * 5) Try new TOOLS before you decide they're not worth the time
 * 6) Comment on other people's blogs
 * 7) Life long learning is the key!
 * [|The Edublogger]
 * [|My personal blog]
 * Mobile Technology in TAFE wiki
 * [|Mobile Techology in TAFE podcasts]



**PLNs and PLEs**
March 24, 2009 by [|darcymoore] Last year I started asking around, on Twitter, for the origin of the acronyms that I was reading so much about. ‘Personal Learning Networks’ ([|PLN]s) and ‘Personal Learning Environments’ ([|PLEs]) were so often used by the educators that I was following that it was surprising no-one really could source them. Recently, I have had more luck. Both [|David Warlick] and [|George Siemens]were generous in their explanations and insights. [|Stephen Downes’]comments and posts helped put it all together and one just followed the breadcrumbs. Warlick’s explanation of the [|origin of PLNs] and Downe’s [|comment] that Warlick has been promoting the term in his[|articles] and that: //“The term ‘Personal Learning Network’ is directly derived from ‘Personal Learning Environment’, which as history shows was first used at the The Personal Learning Environments Session at a [|JISC/CETIS Conference in 2004].”// completes the picture (although I do not understand the politics of this completely) and places these terms in context. This post is really about framing these concepts for potential use in a NSW DET context. I believe that we should use PLN as a term for teachers/staff and PLE in relation to students’ learning needs. I wrote to a [|’system leader’]outlining this last year: If we facilitated a model that emphasised each professional teacher developing their understanding and skills on how to create a //Personal Learning Network// (PLN) using Web 2.0 tools along with traditional notions of professional development (professional associations, regional networks, school-based TPL), it is possible that a quantum leap forward in how students were taught and learn, may take place If we developed a model that emphasised each student having a //Personal Learning Environment// (PLE) and facilitated staff understanding of how this could be undertaken, learning outcomes would not only be enhanced but potentially, teachers and students could adapt more readily to technological change due to the development of this most flexible of models. Considering the evolution of the acronyms, surely we could use them to communicate the changed teaching and learning landscape. How far do we educators (and our systems) have to go to get up to speed with the tools, and more importantly the pedagogy, that is needed for ‘our times’ and could this framing assist? What are your thoughts on developing the PLE concept for students and that of a PLN for educators? Finally, I am looking forward to Stephen Downes’ [|seminar] next Tuesday in Sydney