I got bored on the plane, this morning, so I pulled out my laptop, loaded Inspiration, and put this together. The problem is that elements of my PLN will occur to me over time, and I’ll add them in. But this was my first attempt at drawing a picture of it.
It's a few minutes later, after a rash of Twittered questions, I see a need for some explanation:
- The cloud at the top represents the people component of my PLN. They are (well you can read the categories). They blog, they publish their bookmarks with Del.icio.us or Diigo. Most of that comes in through my aggregator.
- Many of the folks I learn from Twitter as well, so that constitutes another avenue.
- I’m also fortunate to be able to attend lots of conferences, where I always learn through conversations.
- I also learn from news and from announcements about new information services and applications. Some of this a subscribe to directly with my aggregator. But most of the best news and announcements come for the people who blog about them or Twitter them.
- I think that there is a critical part of my PLN that I haven’t really written about before. It is my reflective endeavors, what I do with what I learn, to write it in context, to add to my context, to continue to construct knowledge.
- I continue to try to build knowledge because I want to share it, through my teaching, my writing, and web apps that I build and build onto, and especially the conversations I engage in with people at conferences and workshops.
Some questions that have been Twittered in:
What about Social networks like Facebook and MySpace?
I ‘ll have to say that I do not get very much value from my Facebook or Linked in presence. I’m not even paying as much attention to Diigo as I’d though I would.
No reference to my Twittering out.
This is probably something I should consider adding in. Thanks Smyth!
Someone asks, How about implementing in the classroom?
I’m afraid that I haven’t gotten there yet. I promote PLNs for educators as a professional self-development endeavor. I’m not really sure most classrooms are ready for student PLNs, at least as I see them.
There are no people!
Well, the people are in the cloud, and there is no message in that 😉 I know that some think of the individuals in their personal learning network. I just can’t do that. There are too many. I see the network as a community, a brain in its own right.
I wonder if it produces and upward spiral or spinning wheels?
Hmmm! An interesting visual. Of course, I’d prefer the upward spiral, and some how tapping into the centrifugal force of it for adding value. I’ll be thinking about that during the next leg of my flight 😉
Oh! They’re getting ready to board. Got to go!
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Tags: warlick, education, technology, elearning, sd, pd, pln
David
I follow you on Twitter (I’m @sjciske) and am friends with @ijohnpederson (Don’t hold that against me.
I like the graphic, although formme it seems too symmetrical – I like the idea of reflective learning but think the other side shoudl be whatever you call non-reflective as its own cloud instead of what you have currently as you go right to “specific kinds”
Also, I think the Non-reflective and Reflective are clould that should overlap as ther are times when conversations with people could be both reflective and non-reflective.
I really like this idea of having people creat learning maps to hep them understand the role of everything in their life.
Stuart Ciske, Ph.D.
Wisconsin Dept of Public Instruction
I wonder where personal trial and error, experimenting falls? anywhere?
This is a great visual map of your PLN. I’m wondering if some of the arrows shouldn’t be 2-way and not just one-way. Even when you present a keynote you interact with people through conversation, backchanneling, and reflections that you invite people to post on your sites. You respond and sometimes change the way you are thinking as you learn from others. Just a thought…
Peggy
I’d like to suggest that Parents be amongst those in the people cloud. 🙂
Hey Dave! Cool game. I’ll try make my own PLN diagram soon. =) I’ll trackback and even leave a comment and twitter and …you know, all that stuff.
Also, I use Diigo! Is there maybe like a PLN group you could make?
Anyway, I like Diigo. I’ll go friend you on there now.
It looks like an apple! The biblical apple of knowledge perhaps. I did a short draft post on my PLE a few days ago (http://www.terrywassall.co.uk/terry/2008/03/22/my-ple/) in response to Chris Sessum’s previous post (http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/299996.html). I included books and journals but the ‘core’ is the people network. I need to add twitter to my list as well. Of increasing usefulness and fun. You have inspired me to try to make a diagram of my own.
Hi David
I’m going to have this discussion with my class and get them to identify the people who are in their PLN’s. It would interesting to describe the relationships between PLN’s generated online and one’s ftf PLN. Is the ‘voice’ of someone in your twitter stream or your inbox louder than the message from someone who writes you a physical letter (does anyone still do that)? You indicate that the ‘voice’ in your facebook interactions is quieter than that of your aggregator. Maybe an expansion of your map could include different font sizes or different thickness arrows to indicate the relative attention you pay to that aspect of your PLN.
It would be interesting to overlay a physical map on your PLN and see if you take more notice (I don’t mean you personally) of people closer to home or maybe those who you have met personally compared with those you have only met virtually.
Is there a louder ‘voice’ in terms of your learning from those who you interact with in conversation compared to those who you just read and they are not aware they are part of your network? Does just reading someone’s work mean the are part of my PLN even if the author is unaware of my existence? If it does then anything I consume be it a newspaper or a radio broadcast becomes part of my PLN.
Mmmmm. Now I’m tired just thinking about it all 🙂
Thanks for the thoughts
A component that seems to be missing is “search” (and your own ability to filter/sort). Twitter and the aggregators bring pre-selected information to you. With search (online and off) you are out looking for specific information needed at that moment.
When I’m trying to pick a new camera for class for, or trying to figure out a coding issue, I’m asking people in my network, but I’m also hitting Google, reading reviews on various sites, finding vendors, etc … all a part of my learning, and this is usually not going to be solved by my aggregator happening to send my my answer … maybe by twitter.
An important part of the learning network is knowing where and how to look for answers and then how to validate and filter the findings. Oh, and then to provide access to this information back into the network (via your reflective piece).
Dave,
As you know, I blogged about this recently. Thank you for commenting on that post, BTW. You gave me food for thought. I think the whole PLN thing is interesting and yet keeps moving out of my grasp. I too, have attempted to use Inspiration to map out my PLN and end up with something that looks like the wires on the back of my computer! I suppose that tells me that my networks are seriously intertwined, yet many of the parts are not aware of each other. Is that a bad thing? As for other people’s blogs being a part of my PLN, they are. BUT, they are not nearly as interactive as say, Twitter or even my own blog. I need the feedback and interaction of others to grow. I can consume information from others, but I am a questioner who needs to generate discussion not necessarily answers. There’s another cent for ya! 😉