Tag: connections

Learning Networks and Professional Growth

Learning, NetworksPublished onLeave a Comment on Learning Networks and Professional Growth

Professional growth is not only about finding like minded people. Our professional learning networks can be built in this way, adding people from similar backgrounds or roles to our Twitter network. But that might just confirm the bias we already have.

I see great value in the exposure to alternative thinking. We gain access to perspectives that differ from our own and that may be in obvious opposition. Our social learning networks provide easy access to thinking and development from beyond the domain of education. I have deliberately built connections with practitioners in a wide variety of fields not just education.

Yes, your professional learning network should help you tap into the expertise and ideas of fellow educators. But I think the real value emerges as your network matures and you build connections far beyond the walled garden of education.

These connections challenge us to think critically about our work and what we think we know. The dissonance instigated by diversity of thought and alternative viewpoints can be a springboard to empathy.

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Photo by Daniel Hjalmarsson

Are We The Resource I Have Been Looking For?

Networks, TwitterPublished on8 Comments on Are We The Resource I Have Been Looking For?

After some feedback and comments from Ben Barton and Sarah Brownsword on my previous post, I have begun to see another side to the third idea I outlined. The web application I proposed  would provide teachers the opportunity to find resources, connections and ideas all in one place – from one search query.

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Vortex by phill.d
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

However it occurred to me that although there are existing tools that perhaps do these things, they are just diluting the process. Another web application doing this will just multiply this further, resources and people will be in another place to join and search – spreading the network even more thinly.

Maybe I was coming at this from the wrong angle. The emphasis should be on teachers developing network capabilities that allow them to tap into and find all of this and not a tool or system that does it all for you.

I consider the journey to where my network is now to be just as important as anything I gain from it. The experience of virtually meeting and connecting with literally thousands of educators from around the world has been amazing – shortcutting to a prefabricated, ready-made, network denies people that opportunity.

Someone mentioned that this type of web tool (content management and social networking combined) is a sort of “holy grail” – but on reflection I think that the real treasure is a network that invariably yields value for the user in construction as well as in use.

I am just jealous of all of those trainee teachers who are establishing their networks whilst they are training. They are tapping into the insights from working teachers and no doubt benefitting from it in their own practice. Just imagine what their network capabilities will be like when they are 3 years or 5 years into teaching.

Every teacher training course in the world should encourage and teach students to build a network to support them professionally.

I am convinced. It is not a case of finding a single tool, system or platform that seeks out content and connects teachers – it should be down to us to make the journey to those different destinations ourselves and learn as much as we can along the way.

Missing Connections

TwitterPublished on6 Comments on Missing Connections

Many Twitter users have woken up this morning to find that their followers/following lists are a bit wonky. I noticed yesterday afternoon that I was approximately 300 people short of what I thought it should be. My first reaction was to dismiss it as a silly little problem, it is just a number, it will probably get sorted – I shouldn’t worry about. Mulling over it for the rest of the evening I realised that in fact it was a big problem and that it was truly bugging me.

80857896 8a9a3415f7 mThat number, the followers/following count, may only be a simple number on the profile but for me it means a great deal. That number represents part of my learning network and I value every connection that is there. I suppose the saying “You never fully appreciate what you have got until it is gone” applies here. The lost connections really troubled me.

Each person involved with education who added me to their network I thanked for doing so and I said hi. I checked out who they were and what they were blogging/tweeting about. I found out their real names when I could. I subscribed to some of their blogs. I spoke with them about where they taught and what edtech they were interested in. More importantly I began to learn from them, their perspectives and their thoughts, their classroom practice and projects, their links and conversations.

I value their connection.

When 300 connections were lost it felt like someone had unpicked all of my our hard work. In the last 24 hours I have realised more fully what my Twitter network means to me professionally. It is only part of my PLN but it has a unique position, in the sense that it is close to being a live network. I don’t get the same number of people connecting with me via Skype, my blog or email – Twitter holds the majority. Nothing comes close to allowing me to connect with other teachers across the globe.

Is my network part of who I am as a teacher now? Definitely – and so I value every facet of it.

The majority of those 300 have returned as I write and it seems that perhaps the others will too – but I am currently 70 shy of what my Twitter network looked like yesterday morning, and that still bothers me.

“Dear Twitter try and fix the rest of the problem soon and remember you hold some of our precious professional networks in your hands. Please look after them.”

Image: ‘Regret‘