Social Networking for Our PLN Presentation
For our Personal Learning Network project, we started with a face-to-face discussion – appropriately enough, given how important we all feel personal interaction is to a PLN. We talked about what we each knew and didn’t know about PLNs, we asked each other questions, explored various avenues for approaching this topic, and by the end of that first session we had a rough outline of what we wanted to create together. After the first face-to-face meeting in class, much of our communication was done through email; for many of us, it’s still the most convenient and reliable way to communicate.
Katy created our initial Personal Learning Networks Wiki using Google Sites and we each contributed to the content, showing each other what we were finding, sharing our own PLN resources and those we were discovering in our research, and exploring what we were each thinking. I think it worked well that our particular interests were varied enough that we could each take on different aspects of this topic. We originally thought we’d build a website using Drupal to present to the class, but, as you know, we ended up deciding that the social nature of the PLN we wanted to create was better served using Ning. After communally deciding to dump the Drupal idea, Katy built the New Librarians: PLN site using Ning and emailed us each an invite to join. Once the Ning site was up and running, I, for one, pretty much stopped using the Wiki. From this point forward, our interactions were mostly through the Ning site and email, as well as one more face-to-face get together a couple weeks ago. Most recently, Vicki suggested we have a group chat on the Ning site to finalize the order of our presentation, and yesterday (Friday) those of us that could, chatted.
There were also some tweets between us, and a couple of us posted resources that we found in our research on the LIS 768 class website for our fellow PLN group members to see.
I loved getting to use the Ning site for this project! How wonderful that the vehicle we used to do our work is also the final product we got to share with everyone! The fact is this – the best way to learn about PLNs is to build one and use it. As you can imagine, we each spent a lot of time exploring our own PLNs and the technology that underlies them and makes them possible. Now, I don’t just use my Google Reader – I think about how I’m using it. I’m much more aware of why I use Facebook more than Twitter. All the technologies and resources we’ve been exploring in this class are components of our PLNs; our group project let us experiment with these technologies in greater depth, and explore the wide variety of ways that they all intertwine to create a holistic learning environment that’s personalized to each of us. I couldn’t have asked for a better capstone to this class!
JohnK