Did you know that you can build a personal learning network through social media? Personal learning networks help you gain a deeper connection and relationship with individuals who share the same educational or personal interest with you. Through personal learning networks you can grow a community of connected learners that can collaborate together on different topics and projects. When you connect with others through personal learning networks a deeper learning can occur. A personal learning network involves an individual’s learning goal, and the network is there to help the individual meet their professional goal or gain more information in regards to personal interest. These networks consist of many different individuals who have the information you are looking for or the information that you are interested in. Your personal learning network is where you are going to find new ideas and information to bring back to your professional learning communities so that you can further develop programs, create research and implement these ideas into your classroom (Nussbaum-Beach & Ritter Hall, 2012).
Careful selection of resources is essential to establish your personal learning network because you want to be sure that the information you are getting and sharing is correct and comes from a legitimate source. To do this, you can research a person’s digital footprint before deciding to follow them, watch how they manage their online reputation, are these people you want to follow, learn from and share ideas with? Some questions to ask yourself before deciding to add these individuals to your personal network may be:
• Is this person using a real name or a made up name?
• Do they have a website on their profile?
• Does this person have an established blog to share information?
• Does this person have followers?
• Is this person sharing information that is of interest to you?
Personal Learning Networks 