Why PLNs are Important?

Posted on | April 9, 2008 | 13 Comments

Image of Steve Presenting through USTREAM Yesterday, I got to sit by the fire in Starbucks, in the enviable position of being close to the warmth and the electricity. With my new USBConnect card from AT&T, I no longer have to sit by the drafty east door to sip from Panera Bread’s free WiFi.

My word processor was up, capturing my nearly sequential stream of thoughts, when up pops Twitter, from Steve Dembo. He’s getting ready to present a session at a regional conference in Pennsylvania. Against my better judgment, I click the link and find myself watching his last minute preparations, along with five or six other Twitterphiles, then seven, then eight. I login and settle for the long run, Steve talking about Digital Natives, digital immigrants, and a new leveling information environment. Not much that was new to me, but Dembo’s style was a joy to watch. Not relaxing, but a joy!

Somewhere between 22 and 59 virtual attendees, the chat conversation became more of a focus point for me, as lurkers were commenting less about where they were from (PA, TX, SC, Perth, Shanghai) and more about the topics of Steve’s presentation, each shining a slightly different light on the idea, each giving me a different way of looking at it. A sudden small and fragile network was becoming a temporary branch of my Personal Learning Network.

Then it occurred to me that Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) was exactly what I was writing about at that moment. What a coincidence. So I started writing down, into my current writing project, the real time experience of learning from this sudden PLN. So I commented into the USTREAM chat that I was writing about PLNs and asked some questions about their network learning habits. Makes me dizzy to think about it.

So why is this important? Is there really anything new here? Well, of course We’ve been engaged in personal learning networks — for ages. It consisted of our family, friends, colleagues, preachers, teachers, librarians, public libraries, personal libraries, our various subscriptions, and visits, meetings, and conferences. It’s what we’ve grown up with, so there was little reason to diagram it.

So is it technolust — want-a-be wizards celebrating their newest incantations? I do not know about others, but I’d have to admit a certain amount of this in myself. Part of my impressions about all of this come from my clear memories of laying in the evening autumn grass, watching the earliest satellites pass over the sky, when I was a young boy. Today’s new avenues of communication do amaze me.

What is new are an array of information and communication technologies that are vastly expanding our range of contact and facilitating logical threads of connection between people, connecting them, not because of geography and culture, but because of their ideas. We talk about Personal Learning Networks so that we can draw this expanding suite of applications together into a context that makes sense to other educators.

Otherwise, they’re just a bunch of tools.

OK, going to watch a stream of Gourmet Geeks… fried potatoes with pepper and garlic, dumplings, an omelet, and tomatoes and pancakes! I may have misheard the tomatoes part!

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Comments

Danielle posted the following on April 9, 2008 at 9:08 am.
Sounds like what you thought was against your better judgment was a great judgment call after all. You were able to connect with others, use the scenario in an upcoming Warlick Best Selling Thriller, and even get some other thoughts with the back channel. I always learn something new every time I was Steve Dembo present. Wish I was able to hear him yesterday. And you’re right – he’s not relaxing at all. He’s very motivated and keeps me enthralled with his passion.
Reply to Danielle
Sue Waters posted the following on April 9, 2008 at 9:23 am.
Probably what I find funny is that you don’t often get the opportunity to see Ustream happening because it’s your presentation that we may be watching :). For us this has become second nature (though we were a bit reserved in chat last night).

But I know that you were surprised by us as I have also surprise Wesley Fryer. Let’s be honest Perth, Western Australia is a long way from anywhere and one of the most isolated capital cities in the World — we need the Internet if we want to see the World)

My favorite moment last year was when Leigh Blackall was presenting in the Eastern States of Australia. Judy O’Connell (I think it was) sent out a message on twitter to say that he was letting them ask questions and did we have a question to ask. I’ve been connecting with Leigh’s group in New Zealand so are familiar with his work and feed her a question that totally blew him away because he suddenly realized that not only was the World listening but that the global network had been able to reach into a conference and ask a pertinent question to a key note speaker.

On a side note — just a personal rant. We only have one phone provider that has coverage in regional areas of Australia. I wanted to buy a USB modem card but at the moment for regional coverage it would cost me a approximately $1000 per year to use. Others companies have cheaper plans – $28/month but are limited to major cities (or in the case of Western Australia – Perth only with no coverage in outer suburbs).
Reply to Sue Waters
Jennifer Clark Evans posted the following on April 9, 2008 at 11:39 am.
While I was hesitant myself to join these new conversations, I find it difficult to share these networks with my “real time” colleagues. It’s hard to show others how easy it can be to follow the discussion, but also why it is so worthwhile even to just watch and pick up tidbits along the way. The little time that I spend has afforded me so many valuable finds which I have used to enhance the learning in my classroom so much. It’s hard to image going back and trying to do all of this on my own.
Reply to Jennifer Clark Evans
leighblackall posted the following on April 9, 2008 at 5:19 pm.
Yes Sue, it certainly was something.. and I might add that the crossing over, or sharing of learning networks has dome wonders for our staff development work here at Otago POlytechnic. Sue mentioned coming in on communications around a course we run over here. Being an ‘outsider’ to the core participants in that course at the time, Sue attracted the attention of a number and took them in directions that were naturally complimentary to the course, but with different perspectives. This gave the participants who connected with Sue a feeling of achievement and connection that significantly improved motivation. At the same time Nancy White was dropping in on the group doing the same thing, and another group was taken for walks with Nancy.. in a sense in was networked teaching, brought about through open access courses, and a little facilitation work. Having a network of excellent communicators like Sue and Nancy around was and still is a very valuable asset.
Reply to leighblackall
Charlie A. Roy posted the following on April 9, 2008 at 11:30 pm.
Great post about the power of Ustream and the PLN’s. I don’t get out into the classroom much being a principal but I did have a chance to guest lecture in a high school economics class about commodities and futures markets. We culminated the unit by setting up our own mock futures exchange live with students as pit traders and brokers. We used Ustream to broadcast the trading and quotes to members of our Board who acted as retail customers. I think the adults learned as much as the kids and had a great time as well.
Reply to Charlie A. Roy
Gary Stager posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 4:55 am.
David,

I too get distracted by Twitter, blogs, etc…

However, if you extoll the virtues of this personal learning network, what are you learning?
Reply to Gary Stager
Gary Stager posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 5:00 am.
Dear Sue:

I’ve been to Perth many times and hope to be back again this year.

I’ve also been online maintaining friendships and collegial relationships, even a few romances, via email since 1983. So, none of this feels that new to me.

One amusing anecdote I thought I’d share is that when I began working in Australia in 1990, email contact was as important to me as it is now. As a result, I spent an enormous amount of energy trying to hack secret codes on Aussie modems in order to make them work with my early laptops. Back then the Australian government made it illegal to use modems from overseas.

I remember dialing the United States in order to check my email. The teacher hosting me was so excited that she invited her neighbours (Aussie spelling on your behalf) around to watch me “do” email.
Reply to Gary Stager
Sue Waters posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 9:45 am.
Dear Gary:

Good to hear you’ve been to Perth. Don’t you find our city isolated? What do you like the best about Perth? Understandably none of this would feel new to you.

I could imagine what accessing your email from Australia would have been like in the early 1990’s and how amazed they would have been.

I remember that some of my friends into the 90s were more into email than me and remember muttering one day that they only live a sort distance away why can’t they just ring. Nowadays I’m them and prefer to correspond mainly via the Internet and loathe picking up a phone. Though I have to say IM and VOIP are preferred to email.

You may be disappointed to know that I usually change my spelling to US because that is what my browser spell check uses. Besides a large portion of my readers are based in the US.
Reply to Sue Waters
Eric Cole posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 9:48 am.
I have just started rebuilding my PLN after being out of Instructional Technology for a few years as a Network Admin. I had a PLN there but we pretty much only used Chat or Forums to share knowledge. I have found the Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Twitters to be very helpful. Very often people I follow drop links to useful things that I can survey when I have the chance.
It is a bit overwhelming at first; however, if you allow it to be “Amoebalike” as you (David) stated in a recent workshop.
Reply to Eric Cole
Gary Stager posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 9:15 pm.
Sue,

I like the Pizza King, Nunzio, at Il Padrino. I like the schools and people I’ve worked with. I enjoyed sand surfing in the desert. I enjoyed the Margaret River region, etc…

The city itself is a bit dead, like most cities except, NY, Melbourne, Tokyo or the capitals of Europe.
Reply to Gary Stager
Sue Waters posted the following on April 10, 2008 at 11:05 pm.
Gary

Well we call it Pizza Hut not King :). Margaret River region – true is popular with tourist.

But honestly surely you can’t be saying Melbourne is nicer than Perth? Melbourne?
Reply to Sue Waters
alexanderhayes posted the following on April 13, 2008 at 7:23 pm.
Perth and Melbourne are totally differnt climates with a vast difference in the parochial attitudes to culture, family and public space noted.

Having lived in both, it’s a matter of networking providers to achieve mobile contact as you need it…I researched it, actioned it and frankly I’m sick of the whinging about it’s too costly blah.

I’ll be glad when Twittering, Diigo-ing and U-Streaming are main stream….there will be less ‘isolation’ and few dark spaces to hide in.
Reply to alexanderhayes