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Personal learning networks span from professionals to just your average person. Anyone seeking a specific interest or learning of will find some type of PLN that fits their need. PLN's are not just for educators and students.

PLNs help to ensure lifelong learners while, engaging in new skills, and information. This all takes place while remaining connected to new information and people of interest to the user. PLNs can be professional, personal or a combination of both.

This article talks about how PLN have been around forever but with the advent of wireless access it has changed how we interact with our PLN.

The Activity Theory model breaks down PLE's into subject, object, tools, rules, community and division of labour.Context is not an external container but it is constituted through an activity.The most common context for PLE's takes place through Higher Education (31%) and Lifelong Learning (15%), followed by enterprise,organisations and workplace (9% each).

This paper included many diagrams documenting personal learning environments. The PLE is broken down into six distinctive parts. The subject is the person with the object leading the subject to the outcome. Tools connect the subject and object within a community where the subject acquires knowledge. Rules are present to minimize conflict and help to guide the subject toward the object and possibly most importantly, the PLE has a division of labor. This is how the community is organized and includes contributions from all subjects. Without any one of these parts, the PLE would not function which would lead to the loss of knowledge within a community of practice.

A helpful--if lengthy--article explaining what a PLE is, and how to conceptualize the structure and role of a PLE in terms of Activity Theory. Helpful section distinguishing PLEs, PLNs, and CoPs on p. 24.

Teachers are developing PLNs to connect with other educators and professionals all over the world to stay up to date on their teaching methods and resources. This article gives an overview of why many teachers belong to a PLN and why it is beneficial to their professional goals. I appreciated that the author named and discussed three popular PLNs that I plan on looking into further. They were Classroom 2.0, Edmodo, and The Educator's PLN. I agree with the author completely when he states that "teachers are lifelong learners." This article is a great read for those new to PLNs.

I loved all of the information on the various tools that can used in managing a PLN, There were several tools I wasn't familiar with and look forward to being able to use in the future.

I found this post to be extremely informative regarding how teachers can use PLNs for learning, moreover for modeling learning for their students. The social network portion of this article was authentic to the purpose of this course and aided in making connections regarding the usage of social networks for educational learning tasks. The review of the three PLNs was also helpful as we navigate this course and begin to implement strategies and plans for the incorporation of social networking into our own classrooms.

This blog post defines PLEs and discusses how the author feels they are an integral part of how we can and should become lifelong learners.

This Edutopia article explains what a PLN is, how they develop through thought, that PLNs are collaborative, what PLNs can do for you, and how to build a PLN. The article brings up three deterrents of PLNs for educators: PLN is a mindset, there is an overwhelming amount of techno-babble, and requires more digital literacy than a Google search. A good quote from this article is, "We must remember that lifelong learning requires effort." The article ends with a list of resources on PLNs.

Edutopia's article defines PLN and provides concrete ways for educators to establish one. While it addresses the barriers for mass adoption of PLN, the focus is to highlight the collaborative nature of PLN. It is this collaboration that allows for personal and professional growth.

This is yet another great and practical article. I especially like how the author outlined how we can each develop a PLN in 20 min/ day and gave some great suggestions for what we should do with those 20 minutes. 20 min/day feels very doable, even to someone new to PLNs or social media.

The authors have endeavored to find the motivations involved with professionals in the creation of Personal Learning Networks (PLN). The concluded that there are four common factors that for why people choose to use a PLN. These factors are : enhancing professional communication, remaining in touch with people in the network, positioning an individual in a network, and finding new people and expertise within the network. They point out that these factors are not necessarily the determining influences that comprise an individual successfully becoming a member of a network. They point out that there is metacognitive level, that of the attitude of the practitioner that is a determining factor for the success or failure of an individuals PLN.

NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBC News dedicated to providing resources for students, teachers and lifelong learners. The online resources NBC Learn has created for the education community leverages nearly 80 years of historic news coverage, documentary materials and current news broadcasts. Includes videos and lesson plans.

This article is about Mozilla Open Badges. These badges are encoded with data about how they were earned and offer a secure way to recognize the achievements of individuals. This is a free system to use and anyone can create and grant their own custom badges. From a school standpoint this becomes interesting to me since it gives students and community stakeholders an opportunity to show that an individual has mastered skills that are taught outside of school.

This article takes us through some of the key components of a community of practice. The importance of clear definitions, meaningful engagement, a helpful identity, lifelong learning, and the desire for success for all are all discussed.

This article on MOOCs brought some interesting things to the forefront. When these courses were new they were touted as having the potential to change the world. In the years since though their hype has gone down. Most people participating have already earned college degrees. On encouraging pattern however is that teachers are often participating in the courses. This could potentially bring big positive changes to teacher professional development.

"...it is becoming increasingly important to develop the ability to know where to find information, rather than know the information itself." Connectivism within the realm of PLN

I think it helps to pull all of this information together when you can identify ways in which these foundations can be related to one another. I also appreciate the short and concise nature of the post - the author gets right to the point!

This was an interesting read. I appreciated the author's written style. I found her overview of connectivism to be very helpful. In it, she outlines Siemens' eight principles of connectivism. I found the following most interesting: The "capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known." The focus on lifelong learning as a process is probably my favorite part about this theory. It truly democratizes knowledge and values those who make an effort to continue to grow. Thanks for sharing!