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Crowley writes about how to effectively build a PLN, but goes much more in depth than just listing out three basic steps. She details why PLNs are so beneficial, especially to teachers. I appreciate that she covers the doubts and frustrations someone may have when establishing a PLN and offers ways to help someone from being overwhelmed.

A Professional Learning Network does not need to be a stress inducing task. A PLN should be a changing group of connections that people can join to connect with like minded people who share values, passions, and areas of expertise. When used in education, it connects teachers all across the world and gives it's members with different perspectives on education. PLNs often use technology to drive the connections. When creating or joining a PLN, there are three steps to think about. The first step is to find the professionals. This means that you need to find professional people who share an interest and value with yourself. Once you have found those people, follow them on social media or their blogs to stay connected with them. The second step is to find your niche group. A niche in a PLN is a place where people gather around similar interests or experiences. The final step is to find your PLN buddies and mentors. These are people you have really connected with and who help to expand your thinking. The best part about a PLN is that it is driven by you. You have the ability to adapt your PLN to fit you and your needs. 

As a teacher who is new to PLN and using it as a forum to learn and share ideas, I thought it was a great article to help connect the new user. Like any connection, time and effort are needed to make the relationship work. This article was precise in effective ways to build a community and sustain a PLN. Thanks for sharing.

Summary: The authors in this article analyze the evolution of communities of practice, or as they refer to them, CoPs. They define communities of practice as opportunities for sharing knowledge, learning through modeling, and observing. These CoPs have transformed from individuals wanting to learning and grow to a management system in which CoPs have changed slightly with terminology. This particular article highlights the need for a facilitator.

In this article Jong-Ae Kim, a librarian from South Korea, discusses the benefits of establishing communities of practice within the field of librarianship. Through her discussion, Kim not only defines a CoP, she also describes the levels of participation of its members and presents a possible timeline that relevant CoPs go through to establish their value within the profession. Kim then goes on to lay out the potential uses of CoPs within each specific type of library such as academic, public, school, and special libraries. I think it is important to note that while she sees the importance for CoPs among librarians serving similar populations, she ends the article with a discussion on the professional benefits of creating CoPs among librarians from all different types of organizations.

I appreciated this article. Not only did it help to continue to clarify my learning about COPs, it also provided a great context in tying it to the changing landscapes of libraries. Library education is certainly evolving and can now be seem on the forefront of some innovative educational movements, such as design thinking and the maker movement. It was also enlightening to see them as vehicles to drive communities of practice in many different settings.

This article summarizes a study aimed at explaining collective behavior on social networking platforms through intentional social action, which is known as the We-Intention theory. The study focused on Facebook in particular, because it is widely popular among university students and could, thus, illustrate social media's impact on students' motivation to learn via virtual communities. In the article, the We-Intention theory is driven by social influence factors, social presence, and elements of the uses and gratifications (U&G) model. U&G, as defined in the article, explains why individuals gravitate toward certain digital media over others. U&G assumes individuals are both goal-directed and aware of their needs, listed as purposive value, self-discovery, entertainment, social enhancement, and maintenance of interpersonal connectivity. The study identified two U&G needs, entertainment and interpersonal connectivity, as significantly determining intentional social action under the We-Intention theory.

That article is very interesting stating that most use Facebook for instant communication and connection. The need for instant gratification. Joining too many groups or trying to connect to too many people does make it hard to have a specific connection to one group. May be the reason that people post so many random topics and photos.

Interesting perspective on Facebook from the point of view of students using the platform.Since most of my background is from K-12 education, I have not witnessed teachers using the platform with their students. I have found that most K-12 teachers use Facebook to communicate with parents. It does seem to have a similar impact on getting parents motivated and active in class activities. Most parents use Facebook and once they know they can follow their child's teacher and get updates via the social media app, parents tend to do so

The author of this article, Etienne Wenger, is one of the leaders in the field of communities of practice. Wenger briefly defines and describes communities of practice. He also explains how communities of practice are being applied in organizations, government and education. The resource is a great overview for those wanting to understand the basics of communities of practice.

This is a step-by-step guide to setting up and growing CoP. It defines CoP and discusses why they are important. The guide also outlines how to establish and grow the community. At the heart of any successful CoP is purpose. A rubric is given to help identify the effectiveness of the community both in terms of infrastructure and language of inquiry.

I really liked this article, it gave some great information on CoP and the bullets on the first page were a nice outline of why CoPs are important and useful.

This article provides a step-by-step guide for designing and cultivating communities of practice in higher education. The first part of the guide is for those who are considering the use of CoPs to facilitate collaboration, learning, or knowledge generation and want to know more. That last part of the guide helps CoP designers and facilitators understand the questions, issues, and options involved in planning and cultivating communities https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf

Connectivism overview outlining major principles of the theory, includes George Siemens video. Excellent quote from George Siemens (video) "We can not, not learn"

Stacie, Good site to define connectivism. I especially like the diagram graphic and the two video clips with George Siemens, one of the gurus of this technology. The two slide shares are great too. We have one of those slides in our resources for this module.

A great article and resource on George Siemen's principles of connectivism. This includes excellent alternate resources including links to other supporting pages and video links to help understand the connectivism theory.

This page by TeachThought Staff connects to a video by Marc-André Lalande that gives a simple definition and explanation of a personal learning network.

Summary: Defines what a PLN is, also has a great video resource. Focuses on how personal a PLN can be and how we are all connected.

Perfect resource for understanding what a PLN really is. I love the simplicity of this article and the way it guides the reader through with a video. It really is a great place to start to being to make sense of PLN. One thing that was shared at the end was that views will continue to change as technology evolves. Love that thought.