This blog post is self-explanatory with the title, but what caught my eye was the graphic representation of "Design Your PLN." The author also wrote another article to benefit all educators regardless of subject: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2010/12/21/the-best-guides-for-helping-teachers-develop-personal-learning-networks/

This article gives 5 tips for creating a PLN online. It mentions other websites other than twitter, such as pinterest, scoopit and feedly. Twitter is well known, but this article is great for the beginner who can explore other resources.

The article discusses the reasons you may want to "tweet" and what the process is for using twitter as an educator. I like how simple it is, and think it is helpful for someone who has never used twitter before (like myself.)

Ryan John is an elementary and middle school music and theatre teacher in New York City. In this case study, he examined how the community of practice formed in a musical theater group impacted their personal development.

This article analyzed the development of a community of practice of student-teachers in music in a Brazilian university outreach program. After the introduction, the author covers in detail the theory of community of practice and education. I thought the idea of identity and the strength of peer-learning activities in the outreach program were very interesting.

This article discusses computer-supportive collaborative learning and the learning theory of connectivism. It discusses the pros and cons of connectivism and how it supports a collaborative learning environment. It also discusses how a course should be designed when integrating collaborative technologies.

This is a great article which is short and to the point when describing a professional learning network. It describes three steps one takes as your relationships build into something more in your PLN. What I got most out of the article was the ending of the article, which stresses the importance of finding a network which energizes you, instead of overwhelms you.

SoundTree Webinar from 2010 which discusses music education PLNs. The sound quality isn't the greatest, but it analyzes twitter, facebook, and other Web 2.0 tools and presents some really interesting information I would not have thought about. Would be great to find something more up to date.

This article was a study of novice music teachers' experience using an online community for one year using wikispace. A community of practice was formed in this wikispace and findings found that teachers' emotional needs were supported in this community regardless of grade level taught and music specialty taught. Knowing that other teachers were going through similar things gave teachers a feeling of support.

This article discuss the different ways school librarians have access to self-regulated professional development opportunities in the form of online personal learning networks. Examples include discussion lists, webinars, blogs and twitter feeds. A twitter group was researched and was found beneficial.

I've recently started using this website a lot for lessons with English Language Learners. Great resources and articles.