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This article provides an overview of connectivism and distinguishes between learning theory and instructional theory. It also introduces what it calls the three largest reservoirs of information including online classrooms, social networks, and virtual reality or simulated communities, along with mobile learning and looks for evidence of how they align with the theory of connectivism.

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.

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 article was written to compare the new-age learning theory Connectivism to the long-standing ideas of behaviorism, constructivism and others. Whether new or old, technology influences all theoretical viewpoints. Similar to communities of practices and networks, these theories are linked in many ways.

Beth Transue, a librarian at Messiah College, begins this article with the suggestion that librarian educators reflect the tenets of the connectivist learning theory when designing their information literacy instruction. Transue mentions how the adoption of this theory in the development of library instruction can happen very easily as many of the connectivist principles are already evident in the steps of the research process. Transue spends the majority of the rest of the article talking about how the connectivist theory is connected to the model of the networked student proposed by W. Drexler in 2010. According to Drexler, a student uses information from four different domains: information management, contacts, synchronous communication, and RSS. The information management domain essentially covers the traditional library resources. The contact domain covers those who should be part of the student's personal learning network such as teachers, librarians, and classmates. The synchronous communication domain covers platforms like Twitter and the RSS domain covers blogs, wikis, and other social networks. The author spends the next couple of pages offering very specific directions for librarians to address individual domains in their information literacy instruction. Transue concludes the article by talking about what an information literacy session rooted in the connectivist theory might look like.

Hi Kelly, Interesting article. In one of the videos I found, the connection between research and connectivism was highlighted. I had not thought about that before, but it makes sense! And I've always enjoyed research, so good to know I've already been practicing connectivism on some level.

This post is the first chapter from a book titled Collective Intelligence and E-learning 2.0. The first chapter is titled Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge. This chapter outlines the thinking behind personal learning environments. Learning comes with the network of connections and experiences gained from a knowing community. The new learners in the net generation interact and think in new ways.

Suggests that understanding how members of a learning community converse is an important component of understanding connectivism. The tone of the interactions in a forum rely on the design and management of the space. Furthermore, learning depends on sharing in conversations and interactions which themselves can be meaningful activities. During communication among learners, there is a balance of what is good for each individual and the ability to move towards a common purpose.

In this article, Andrew Ravenscroft explores a "dialogue rich view of connectivism" and how we can develop learners that can "think, reason and analyse." He takes inspiration from social constructivist theory to focus on dialogue as a vehicle for learning. Ravenscroft begins by detailing Siemens 8 principles of connectivism. He then asks 3 questions: how can we understand the dialogue processes of a networked world, what dialogue features make for quality connections and how do we design to promote quality connections. He starts to explore the questions with Socrates and the Socratic method. This method has applications for 21st century learning. He reviews Hegel's dialectic as well. Ravenscroft maps these positions to connectivism because dialectic helps refine knowledge from a diversity of opinions, supports the capacity to know more, consideration of alternative viewpoints, fosters a constant evolution of knowledge, and promotes critical and collaborative dialogue. Then he discusses dialogic processes and how they map to connectivism. Dialectic and dialogic can work, not in opposition, but together in different aspects. Dialectic focuses on the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of learning, while dialogic focuses more on emotional and interpersonal aspects. The author then details dialogue game interactions and how they can foster learning. To be successful they need to balance orchestration and openness. This article proposes that language and dialogue remain a "most powerful semiotic system."

What a fascinating article. Ravenscroft's discussion of a scaffolded system to build a learner's dialogic skills reminds me of research I did for my EdTech504 class on self-regulated learning. Roger Azevedo is developing and experimenting with a similar game, MetaTutor, which scaffolds student learning as well. I think self-regulation is complex and difficult to teach in the classroom, and am amazed that researchers are creating software to build self-efficacy!

This article gives teachers 4 different PLNs they can explore for free. They have ready made networks that teachers can join and participate in free of charge. It describes each forum and how private or public each are. Along with specific topics that are being addressed.

This is a really great resource for learning about PLNs for teachers and figuring out which PLNs would work for you.

4 Fantastic and Free Professional Learning Networks for Teachers This article provides 4 free PLN tools for teachers to help them use social media and technology to collect, communicate, collaborate, and create with other educators worldwide. While Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn can be used by teachers, these PLN tools are designed with teachers in mind. Covered in this article are The Teaching Channel, Digital Is, KQED Education, and Twitter. https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/10/06/4-fantastic-and-free-professional-learning-networks-for-teachers.aspx

Summary: Educators from Australia uncovered that the most useful collaboration taken from a course was student-led and student generation conversations. The users were able to exponentially grow professionally with the help of their peers through social media. The collaboration in this case was not mandated by the professor, but merely a suggestion. It was the desire to learn from others that sparked the community created digitally. It was through the social media that the learners were able to share ideas, questions in a way that was organized and beneficial to all.

Very interesting article. I always sign up for MOOCs and find I always take away something but have never had that social connection experience in the course as they did in this article; maybe it was the instructor(s) and their encouragement to connect outside of the MOOC. I am going to pay more attention in the future to see if I see connectivism, PLN, and communities of practice.

Great article. I wanted to dive deeper into the MOOC's but just did not have the time. I am so glad you found and posted this article. I would really like to find a MOOC with the social interaction described in this article. I think that would be a very valuable learning opportunity.

This source is a chapter in a book by several librarians from the IUPUI library system. The librarians set out to find ways in which they could collaborate with faculty to promote a more successful information literacy program on campus. The importance of this issue gave them the impetus to form a community of practice. This group consisted of both faculty and librarians who were all dedicated to discovering best practices for teaching and assessing information literacy concepts. The authors concluded the chapter with a discussion of some of the campus initiatives that came out of the CoP activities and what they may do in the future to further the growth and retention of student information literacy skills.

Thanks for sharing this article, Kelly. I appreciated the discussion of campus initiatives, including the student pre- and post-surveys, which yielded "abysmal" results. Even with those results, though, the initiative was successful in sparking the campus to start operating as a CoP.

Thie video shows teachers utilizing communities of practice. This video was a great way to see CoP in action. These teachers show how amazing CoP can be in their classroom and students. My big take away was that all the teachers, regardless of grade level, felt it was valuable to them.

This article just makes a good argument for why social networking should be done in a classroom. With the emphasis on engagement, what a better way to engage them than to create a community outside the walls of the classroom.

This is fantastic. This principal has 12,000 twitter followers. He and his staff use Twitter and Facebook to communicate with parents and students.

The Lore project is a LME that was created for use in a regular classroom. Designed to run something like twitter and moodle and facebook, it allows teachers to set up classes, moderate who joins, and add content. Students can help eachother and suddenly the classroom becomes a community.

This blog has an entry titled: "Building School-Based Social Networks for Inquiry, in which he discusses building a social network for students named "Youth Voices." This site is for students to write and respond to each other and teach the value of peer interaction. The process of responding to each other has motivated student begin new posts.

Interesting read on how to use Social Media to advance online training programs. Excellent resources on how to improve training systems through social media.

Very cool! I never thought of this as a community of practice. I use this everyday for conferencing with my colleges. We come together through this technology to share resources, plan and organize, and to develop strategies. So, of course this is a great example. Thank you for sharing!

The big question presented in this article is, "How do we use technology?" The online environment is present in our daily lives and our participation is key. A PLN is defined as "the people you choose to connect with and learn from." A mutual desire for learning and participation must be present.

Hi Erin! I thought this article was quite interesting. I like how the author pointed out that so many say that the use of technology and media as a way of communicating leaves us disconnected, when really, it's the complete opposite! We are absolutely connected, just not the way we are accustomed to. Thanks for sharing!

PLN: Seaman's article discusses how to use social networking, especially Twitter to develop and maintain personal learning networks. She goes on to discuss that our we feel less lonely when we are connected, even if it is virtually on a tablet, cell phone or computer.

Describes the value of PLN's as well as the support it provides in learning. Ways in which educators use PLN's are identified as professional development, resource sharing, mentoring, technology integration strategies.

This provides some simple reasons to develop a PLN. I love that it encourages busy teachers to create a PLN by letting them know that it will make their work easier! This page also includes a "how to", but the "why" part is a terrific resource on its own.

This gives you 10 reasons on how to jump start your Personal Learning Network. Great tips for a beginner like myself.

ePals is for classroom teachers to create and participate in a variety of projects. This is a great site that connects teachers with other teachers from around the world to use social networking and create global learning environments.