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This article from the University of Illinois describes in depth a PLN and discusses why teachers need to have one online. It also discuses getting your students to build their own.

I think that this is a great idea. Teachers need to model the behavior so that students can see appropriate behavior. Teachers will also be prepared to recognize when students are delving into places that might be dangerous for them and can even teach best practices to students from a wealth of experience.

Great set of slides. Gives a good overview of the benefits of Personal Learning Networks and simple ways to create one. It seems that the intended audience was teachers, but I think this would be especially useful for instructors to share with their students. The link to the Will Richardson youtube interview was very interesting and thoughtful. I had never heard of him before, but his remarks were quite insightful.

This article discusses PLN's and how they are fantastic for research and gathering information, but if we teach students how to incorporate blogs, and social networking into their PLN's the wealth of information available to them greatly increases.

Wasko and Faraj discuss the phenomenon of shared knowledge in the digital world; why communities of practice emerge and the motivations of the participants to share knowledge. As they state, "People often behave altruistically and pro-socially, contributing to the welfare of others without apparent compensation."

Very interesting paper. It's an investigation into electronic communities of practice, especially as to "why people contribute time and effort to the provision of knowledge as a public good given the propensity for people to act out of self-interest." I think the authors results are intriguing. They find that people in these electronic communities of practice behave out of a sense of moral duty; feel that sharing knowledge and helping others is `the right thing to do'; desire to advance the community as a whole; and often make contributions in order to have the favor returned one day. In the end, the authors find that within these electronic communities of practice, people contribute time and effort through a combination of altruism and self-interest.

Learning Networks in Practice paper by Stephen Downes regarding personal learning environments, learning in communities, content creation and context.

This article talks about the beginning of the PLN movement in education. It discusses how a good PLN makes use of the WEB 2.0 applications that are out in cyberspace.

This is a blog post that elaborates on the idea of learning networks and connectivism. The author provides a graphic of her own learning network, showing professional activities, school, friends & family, internet, and books & articles. She details her search for information (connectivism) and how "the web of information expands." She applies Siemens' theory of connectivism to her own evolution as a learner, illustrating that learning is changing and never stops. Further, informal learning is just as important as formal learning.

This article, which was written for The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language, discusses the value of teachers being a part of many communities of practice. This enable them to see social media modeled and be more likely to use it in the classroom.

I bookmarked this as an extra site. It is the current site for Etienne Wenger, now Etienne Wenger-Trayner, along with his wife and fellow researcher, Beverly Wenger-Trayner. There are many good articles about Communities of Practice.

This links to an article written in Organizational Science in 1991. The authors, from the Institute for Research on Learning believe that working, learning, and innovating are three forms of human activity that are believe to conflict with one another. They seek to prove that the three are, in fact, intertwined and innovating results from the learning that takes place in a community of workers. If the three components are collective, they will thrive. If they are separate, they will fail. The authors refer to these as communities-of-communities.

This downloadable handbook contains background articles and suggested practices on how to best engage families in their children's education. It was published in 2011 with funding and support from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the Academic Development Institute and the Center on Innovation & Improvement.

As English takes over the world, it's splintering and changing -- and soon, we may not recognize it at all. This article is excerpted from the new book, "The Language Wars: A History of Proper English" from Farrar, Straus and Girous

This article has some up-to-date resources on ways to teach Internet safety, including games and more!

Websites tailored for auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners 

This website has a list of web 2.0 tools that I have never used before. Many of them are free and seem to be worth checking out!

This article gave an overview of what a community of practice is - but what I really like where the graphics included, especially the one on social media in the classroom - some cool statistics presented in an eye appealing manner.

I really like the visual representation at the top of this post. It shows the circular nature of communities of practice and breaks down the key ideas nicely.

This article looks at Twitter and analyzes it as a community of practice.