Skip Via explains personal learning networks, or PLNs. Slightly out of date at this point (e.g. Google Wave is gone) but a great explanation of how differentiated learning can happen online.
"For the inquisitive educator, there are some jewels herein that can lead to stimulating discussions, new resources, and an ongoing supportive network. You just have to know where to look."
What is Diigo
Diigo is a free social bookmarking tool that allows users to share online resources like websites and web 2.0 tools in a private or public group format.
The benefits of using a social bookmarking tool is it allows you to organize and store your bookmarks to an online tool rather than in the browser of your computer. This means you can log into your account, on any device, any time and easily find your bookmarks.
social bookmarking tool lies within the groups feature. A user can create both public and private groups for professional development purposes or perhaps a graduate class, study group, or classroom research project. Anyone with access to a group, has access to all bookmarks, plus special features like tagging and commenting on links.
An overview of Twitter for professional development as well as some links.
"Teachers who are fans say they appreciate the easy-to-use tool as a quick way to network with colleagues. They like being able to ask and answer questions, learn from experts, share resources, and react to events on the fly."
"One of the most common questions we get is, "But where do we find the time to use all this new technology?" To answer that question, we developed this infographic - A Day in the Life of a Connected Educator to show that using social media in your classroom and in your life can be integrated, easy, and fun."
"The five Cs below will empower educators to discover how they and their students can begin building personal learning networks specific to the learner's needs extending relevant learning connections to like-interested people around the globe."