why? what is this all about?
Over the past few months, as part of my Master of Education studies, I’ve been working to grow, understand and develop my Personal Learning Network (PLN). Given that I have been out of the classroom for nearly eight years since the birth of my first child, this felt not only a daunting task, but a completely novel idea. I have considered my professional growth to be largely on hold since making the decision to stay home with my children. Although I have done intermittent tutoring over the years, beginning my MEd last year was my first real step towards reclaiming my professional identity. A critical part of this, due to the ever changing nature of teaching (Trust, Krutka & Carpenter, 2016) was to address the gaps in my digital knowledge and skill. Establishing a social network identity (Lupton, Oddone & Dreamson, 2018), particularly through Twitter where I engage primarily on a professional level has been a new and significant step in this process. I’ve had to overcome some substantial hurdles, not in the least addressing my own thinking about my capacity for digital literacy and the pedagogical approach I want to embrace when I return to teaching. Like many others, my previous experience of teaching, whilst collegial to a degree, existed mostly in the isolation of the four walls of my classroom (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2010), and my use of technology was largely ‘technical’ (Baker-Doyle, 2017) in nature in that it was a useful tool, but not an integrated part of my practice. Over the semester, time, and my competency using technology have both worked against me building my PLN to a level that I am truly happy with (Oddone, 2019). Importantly however, working to develop my digital literacy (Lupton et.al., 2018) has challenged the idea that I need to know “everything” and encouraged me to work instead towards the more manageable goal of being able to competently search for and access relevant ideas and information (Oddone, 2019). Indeed, theories of connectivism (Siemens, 2005) highlight that the capacity to learn is more important than what is actually known. Learning to harness the collective knowledge and ideas of a vast network of educators is slowly becoming less intimidating and more exciting as I continually explore, examine, critique and hone my PLN.
in the beginning...
Initially, my PLN was very limited and involved minimal online interaction. I engaged informally with a number of teacher friends, but my perceived lack of currency in my thinking meant that even these face-to-face interactions were limited. As an English tutor, I had a core group of people to whom I could turn for advice or support, but essentially this was the limit of my PLN. I did not have a professional digital identity separate to my personal digital identity (Lupton et.al., 2018) and had not considered developing this prior to embarking on this ‘connected learning’ unit as part of my masters at QUT.
development
Initially my learning was very passive (Olsen, 2012) in that I followed people on Twitter and joined targeted groups on Facebook, but didn’t engage beyond reading content. Over time, I experimented with writing and retweeting posts, asking questions in forums, and linking to interesting articles (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011), functioning much like a ‘linear linker’ (Oddone, 2019) in that most of my activity involved information gathering and storing. However, in order to more actively participate in my own learning (Macia & Garcia, 2016), and in line with the requirements of my course, I also worked to produce a number of digital artefacts, including a blog post about exam stress, a video on returning to work after an absence, an infographic on the same topic, and a blog post about cultural appropriation in writing fiction. During this time, I also worked considerably at ‘stretching’ my PLN (Oddone, 2019), by expanding my network through actively engaging with others, and a with view to transforming my future teaching practice. In order to make my learning not only relevant, but hopefully useful as I venture back into the world of employment, I decided to cultivate a focus on the teaching of English literature, aiming to engage with people (Krutka, Carpenter & Trust, 2016) who offer and discuss innovative teaching ideas and debate issues that arise in this subject area.
critical incidents and reflections
The first critical incident I encountered was related to the nature of my online engagement, which, despite some progress, was still overwhelmingly passive (Macia & Garcia, 2016). Of significant importance to the development of an effective PLN is the learning that occurs through active participation (Oddone, 2019). The interactions that occur, and the way in which knowledge is shared, transformed and re-created is what drives learning, over and above cultivating simple connections. Despite being aware of the importance of active participation, I was still reticent to share my ideas due to a lack of confidence that I had anything interesting to contribute (Sivers, 2011). An impulsive decision to record and upload a video whilst walking my dog, led to an opportunity for significant consideration and reflection on the nature of my PLN and my own worth within it.
Ironically, the video, in which I highlight my insecurities, has thus far been my most successful interaction on Twitter, with over 500 views, and over 100 engagements, including comments and retweets.
To my embarrassment, I realised later that I had appropriated the hashtag #runandrant without understanding that specific topics were set weekly. However, despite this, or perhaps because of it as I’m sure that this added to my vulnerability, people were generous and helpful in their responses to my questions. Not only did this make me feel more comfortable in accepting that I don’t need to be a fountain of knowledge in order to participate in my PLN, but it helped to highlight the personal, yet interdependent nature of a successful learning network (Downes, 2012). This incident also led me to feel comfortable repurposing and sharing the feedback I received (Oddone, 2019) by combining it with my own ideas and using it to create a summary of suggestions to help people stay professionally engaged while they’re not working. I shared this infographic across both Twitter and Facebook and received a positive, if limited, response which nonetheless was critical to further reinforcing the benefits of more active participation in my PLN (Macia & Garcia, 2016). Most significantly, the responses I received to both the video and the infographic were critical in that they allowed me to realise that my experiences were shared and my contributions potentially valuable.
The second critical incident that I encountered actually came in two parts, beginning with my first blog post which I linked to my Twitter account.
Although 91 people saw my Tweet, only one person actually engaged with it and nobody commented on or liked it.
Despite this being disappointing, it actually became an important consideration for me in developing further content. This incident was followed some time later by my exposure to an amazing blog post (Milos, 2019). Not only did Milos’ Tweet about her blog receive far more engagement that mine, but when I retweeted her links, there was greater engagement with my posts. This led me to reflect considerably on the nature of the sharing I was doing (Krutka et.al., 2016) and the ways in which I actually hoped to contribute to my own and others’ learning. I had hoped that my blog would initiate discussion, but realised that I have far too few followers and have not yet developed an online reputation to warrant people taking the time to interact with it (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011). However, in addition to this, I was also forced to consider the value of what I had written about and the time I had taken to do it (Oddone, 2019). Milos' blog is teeming with insightful ideas, useful teaching strategies and a multitude of explicit examples which model her ideas, whereas mine simply offered an opinion and posed a few questions. These two incidents combined had a cumulative and critical effect on the way I decided to approach my second blog post. After following an online discussion on Twitter about artistic licence in writing ‘the other’ and a similar conversation with a student of mine regarding a text she was studying, I decided to write a blog which not only posed questions, but which made suggestions, offered teaching ideas, and linked to a range of supporting material which I had reviewed.
Encouragingly, when I tweeted a link to this blog, it was received far more positively than my previous attempt, and when I shared it to two Facebook groups I am part of, it was liked and shared also. Reflecting on this incident has made it clear to me that I value insightful and practical contributions to my PLN, and aspire eventually to learn from and interact with mine as a ‘global connectivist’ (Oddone, 2019) who carefully considers and curates the content I encounter and contributes in a meaningful way to a rich, international network of educators. obstacles
Throughout this unit, managing my confidence levels around posting and engaging online has been a persistent obstacle. Despite this being a common experience for teachers (Macia & Garcia, 2016), I have become aware that it is not sharing itself that I find difficult, as I have cultivated an active social network identity over the years(Lupton et.al., 2018) and my reticence about participating in discussions around teaching is not mirrored by my active participation in other communities and networks around topics like parenting and early years schooling. Specifically, it has been sharing on a professional level that has been difficult as I have felt disengaged from my professional life, and unsure of my digital capabilities in a world where technology is continually and rapidly changing the way we interact (Trust et.al., 2016). Finding a balance between the comfort of my personal digital identity and my desire to develop a professional one, including the expanded digital literacy which that requires, is likely to be a continuing challenge, as is managing the inevitable crossover between these two areas (Lupton et.al., 2018).
Another significant issue I encountered in trying to build and cultivate my PLN was the sheer amount of information that I was required to wade through (Oddone, 2019). As a result of my initial focus on trying to simply develop connections rather than hone a specific focus, I found that my Twitter feed became full of posts that while interesting, were not highly suitable or even relevant to me (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2010). Connectivist theory notes the importance of being able to make distinctions between important and unimportant information and build connections through recognising patterns between sources (Siemens, 2005). Consideration of this led me to trim my Twitter contacts, create a Twitter list and make more of an effort to interact on posts which aligned with my goals (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011). Admittedly, and most likely because of their more clearly defined and shared purpose, I generally still prefer interacting on Facebook groups which act more like communities than networks (Wenger, Traynor & De Laat, 2011), as I don’t face such an information overload in those places. Hopefully in time however, I will feel more comfortable embracing the increased opportunities for novel and unexpected learning directions that are afforded by a network (Oddone, 2019; Wenger et.al., 2011), and be able to establish my Twitter account as one that works more effectively towards my individual professional goals.
map of my current plnfuture directions and challenges
The challenge for me in continuing to build my PLN is definitely going to be developing the confidence and digital literacy to move to higher levels of both interaction and coherence across a range of platforms (Lupton et.al., 2018; Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011). Learning to manage the operation of my PLN is an ongoing challenge. Despite trying to adopt a more regular and focused approach, my engagement has continued to be episodic (Olsen, 2012) and I am yet to develop a more immersive, coherent practice (Lupton et.al., 2018) where I interact regularly as a necessary and integrated part of my work. The reconstruction of my professional identity is still in its infancy after so many years away from the profession, and I feel that until I am back in the classroom, this distance from a school environment will continue to act as a barrier to higher and more constructive levels of engagement. While it is empowering to know that technology affords me greater control over my learning while I’m not working (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2010), my sense of a persistent barrier comes from understanding the kinds of engagements that I value on social media (Richardon & Mancabelli, 2011). I am less interested in people’s opinions and more interested in evidence-based practice, especially when it is supported by examples and demonstrations of how things might work in a classroom.
Until I am teaching again, it is likely that my status within my PLN will lean more towards that of a 'peripheral lurker', rather than an active, committed participant (Trust et.al., 2016), but I am definitely looking forward to that changing. Understanding that I need to continue to foster and maintain the connections that I have built (Siemens, 2005) means that I intend to continue to interact with my PLN. My experiences with Twitter and my exposure to blogging in particular have ensured that I would like to continue to develop my interaction across these platforms. I’m confident that as my understanding of other platforms such as Instagram grows, I will also feel more capable of further expanding my PLN into a range of different arenas. I am however, also aware as a result of reflecting on the critical incidents I encountered during this unit, that to become a more effective connected learner (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2010), I will need to commit greater amounts of focused time and energy to improving the quality of my online interactions (Whitaker, Zoul & Casas, 2015), and reducing the noise levels in the various online platforms I use (Wenger et.al., 2011). Ultimately, and why I look forward to teaching again, I view the real power of an effective PLN to be in discovering and experimenting with new ideas and teaching methods (Krutka et.al., 2016) with the intention of enhancing the learning experiences of my students (Trust et.al., 2016). Overall, connecting with other educators online and developing my PLN has been a humbling, inspiring and ultimately transformative experience. I look forward to my PLN eventually working truly as interactive professional development (Macia & Garcia, 2016) where my teaching informs engagement with my PLN, which in turn influences and improves my teaching.
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About meI'm a teacher, student and advocate for better education through ongoing questioning, thinking and learning.
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