Being open to collaboration is key to building personal or professional learning networks.
In his book, Too big to know: Rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren’t the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room, David Weinberger proposes that “knowledge is becoming inextricable from – literally unthinkable without – the network that enables it”. He goes on to say:
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We used to know how to know. We got our answers from books or experts. We’d nail down the facts and move on. But in the Internet age, knowledge has moved onto networks. There’s more knowledge than ever, of course, but it’s different. Topics have no boundaries, and nobody agrees on anything. Yet this is the greatest time in history to be a knowledge seeker… if you know how.
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Steven Johnson also contributes to the discussion of the importance of collaboration in this video ‘Where good ideas come from’ (Riverhead Books, 2010), noting that networks are needed to germinate and spread ideas:
Your own network of collaborators might be made up of dozens or even hundreds of people with different interests and areas of expertise. You probably engage with them in a variety of ways, including face-to-face conversations, texts, e-mail, and/or over a multitude of social media sites. Consider all of them as members of your PLN.
While PLNs are not new, the platforms they are built on today have changed. Many teachers use social media to create their digital PLN. In these informal professional development networks, Twitter is often the platform of choice, because of its immediacy in finding practical solutions, answering questions, and identifying resources related to teaching. Project collaboration tools such as RocketChat, Slack, and Microsoft Teams may also be used for more focused, yet private, conversations and workspaces about learning and teaching.
—Paul Solarz
Explore: Why collaborate?
Being open to collaboration is key to building personal or professional learning networks.
In his book, Too big to know: Rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren’t the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room, David Weinberger proposes that “knowledge is becoming inextricable from – literally unthinkable without – the network that enables it”. He goes on to say:
Steven Johnson also contributes to the discussion of the importance of collaboration in this video ‘Where good ideas come from’ (Riverhead Books, 2010), noting that networks are needed to germinate and spread ideas:
Your own network of collaborators might be made up of dozens or even hundreds of people with different interests and areas of expertise. You probably engage with them in a variety of ways, including face-to-face conversations, texts, e-mail, and/or over a multitude of social media sites. Consider all of them as members of your PLN.
While PLNs are not new, the platforms they are built on today have changed. Many teachers use social media to create their digital PLN. In these informal professional development networks, Twitter is often the platform of choice, because of its immediacy in finding practical solutions, answering questions, and identifying resources related to teaching. Project collaboration tools such as RocketChat, Slack, and Microsoft Teams may also be used for more focused, yet private, conversations and workspaces about learning and teaching.
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