Building Your Connected Learning Community

Learning is being amplified more and more as years go by with virtual networks gaining popularity. Your personal network is your own community that you have built to have deeper connections and relationships. This network allows for personal and professional growth and change in the right direction.

What is a network you may ask? Stated from The Connected Educator by Sheryl Nussbaum, "Networks are where you find ideas and information to bring back to your existing communities (professional learning communities and communities of practice) to develop into programs, to use to create action research, and implement in your schools... Networks are about what you want to learn". To start your personal network you want to identify what you want to accomplish and learn. Some tips that help you with getting started with your online networking account includes establishing one account name that you will use across all platforms, finding a mentor, and choose those you respect, see who they are following and select people to connect with off of their following. You are in control of the direction you take, what you want to expose yourself to, and what you want to get out of your network.

There are some roles and responsibilities that David Lee discussed. These roles are linking: educators that might be interested in joining the community who usually visit occasionally and harvest links, lurking: legitimate peripheral participants who are reluctant to share their thoughts and ideas transparently but are willing to listen, learning: community members who frequently participate in the community's life to learn,  they bring as much as they can take, and lastly leading: educators who commit time and energy in the community. Some tips to help evolve the community include putting people before things, design with real learning in mind, select a passionate community leader, co-create the content, bring in other voices, and build trust.

Now it's time to think about what areas are going to be the most challenging, what roles and responsibilities are you going to use, and if your community will be open or close.  Personal networking takes time but there are helpful tools that can be used along the way and in the end it will be worth the effort. Start to engage with others, grow and learn through your personal learning network and create a connected learning community.