Email: piatanova@gmail.com
Twitter: @boris_dog
Diigo: diigo.com/user/tapiatanova
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Books: shelfari.com/borisdog
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“Knowledge is a unique type of economic good. With most economic goods, if you give them away, you no longer have them. With knowledge, you can give it away and keep it. In fact, the value of knowledge increases when you share it with others.” – Daniel R. Tobin
My Personal Learning Network changes all the time. A number of years ago it consisted of a pen and paper and people in either professional sphere or personal friends. Then slowly, it expanded into the email. Now it includes so many services, tools, and networks, and people I interact within those networks that it might come across as unbelievable and overwhelming. One might even pose a question, “When do you have time to use all of it?” The truth is I use it daily! Another truth is — all of us use it daily, even if we are not aware of it. Every person has a PLN, whether you are a student or instructor, Ph.D. candidate, or still in high school or have nothing to do with education what so ever. It is how we connect with other people, collect information, reflect and share our experiences with others and not just in the digital world, but in everyday life. It can be very complicated like in the example here or very simple (like mine was a number of years ago). My point is, there is a starting point already in place for everyone. But to reap the fruits of PLN’s full potential demands expanding your network (tools and services) further. Then, your PLN can not only provide you with easy and timely access to knowledge that others share (through participating in-network sites, for example, such as Classroom 2.0 or Teacher 2.0, The Future of Education, Edmodo, etc) but also give you an opportunity to contribute something back to the communal “knowledge pot” or “domain” or “lolcats” phenomenon, if you choose so (I stole “lolcats” example from Chris Lott). Furthermore, selecting correct services to be a part of your PLN (such as RSS aggregators like Feedly) and linking other services and Web 2.0 tools (like Diigo, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress or Blogger, etc) together can save you a tremendous amount of time and energy while finding new information and contributing back to your network.
