From looking at Utecht’s 5 stages of PLN adoption I think I am currently in the Immersion stage of climbing this mountain. I feel at this stage in my career as a library technician I haven’t embraced the community as much as I should be doing. By choosing to start this course to become a qualified librarian it has got me thinking that with the few years I have left in this position how can I get the most out of it. Coming from a workplace where I am the only library technician, I haven’t had the opportunity to learn and develop my skills from people at the same level as me.

A key aspect for developing a PLN seems to be joining groups and associations where you can lean, meet up and extend your knowledge base. The driving factor behind all of that is having an online presence combined with face to face meetings. Miriam Clifford outlines in her article 20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network that in this day and age networking is the key to unlocking global learning potential. She provides good tips and tools that you can use to start to develop a base of your network. Collaboration of any kind is important in the workplace today and as I am in a position where those opportunities are limited, I need to think of ways of how I can bring those to me.

As PLN stands for Personal Learning Network, it is up to me to be able to develop a network in which can best benefit my knowledge and learning. Ultimately, we all have the same goal in furthering our own knowledge within our field and by developing this system around us it can amplify our learning. By writing this post it has made me aware that after nearly 5 years as a library technician it is time to start developing this network around me. There are so many opportunities that I could have been embracing but haven’t, so as a start I have joined a Facebook group for school librarians/library technicians and I have made the decision to join ALIA so I can connect with other people in my field.

Starting off small is the key but hopefully this will lead to a well-developed PLN in the coming future!

References

Clifford, M. (2013). 20 Tips for creating a professional learning network. In informED. Retrieved from https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/20-tips-for-creating-a-professional-learning-network/