INF506 – OLJ Task 5: PLN adoption

Upon starting my journey as a Teacher Librarian, I was encouraged to explore and create a Personal Learning Network (PLN), very much like Utecht has described in his article Stages of PLN adoption (2008). I previously had not used social networking to develop a PLN for professional means and so I began investigating how social networking can support and further improve my professional practice. I learned that professional social networking allows users a greater reach and access to a wider professional community to enhance collaboration and sharing of knowledge and ideas.

Using Utecht’s article as a reflection point I realised that for my professional practice, I was very much at the start of the immersion stage, where I was looking at many different social networks and beginning to make connections with other professional organisations and individuals. I also came to understand that I whilst I was already using social media, I was perhaps not utilising it to develop a strong PLN for professional purposes. There was a gap in my professional network, and I needed to move to the evaluation stage so I could begin to see how I could take advantage of the social networks I was already familiar with.

This included many of the more popular and well-known ones, for example Facebook, which I mostly used as a way of “checking in” to what friends and family were doing and getting quick bursts of entertainment via personally curated pages that I “friend” or “like”. It wasn’t where I went in the first instance for reliable information or to make professional connections. I used it more for personal updates and light entertainment. I am now beginning to explore opportunities that Facebook may afford me for professional collaboration, connection, and information. I suppose in this sense I am starting to head towards stage 3, the know it all stage. Additionally, I am starting now to use Twitter more often as a professional tool to post updates on work-related projects, retweet articles of professional significance and make comments on professional issues and areas of interest.

In the future I can see myself alternating between stage 2, evaluation, and stage 5, balance. I will continue to evaluate and explore different social media networks, adapting to new technologies and platforms, whilst also seeking to find a balance between learning and living.

References

Utecht, J. (2008, April 3). Stages of PLN adoption. The Thinking Stick. https://www.thethinkingstick.com/stages-of-pln-adoption/