A Successful Spider Needs a Web: The Bigger the Better When it Comes to a PLN

Prior to an assignment for one of my courses at Michigan State University, I had never even thought about my Professional Learning Network (PLN). Knowing who I could go to for assistance or where I could look was just something that I thought only when necessary. My initial reaction was how I was basically just listing my connections on LinkedIn, so why do I need to have the same information in another form? It isn't until you really take the time to dig deep and map everything out that you find connections you did not know about, or how many of your connections stem from the same place or similar experiences.

When looking at my PLN (as seen above), I found that most of my network comes from experiences throughout my schooling and educational journey. I think that is really strong for a teacher like myself, since those past teachers and professors I had are people I try to model my practice after. Alternatively, this is also a weakness since I want to diversify my network to include more than people in the same field as me. I believe I can remedy this by taking time to purposefully go out of my way to establish relationships with others that I may not normally associate with in an effort to impede the effects of social narrowing (Menon, 2017). This, in turn, should lead me to new experiences with new people with new mindsets. My only concern, as of now, is that if I expand my Professional Learning Network, then I may not have enough room to display it all in a single image.

References:

Banko, N. (2023). My professional learning network [Photograph]. Coggle.

Common Sense Education. (2017, July 21). What is a pln? And 3 ways teachers can get connected [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju54C5A3RCw

Menon, T. (2017, March). The secret to great opportunities? The person you haven't met yet [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/tanya_menon_the_secret_to_great_opportunities_the_person_you_haven_t_met_yet/transcript