Welcome to our professional learning series on building a PLN.
This self-paced free course guides you step-by-step through the process of setting up your own PLN.
We have an optional PDF workbook that will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 7 steps of this course. Scroll down and click on the ‘download’ button under the document to save it to your computer.
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Open in new tab The aim of this first step is to:
- Unpack the definition of a PLN and “connected educator”
- Help you understand why educators create their own PLNs and how they use them
What Is A PLN?
Back in 1998 when the internet was in its infancy, Daniel R. Tobin wrote an article about the term “Personal Learning Network” which was abbreviated to PLN. This term was used to describe a network of people and resources that support ongoing learning.
Whether or not Tobin actually coined the term PLN is up for debate. As Clint Lalonde has pointed out, others, such as Dori Digenti, also wrote about the term in the late 90s.
Digeni said,
The PLN consists of relationships between individuals where the goal is enhancement of mutual learning. The currency of the PLN is learning in the form of feedback, insights, documentation, new contacts, or new business opportunities. It is based on reciprocity and a level of trust that each party is actively seeking value-added information for the other.
The term has evolved and is now sometimes referred to as a Professional Learning Network — taking into account that fact that most “connected educators” use their PLN for professional growth and interaction.
As Tom Whitby has pointed out, there can even be a hybrid of the personal or professional learning network — the Personalized Learning Network.
…the shift in nuance maintains that participants are both personal and professional learners. A PLN is a tool that uses social media and technology to collect, communicate, collaborate and create with connected colleagues anywhere at any time. Participating educators, worldwide, make requests and share resources.
Are PLNs Exclusive To Education?
PLNs don’t just exist in the education world. They are important in all aspects of the business world, various vocations, and hobbies.
We contacted Daniel R. Tobin to ask him about how he came up with the term Personal Learning Network. We wanted to find out if he coined the term in relation to a particular industry or field.
Daniel told us,
It came from my own experience.
As I was thinking about how I had learned to do the various jobs I had over the course of my career, I realized that I had built an extensive network of people who had helped me learn. These included managers and colleagues and people I had met while doing research for my books, speaking at conferences, attending workshops, etc.
As I started writing about corporate training and development, I realized that what I had learned from my PLN was greater and more important than what I had learned from my formal education.
Interestingly, many teachers who are active online have remarked that they’ve learned a great deal more from their PLN than from any professional development session they’ve attended.
Are PLNs Something New?
All teachers know successful teaching and learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers have always relied on others for guidance, ideas, inspiration, support, and new perspectives. Naturally, some teachers are more active in their interactions than others.
Traditionally, all this interaction might take place in one school community. Teachers might have rarely connected with educators from other locations — apart from an occasional conference or professional development opportunity.
Technology changed all this.
Like in many other industries, educators now have access to people from all corners of the globe 24/7. This may largely be through social media but other platforms as well, such as blogs, online communities, and news sites.
So many barriers have been removed — geography, culture, language, timezones, travel, costs, logistics.
Embracing new networks and building a PLN doesn’t mean throwing out your old connections. Of course, it will always be valuable to talk to the teachers next door and down the hall. But imagine the possibilities of building on that network in diverse ways!
Video: What is A PLN?
Want to learn more about what is a PLN? This is Marc-André Lalande’s take on the matter in less than two minutes.
Being A Connected Educator
A connected educator is someone who collaborates online and uses a range of tools to build their own PLN.
Watch the following five minute video to learn more about being a connected educator. It shows interviews with educators who explain the importance of being “connected” in order to be effective teachers and leaders.
Why Create A PLN?
There are many reasons why all teachers should develop a PLN.
Here are eight benefits of having a PLN:
- You are in charge of your own professional development. PD is no longer something that you have to “sit and get”.
- You can explore your own interests, needs, and passions (or your students’). You might have a student who is struggling with reading, or you might have heard of makerspaces and decide you want to learn more about that, maybe you have a student who wants to research global warming, or perhaps you want to find a better system for running a sports day at your school. You can turn to your PLN for advice and support with all these sorts of things.
- 24/7 learning offers the flexibility to learn and connect at a time that suits you. You don’t have to wait for a PD or conference. And 24/7 learning certainly doesn’t mean you have to be constantly online either — you decide how much time you want to invest and when.
- You can learn and connect in a way that you enjoy. This might be via videos, podcasts, text, social media, Skype, blogging … the list goes on.
- There can be light and shade to your PLN. You can engage in a general chat about education (or anything) to debrief, laugh, or unwind. Or, you can engage in deep discussion, debate, and reflection that can really challenge and transform your thinking and teaching. The choice is yours and there will probably be a time and place for both.
- You can stay current on research and best practice, regardless of whether this information is being discussed in your own school, district (or even country!).
- A PLN allows for broad brainstorming or fine tuning. You might know very little about a certain topic and ask your PLN for any/all entry points into exploring the concept. At the other end of the spectrum, you may have already done a lot of work on a topic and use your PLN to fine tune your ideas and resources.
- Globally connected students need globally connected teachers. Having your own PLN is a key way to also help your students connect with others and start developing their own networks. We know this is important to enrich student learning and help students thrive in the changing labor market.
Feel free to use the following graphic on your blog or share it with your colleagues.
Four Big Ideas Around The Connected Educator
Silvia Tolisana (aka Langwitches) has written about four big ideas that surface when thinking about connected educators.
I think about the isolation of a teacher within their classroom walls and how connectedness to a global network of experts and peers could expose and add multiple perspectives to their world view and professional practice.
I am amazed every time by the transformative nature of teaching and learning, when harnessing the power of a network to crowdsource authentic data, resources, connections and collaborators.
Last, but not least, the idea of being able to model for our students what connected learning in an interconnected world means is a moral imperative for educators who are charged to prepare our kids for their future.
You can unpack these concepts further by reading Silvia’s post.
Building Your Own PLN
The great thing about a PLN is that it’s personal!
You make all the choices:
- What tools you use!
- Who you connect with!
- How you want to learn!
- When you want to learn!
The idea of this series is to guide you through the process of building your own PLN and give you a taste of the opportunities that are out there.
Remember, we each have our own preference of what online tools work best for us.
Throughout the seven part series, we’ve included popular tools for building a PLN to help get you started.
Conclusion
A PLN is a network of people and resources that support ongoing learning.
We believe all teachers could benefit from having a PLN.
You might be in a fantastic school but in some ways, schools can become echo chambers for the same beliefs and viewpoints. It can be easy to go with the status quo and fail to really question things or bring in new ideas. A simple conversation with someone from a very different community can be so eye opening.
Your Task
PLNs are all about sharing, collaborating, and learning from each other. So here’s your chance to ask a question, comment, and get involved!
We’d like you to add your voice and ideas to our ongoing conversation about PLNs by undertaking one or more of these challenges:
- PLN Definition: Watch the video What Is A PLN? Leave a comment on this post to explain what a PLN means to you. You might like to share your thoughts on “lurking”. What are the pros and cons of this approach? Or, you might like to explain what you think PLN stands for — personal, professional, personalized … or something else?
- PLN Benefits: Choose one or more of the eight benefits of having a PLN that’s listed above to explore in a comment. Tell us why this is a benefit that resonates with you.
- Connected Educators: Watch the Connected Educators video. Leave a comment on this post to explain why it’s important to be a connected educator and how a PLN can help you. You might like to give an example of one person in the education community that you’d like to follow and learn from or with. This could be a thought leader, or just someone you find interesting.
- Go Deeper: Write a blog post to explain what you have learned about PLNs. Perhaps your post could be a way to educate or persuade others on the benefits of PLNs. Or you might like to summarize some of the information from this study on PLNs for teachers. Leave a comment with a link to the post so we can have a look at how you went.
Also feel free to leave a comment to ask any questions or share your tips.
How to leave a comment: Scroll down to find the comment box. Write your comment, then enter your name and email address (email addresses are not published). Enter the anti-spam word. Press submit and we will moderate your comment ASAP.
The following information on PLNs was adapted from an original Teacher Challenge post by Australian teacher, Michael Graffin. You can check out Michael’s original post — What The heck Is A PLN.
This resource was updated by Kathleen Morris in 2018.
To me, a PLN is a safe space for teachers to come together to share ideas and help each other out. I think it’s great that teachers have the option to “lurk”. This gives them the opportunity to see what’s out their and become comfortable with sharing ideas later. Teaching is all about collaboration and a PLN is a great, easy way to do that.
PLN is a personal learning network for people to share work and learn collaboratively through a network. PLN is easy and always accessible for students and other educators alike to go back and look through the network. This is helpful because it allows me to collaborate with other educators from all over the globe so I know how to better my job and help better those around me.
A PLN to me is a network of professionals in and out of your field that you can continue to learn from. It is a way to stay up to date on different topics. You can choose to share information as well or as the article put it you can “lurk.” This just means that you might not be comfortable sharing information and just want to find what information is out there. Whether you are just lurking or are sharing it is beneficial to have a network with people that are in your field.
The benefit that stood out the most to me was benefit number three which talked about flexibility. I am the type o person to get the best ideas at the most random times at night, so I like to write them down or pursue them right away. If I don’t do this, I will forget the idea(s).
The benefit of the 8 listed that resonated the most with me was “stay current”. This could reflect the fact that I am a history major, but I just think to my own content field but also in modern society it is essential that we stay current for our students. I don’t mean that we should never feel older or should constantly trying to fit in with them, that could be problematic. However, I do believe that when it comes to the content and the way in which we present it to our students we should always be striving to find new ways and frameworks to teach our students.
– One of the benefits of PLN that stuck out to me was the last one, “Globally connected students need globally connected teachers.” This resonated with me for many reasons. First, I feel that (especially since COVID 19) all students are expected to be technologically savvy. I think it is great for students to be able to learn with technology, but I think teachers should also be expected to understand technology as well. Being globally connected is beneficial for both students and teachers.
A PLN is a way of describing the individuals and organizations that you connect with in order to learn from each other’s experiences and questions. “Lurking” is when you choose to just listen to what others are sharing rather than contributing your own thoughts and experiences to the conversation. The pros would be that you can lurk whenever, wherever and it is done on your time, whereas a con might be that you won’t get personalized responses to topics you want to know about because you’re not sharing your own thoughts. I believe that “personal” is the best word to describe a PLN because it is all-encompassing. If you want to use it as a way to connect with other professionals in your career field, you can. If you want to use it to connect with other people who share a similar trait as you such as those who are single moms or single dads, you can. If you want to use it to connect with others who are gymnasts like you, you can. Any reason that one might use a PLN can fall under the word “personal” so I feel that this is the best word to describe a PLN.
A PLN that resonates with me the most is the ability to create one through our own site/platform. Through a PLN, the #4 way that we can create a Professional Learning Network is through a site that we prefer. The ability to choose between podcasts, social medias (twitter, facebook), and video recordings that can be found and easily accessible online. As an educator, I can see this being an important part of the learning network, as it is easily accessible and available to anyone anywhere.
I really connected with point number seven about the benefits of having a PLN. Outside of my work in education, I have used PLNs in other fields to help broaden or finetune my understanding of a given topic. With PLNs, I am able to interact with those who may be writing or researching about something that has piqued my personal or academic interest, giving me direct access in a way I might not have found otherwise.
A PLN is a Personal Learning Network. One benefit that I like of the PLN process is exploring your own interests, needs, and/or passions. This allows me as a teacher to explore the ideas that would best suit my students. I could gear my teaching towards what is best for them and ensure that their needs are being met.
To me, in reading the article, a PLN is just a plan or way you, as an educator, want to connect with others in the field. In this age of technology, having the resources of other educators not only in your school but in schools around the country and the world create new connections that come with new perspectives and ideas for how to teach.
A PLN is a wonderful resource for educators to build their knowledge and interests with fellow educators across the country. It gives teachers access to a wealth of information and networking that can build their strengths and weaknesses. I enjoy this connection because it gives me additional insight and perspectives that are so helpful and interesting.
The PLN benefit that resonates with me is brainstorm or fine-tune your ideas. This benefit resonates with me because I teach in a small community. I am lucky that I have two other teachers that I can shoot ideas off of, but sometimes that isn’t enough. All three of us have a PLN that we use to help with our reading curriculum Amplify. Since we can talk global to other teachers who have worked with this curriculum, we have developed better ways to further our students and vice versa.
PLN’s provide teachers with great resources to make sure that we are staying current on the topics of the day in education and are always following best research practices in the classroom and curriculum.
A personal learning network is a connection among co-workers, mentors, and professionals for developing and building up the career path. People share their working experiences and also learn from each other. It is a supportive group that will benefit everyone.
It is important to be a connected educator because it helps me to gather more information and to have access to more resources. In addition to this, it will also help me to build better interpersonal communication and relationship skills so that I have more experience communicating with people from different lifestyles, backgrounds, cultures, and other diverse factors.
A PLN can help me to have more resources that I can access and utilize to give me more knowledge and understanding of things that I may encounter. This will be extremely helpful for when I need advice or guidance to navigate through challenging issues or topics as well. The better connected I am, the more resources I can have at my disposal to enhance my decision-making and to enable me to be more effective in my teaching.
PLN is a great resource for educators to stay connected. It is also a great asset when trying to learn new things or better understand a new concept within the teaching career. Everyone brings something different to the table, a PLN really allows for our peers to contribute to one another.
A PLN is a network system that helps professionals share and connect with one another. The PLN benefit that stands out the most to me is staying current on the best research and practices. With kids and technology moving so fast and so far away from what we are traditionally used to, keeping up is extremely important. New things are coming out each day and I think a PLN is a great tool to aid us in that game of catch-up.
A PLN is a way for myself and others to truly benefit from the different kinds of perspectives and experiences in education. Having access to many different people is super beneficial since you can gain new ideas from a variety of individuals or ask for experienced help for a problem. Your PLN can also be as vast as you want it to be. It can include teachers in your school, county, state, even nationally. The biggest thing to this is that you have a way to reach people you never could have had access to through your PLN.
PLN, or a Professional Learning Network, is a personalized way to get involved with one’s peers in order to learn and grow from one another. One aspect that I particularly appreciate in this self-led process of professional development is that teachers are able to hand-pick what is most relevant to their classroom and subject area. This way of PD allows for the most useful and pertinent ways of aiding one’s class time.
A personal learning network is an individualized way that teachers can continue their professional growth. It is a completely personalized web of resources, people, tools, and communities that encourage educators to promote their learning to new levels. With a PLN, teachers can take ownership of their own progression and professional development.
I think that being on charge of your own professional development is a crucial benefit as it gives flexibility for life
A personal learning network is meaningful to me because educators can select their own professional development. We can participate in PDs that meet our needs or align with our interests. PLNs also allow for educators to stay connected with one another.
PLN or a Personal Learning Network is a great resource to have for an educator. So many times I find myself stumper or even burnt out with teaching but it is good to know that there are other people I can reach out to and connect with to help with different things. Having a personal learning network lets me know that the amount of resources and tools to help in the classroom are limitless. There is always some one out there that has an answer to a situation.
A great benefit of PLN is the opportunity to grow in technological skills. With the way technology is constantly evolving today, it is always good to learn new skills and how to incorporate them.
A PLN is flexible in its timing and location. PD usually takes time away from other work activities that are often more pressing. PLNs allow things to be more flexible.
I utilize a PLN as part of my personal development by connecting with groups of educators that share similar interests in ultimately enhancing students’ performance. Unlike being in a meeting or series of workshops, PLN’s allow me to share ideas and resources in an informal setting. As I continue to grow in the field of education, my communities will grow as well.
I utilize a PLN as part of my personal development by connecting with groups of educators that share similar interests in ultimately enhancing students’ performance. Unlike being in a meeting or series of workshops, PLN’s allow me to share ideas and resources in an informal setting. As I continue to grow in the field of education, my communities will grow as well.
I think that one of the greatest ways in which a PLN benefits educators is that it adds flexibility to learn at a time that suits each educator’s schedule. In-person professional development requires that everyone involved agrees upon a particular time and place to meet. This means that many will have to wait to acquire the knowledge they need, and some will have to meet during a time that is inconvenient for them. Given educators’ busy schedules and often unpredictable problems and questions, a highly flexible approach to problem-solving and professional learning is needed.
PLN’s are a great way to stay current on best practices and research from a global aspect. This will be a positive impact for your classroom, school, district, and community. Also, creating a PLN gives the benefit of learning from other educators at your own pace.
I like that a PLN puts me in control of my own Professional Development and can access information on my time. This means I can work at my own pace, and I don’t have to worry about a conference or web seminar forcing me to miss precious time with my students or sitting through a topic that I already have knowledge of.
I love that a PLN allows me to select what I want to learn. If I’m interested in tech tools, I can learn more about that. If I need new math teaching strategies, I’ll search more about that. Expanding my network to help me grow is very important and allows me to stretch myself as an educator. My PLN inspires me and helps me to realize there is always something to learn!
A PLN or Professional Learning Network is a community that shares info to better each other as educators. PLN is such a great resource for teachers. You can learn so much from other teachers sharing through the network.
PLN- Professional Learning Network, is beneficial in so many , and a great source to have. What sticks out to me is, the connection building, the flexibility that it provides, and Professional learning opportunities that it provides. Continued growth and learning is something we all need to be successful in today’s society and this platform gives you that chance.
What does a PLN mean to me? As the text stated, “A PLN is a network of people and resources that support ongoing learning.” But it is much more than that to me. These are not just any people I am networking with. Most of my PLN is built up of professors from my undergraduate degree, and now includes some of my professors from my graduate degree as I get closer to graduating. Some of my PLN includes my colleagues as well. I am less likely to talk to a stranger on the internet than to talk to someone I am close to and interact with. Technology has made it possible to keep in touch with my mentor/advisor in college, and she gives me some of the greatest advise. It is so important to have people in your network that can support you and lift you up when you feel like you’re not quite reaching all of your students. Your colleagues are a big part of that role as well. I am very close to my colleagues and have started to build a network in my field of social studies. My coworkers share resources to help me keep students engaged in the digital age. It is so important to stay current and relevant with our students, so we must network consistently. That doesn’t mean having to email constantly because that could cause burnout. But, being on Nearpod for example, is a great way to share lesson plans or activities with other teachers in the county.
My favorite part about the PLN is that it is not a “sit and get” type of PD. You can access your PLN any time or and where you want. This alone will make it easier for me to create, develop, and use my PLN.
PLN consists of any network we create to learn and share ideas with others. PLN network allows interacting with people all over the world things that help us to gain more knowledge and better learning. this network also lets people share their experiences to benefits from each other.
A PLN helps you stay current because you can see what other professionals in your field are doing. You can bounce ideas off each other. It’s a great way to communicate and share information.
PLN to me is a group or network of people that can share and receive training, tips, and new ideas with one another. The PLN that I could benefit from is 24/7 learning that offers the flexibility to learn and connect at anytime. Being a mother of four children already, my schedule is busy and unexpected. This PLN helps me by giving me the chance to log on on my own time and that is a great benefit.
A PLN is a Platform that allows for teachers to connect and Share thoughts and ideas with other educators. It allows teachers to stay up to date on current research and teaching methods as well as a way to learn new ones.
A PLN is an opportunity to stay current on practices and research in the field of education. It gives teachers a way to learn about new methods and approaches in an easily accessible way.
A PLN, or a professional learning network, is a way to stay connected to other educators all over the world. Professional Learning Network’s provide access to other educators and other resources that you would not normally have. PLN’s are a great way to share teaching strategies, the latest trends, etc. The benefit of PLN’s that resonated with me the most, is “staying current”. As someone who is always seeking to change things up in the classroom, being able to connect via PLN’s to seek changes in the classroom is perhaps the biggest benefit to me. Being able to seek out new ideas from all over will also help teachers outside of just my classroom.
Professional development is a key component for an educator but sometimes does not happen because teachers are pulled in so many directions throughout the school year. A PLN is a safe place for educators to dive into their own professional development. This platform allows teachers to connect and share thoughts and ideas with other educators.
PLN means to me a place where people can expand on their interests in certain networks. Like try to find a new source to use so they can find better sources to use then just their own
After reading and learning more about PLNs, I am able to understand them and their benefits better. One benefit I agreed with is that a PLN is flexible in the timing and setting it happens. With traditional professional development or professional learning, conferences or meetings are usually far away and require time took off from work. With PLNs, professional learning can take place any time and there is more access for schools or districts who cannot afford or schedule Professional Learning Days.
Professional learning networks are so important for many professions, but especially education. As a teacher, you are around so many different personalities, interests, and learning preferences. With that being said, out of the eight benefits of having a PLN, the one that stuck out the most to me was exploring your own, or your students’, interests, needs, and passions. It is very easy to always stick to what I know or what interests me, but it is so important to go beyond that and show your students that you’re interested in what they’re interested in and build relationships. As I learn more about my students I can turn to PLNs and learn more about their interest.
The benefit of creating a PLN that most appealed to me was the ability to explore my, or my students’, own interests, needs, and passions. Education is a unique experience for every student and every student has their own strengths and needs that should be addressed. A network that allows a teacher to learn different methods that directly apply to the needs of his/her students is much more beneficial than a vague or wide stroked set of of methods that does not fit the needs of the classroom. Another reason this benefit appealed to me was the emphasis on passion. A great teacher is driven by passion. This is what keeps a teacher motivated and inspired in and out of the classroom. It is very important to foster this passion and the passion of your students to create an engaged and productive classroom environment.
A PLN is a system that allows people to build connections with one another. Together they learn and grow in a particular area of interest as they give feedback. The benefit that I resonate with the most is “explore your own interests, needs, and passions (or your students’)”. As an educator, I like the idea of being able to learn and grow about certain topics that interest me and also topics that I need additional assistance with. i also like this benefit more because it also focuses on the interests and needs of the students.
My favorite benefit of a PLN plan is the light and shade aspect of it. When trying to learn something new or gain a better understanding of something, I usually jump straight into wanting to have deep and meaningful conversations. I love that this particular aspect of a PLN can happen at its own pace and anytime.
The PLN benefit that resonates with me most is the one that discusses the broad brainstorming and fine tuning of lessons. I feel like this will be helpful in my classroom because teachers from all over the globe can give me tips about certain topics or activities about the topic, and I can tweak those ideas into my lesson so that my students can learn. I can also help other teachers with a topic that I have experience in, and they can “fine tune” their lessons for the needs of their students.
PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. This is a way of describing a group of people in a work setting. This is a global interactive system where you can share information through a network. This network is mainly focused on education and collaboration. This way of learning is accessible, safe, and useful. You are able to use the PLN at any time or any place.
Hi Sophie, thank you for the information you shared about PLN, especially when mentioned at the end of your comment about the accessibility and the safety of the PLN network.