Step 7: Making Time To Build Your PLN
Welcome to the final step in our free professional learning series on building your PLN.
Now you know what a PLN is, and how people build one, we’re going to discuss ways of making time for your PLN.
In this step you will explore:
- How to find time to develop your PLN and embed simple practices into your routine
- Tips for building your PLN
Overview
Throughout this series, we’ve looked at different ways that educators enjoy building a PLN and connecting with their networks.
While we mainly focused on Twitter, blogs, and curation tools, remember, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are many other ways that educators connect with others and we encourage you to explore anything that looks interesting to you.
Whatever tools you use, you want it to be sustainable. The real benefits of having a PLN emerge once you get to know people and as we’ve said throughout this series, the more you put in, the more you’ll get back.
Tips For Building Your PLN
Here are some tips for building your PLN and making the time to be a ‘connected educator’ without feeling overwhelmed.
Do what works best for you
How do you like to learn and connect best? Do you prefer reading and text based materials? Are you a keen writer? Maybe you like audio and enjoy learning via podcasts. Videos are also a popular way for people to learn and share information.
Follow your natural learning style and think about ways you can become a connected educator by doing what you’re comfortable with. Not every tool or service is for everyone!
Start small
Put your blinkers on. You really don’t need to use all the tools that are out there. Trying to keep up with many people and many tools is a recipe for feeling overwhelmed.
Some educators have built up a great network just by reading a handful of blogs and following a small number of people on Twitter. Remember, it’s quality over quantity.
Set a goal and commit
Set yourself one goal of something you’re going to commit to trying.
Maybe your goal will be to join Twitter and find 10 people to follow. Then challenge yourself to check in every day for a month and see what your followers are tweeting about. If this works for you, you can build on it. If not, you can always try something new!
Set a routine
You probably already have a number of online routines in place. Maybe you’re in the routine of checking your emails in the morning, or perhaps browsing Facebook when you sit down after dinner.
Create a routine for your PLN too.
This doesn’t have to involve a big chunk of time. A few minutes here and there to read a blog post, browse through Feedly or Flipboard, or scroll through Twitter can be all you need to get on your way.
Consider becoming more productive
We all know how easy it is for time to whittle away while browsing online. Whether it’s YouTube videos or Instagram photos, maybe some of your online browsing experiences can be redirected to building your PLN.
Of course, we all need downtime but this is something for you to ponder!
Don’t be shy
Most people in the educational community are remarkably friendly. Don’t be shy about following people you don’t know, leaving a stranger a comment, or responding to someone’s tweet.
You’ll probably be glad you did and you never know where one small interaction can take you!
Don’t give up
It’s so common to try something new and feel a great sense of discomfort. You might feel confused and overwhelmed but don’t give up! Once you get over the initial learning curve, it will all pay off. We promise!
Maybe you’ll end up like Tisha Poncio who gave this inspiring shout out to her PLN on Twitter.
All I’m saying is my #PLN has done more for me as an educator than they will ever know! There are too many of you to tag! #edtech #fearlessedchat #piratePLN #leadership #flipgridfever pic.twitter.com/sT7313yZdn
— tisha poncio (@TxTechChick) July 26, 2018
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:
- What are your goals? Leave a comment on this post to tell us what aspects of your PLN you want to focus on first. Maybe you want to join Twitter and find some fellow teacher-librarians or history teachers. Or maybe you want to add all your favorite blogs to a Feedly account. Tell us about it!
- Making time. Leave a comment on this post to share your ideas on how you will make time to build your PLN. Remember to consider if there is anything you can remove from your online browsing routine to free up time for building your PLN.
- Share your top tip. Leave a comment to share your tips that have helped get you started building a PLN without feeling overwhelmed.
- Pay it forward. Remember that a barrier to developing a PLN is simply not knowing what’s out there. Why not ‘pay it forward’ and tell a friend or colleague about this series? Encourage them to take part and learn about building their own PLN!
- Write a post about PLNs. If you have a blog, now could be the perfect time to write about PLNs. Put all the pieces together from what you’ve learned in this series and share your own insights or goals. You never know, you might just help someone else get started! Please include @edublogs if you tweet your post so we can share it with our network. Leave a comment with a link to your post so we can read it!
Also feel free to leave a comment to ask any questions you still have about building a PLN. We may be able to help!
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.
PLN Course Certificate
Have you completed each of the 7 steps in this course AND left a comment on each post? Maybe you’d like a certificate to show that you’ve completed the PLN Teacher Challenge course!
Fill out the form below to receive your certificate via email. Alternatively, click here to open the form in a new tab.
If you don’t receive your certificate, please look in your junk/spam folder.
Claim Your Badge!
If you’ve completed the PLN challenge, feel free to proudly display this badge on the sidebar of your blog. Alternatively, you might like to add it to your About page to demonstrate your professional learning.
Simply right click on the image and save it to your computer. Then add it to your sidebar by following these instructions.
We’re so happy to have you as part of our Teacher Challenge community!
788 comments on “Step 7: Making Time To Build Your PLN”
The PLN I plan to use in my classroom is staying connected with other instructors. I think that when you share and work with other instructors it helps to build a stronger learning environment.
I will focus on starting small and utilizing the tools that I have now like Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These apps help me to build a great network with my peers and I do want to challenge myself to find more people to follow on these accounts. Social media can be a controversial topic but in terms of building a PLN, I feel like it can be very useful.
My goal is to create a PLN for the surrounding districts. We are all rural and there aren’t a whole lot of us in each district but collectively we make a nice little group. I am using Facebook since I tried twitter first and it was just too much for me. I am hoping it will get traction and we can all network together soon. It doesn’t have to stay within my area either if you want to find it to join look on Facebook for ITEC Professional Learning Community. It has a picture of a white background and colorful shadow people shapes. Hope to see you there!
I think something that will motivate me to make time for my PLN is making a groupchat of educators I’m comfortable around so that we can share resources from time to time and have productive conversations about our field. I think it’d holdmy accountable as it would remind me to make time for that everytime someone messages the chat.
To build time for my PLN, I plan on incorporating a designated time in my daily life. I use a planner to help keep track of important dates and concepts and I plan to add PLN into my calendar, so I can work on it consistently. I also plan to free up time during the day to work on it by not spending so much time on social media, and instead finding various ways to build my PLN.
I would really like to use my PLN to stay connected to classroom topics/in-service teacher friends when I am in grad school. This course was a great reminder for me to dust off my old LinkedIn account I made in high school and make it actually look professional and accurate.
Just like most people, I spend a fair amount of time scrolling on social media. I will make a conscious effort to force myself to search for topics related to education. I will also set a timer to check in with myself and ensure I am staying on topic. Doing this little action will set me up for success in the future as I gain new knowledge and ideas from other educators around the world.
I would like to focus on building my twitter/x platform. I am not active on X, but I think I will be now to build my PLN.
The central aspect I want to focus on is finding a prominent platform that works for me. This is essential because I would like to connect with as many present and future educators as possible. I would also like to use my platform to represent who I am by showcasing my [specific skills or experiences] and my passion.
I want to expand my Personal Learning Network by following the advice and using the resources mentioned in the article. I am particularly interested in learning how to use Twitter since I have never used it before. It seems like a great platform for connecting and working with other teachers.
Making time to PLN should be rooted into my daily, if not weekly calendar. I am always open to receiving more to improve my quality and skills as a rising educator. Browsing, adding, and posting into my blogs should be a habit I can develop within a couple months and make it be natural as networking face-to-face with other educators.
The first thing I want to focus on is trying out content curation tools to find what works well for me – the tip in this section on leaning into your personal learning style made a lot of sense! A big roadblock for me so far has been organization, and I think this could help.
I think a PLN is a great resource for teachers to be able to find new information and connect with other teachers. My goal is to find more teacher Instagram accounts and maybe even make my own teacher instagram account to keep my private Instagram separate from school and work. I can transform it into a public PLN or keep it private as a place for me to document life as an educator. I also have a bunch of saved teaching articles on my bookmarks bar so I also would like to go through and organize those to be able to go back and see what can help me in the future.
I plan to pay the idea and knowledge of PLNs forward to my colleagues! I plan to tell my cooperating teachers about PLNs, as well as my peers who have not received PLN training. I feel that PLNs are extremely valuable to all educators and are a tremendous help in this field.
My goals to make a PLN are to make it fun and helpful. After going through the readings I think instead of being like a textbook PLNs should be fun and help and supportive of teachers around the world. I think the first step I would do is joining and following other PLNs.
My goal is to create a blog about my experiences within the classroom. I want to be able to stay on top of it and share resources with other teachers around the world.
As I build my PLN, my goals are to utilize Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, and Flipboard to enhance my connections and resources in education. Twitter will be essential for networking with fellow educators and participating in relevant chats to share insights and best practices. TikTok offers a unique platform for discovering quick teaching tips and engaging content that resonates with today’s learners. Pinterest is perfect for curating and organizing creative lesson ideas and projects, allowing for easy access to inspiration. I recently set up a Flipboard account to curate articles and resources focused on early childhood education, which will help me stay informed and connected with current trends in the field. By leveraging these platforms, I aim to create a dynamic and supportive educational community that fosters growth and collaboration.
To focus on creating my PLN, I will continue to look for reputable teachers on twitter to follow. I’ve already found some great resources from teachers who are on twitter, so I want to continue to gain more recourses that I can use in my future classroom. It would be interesting to find more biology teachers on twitter so I can relate more to the information. I follow alot of scientists so being able to apply real work to my biology class would help my students relate more to the content.
Task 1: As I build my PLN, my goals are to utilize Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, and Flipboard to enhance my connections and resources in education. Twitter will be essential for networking with fellow educators and participating in relevant chats to share insights and best practices. TikTok offers a unique platform for discovering quick teaching tips and engaging content that resonates with today’s learners. Pinterest is perfect for curating and organizing creative lesson ideas and projects, allowing for easy access to inspiration. I recently set up a Flipboard account to curate articles and resources focused on early childhood education, which will help me stay informed and connected with current trends in the field. By leveraging these platforms, I aim to create a dynamic and supportive educational community that fosters growth and collaboration.
Because I am graduating in December and not planning on teaching until the following school year (i.e., starting in August), I have so much time to prepare and start building my PLN. I feel like with all of the resources and activities that I have done for school, I already have a good baseline for my PLN to build upon. I plan on taking that time in the Spring semester to continue researching different resources and getting connected with other educators, either virtually or in-person, to add to this list. My goal is to go into my first year feeling supported and prepared, and building a PLN is one of the most efficient and effective ways to do so.
My goal is to try one new thing to develop my PLN this year.. I already use emailed newsletters and Youtube and Facebook. Perhaps I will add Twitter or Pinterest.
My next step is to continue to grow my PLN on Twitter. I just created my account and already followed some educators I know. I also want to focus on exploring certain education chats and maybe start contributing to them as well.
instead of doom scrolling I will purposely carve out 5-10 minutes a couple days a week to work on my PLN and set a calendar event to post at least once a week.
My first goal is to start by following other teachers’ accounts that inspire me. I want to have people and things on my feed that are directly related to the kind of person and teacher I want to be, so I want to find those influencers that have that in common with me. I would even love to start posting my own stuff or writing blogs to encourage other teachers as I get deeper into my profession.
I would love to write blog posts and have a twitter to do research and to keep other educators updated.
Building a PLN definitely takes intentionality, but I believe it’s worth the investment! Here’s how I plan to make time:
I may aim for 20 minutes per day to engage with my PLN. This could be browsing relevant hashtags on Twitter, reading a blog post from a thought leader, or participating in a short online discussion. Besides, I’ll audit my online habits and see if there’s anything I can streamline. Maybe I can cut down on mindless scrolling or identify specific news sources that can be replaced by curated content from my PLN. Finally, I can try to integrate PLN engagement with existing routines. Maybe listen to a podcast from an educator while commuting or read a blog post during my lunch break.
My main goal is to create my PLN with all of the information I have learned from this article, as well as the information I will learn along the way. I hope to make strong connections and learn from others, and spread the knowledge I have.
Some tips that I have learned and will share with a friend about starting a PNL are mostly about actively engaging and learning what you want to take out of this. Staying organized is also important because it is very easy to get lost. I would like to use this platform to explore, connect, and learn as much as I can. I want to get better at navigating everything so I can create new connections with others and gain knowledge for my future career.
My goal is to create a teacher Twitter account. I have a personal Twitter account but I would like to keep my work and personal life separate it will also make it a bit more organized for me. I would probably start by looking for other history teachers to see what they are doing in their classrooms that I could maybe implement in my own.
How I plan to make time for my PLN is to create a schedule for myself. On my least busiest days out of the week, I would set a side an hour or two to update and reply to fellow subscribers. I could also use this time to interact with other PLN’s and connect with other people outside of my community.
My typical social media browsing often becomes a session for building my PLN. I plan to continue curating resources, but I also intend to dedicate more time to organizing these resources. Additionally, I aim to participate more actively by sharing and commenting.
Making time
I think that I have already somewhat started to create my own PLN without even being aware of it. Now that I am aware, if I could make and take the time to continue to search for sources that I know that could be helpful for me, I could really be able to form a structure of my own PLN. I also realize that my PLN may actually never be finalized as I continue develop and progress in my profession, the different connections I may need and seek can also change. It does take time to sit down and reflect what are my needs, my interests and my goals when it comes to creating my own PLN.
I think the part of the class that best helped me understand how to start my PLN was the beginning actually. I’m someone who typically tries to do things alone but I know that I need to be better about collaborating. So the thoughts at the beginning of the class struck a cord with me.
I will make time to build my PLN by setting aside 15-30 minutes a day for PLN building. During this time I will use my social media accounts to interact with and follow other educators. I will also use my time spent browsing social media more efficiently by using hashtags to speed up my search. One other way I can free up time for building my PLN is by taking an hour on one weekend day a week to work on my PLN.
I want to build connections with my PLN and be able to connect with others with my same interests.
Building my PLN would require me to build it into my daily school schedule. I have a very busy schedule so finding time would be harder. Although if I stay determined and pursue a routine I think it would benefit me and my future students. I think it’s a great community to build and be a part of it. I think it is a great way to build and keep motivation as an educator.
My goals are to connect with other teachers in my content area in the county I’m looking to teach in. I would really like to have a few solid connections that I could ask questions, and get a feel of what it’s like to be a high school history teacher!