(2 min read) Photo CC licensed: http://bit.ly/1zmqhdV
A short reply that is longer than a tweet.
This morning I did like every morning, and indulged in an hour of reading – blogs, tweets, articles. It sounds like a long time, but I promise it’s not – I can type (nearly) as fast as I read. So looking through the #ccourses tagged tweets I noticed that Lisa Lane was talking about the daily topic set for the current unit Putting it into Practice. So this led me to look up the topic for today:
How might you create your own Personal Learning Network on the open web to provide you with support?
I did what any good student would do. I looked it up, and I am still looking. Without formally engineering connections, Connected Courses has opened a door for all of the people involved.
Consider: I am a cellist. I teach music. You don’t know who I am. I think you are interesting and would like to connect. I drop you an email or a message.
Then what?
If I am lucky and you are not swamped, you might reply.
Somehow being under the same umbrella of Connected Courses has made me braver – I have ventured a dozen connections through DM, email, or a comment and they have produced results from no reply (even in the best settings it happens- and you still have to try!) to the birth of concrete projects. That makes it so worth while. The thing that has been so valuable is that initial permission to connect and to already have a seed of commonality – I don’t want to be pegged as a musician. Music is my language but what I do is communicate, and that is not confined to one type of people. The best ideas come when the ingredients are mixed – sometimes blending well and other times sitting separately, side-by-side. Either way they reveal something about the other and then we grow.
So back to the question, how do you grow your own PLN on the open web to provide you with support? My guess is that it involves knocking on the door and seeing if someone answers. -and if someone knocks on your door, to open it, or at the very least have a little look through the keyhole.
Photo CC licensed: http://bit.ly/1Aa5uZh
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Hi Laura, what a lovely positive post! you are exactly right – courses like this (and #edcmooc and #rhizo14) have led me to meeting some eally positive people online – and I do feel that I had permission to reach out and connect… and lo – I am connected! All the best, Sandra