A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is a great tool for organizing information resources for a personal or professional learning endeavor. Our investigation of PLNs and the final project for the course inspired me to consider how the process of “Mind Mapping” a PLN can be beneficial to students, as an Online Learning Environment’s tool for finding resources and learning site features and navigation. This potential use of a PLN could be considered during the Instructional Design of online courses.
The structure of a PLN can also be shared and modified for personal or professional learning in an online community. I am interested in ways a Community of Practice (CoP) can use the structure of a PLN to develop a Community of Practice Learning Network (CoPLN). I don’t know if this is being done already, but skills learned could be great for defining online community learning objectives and resources. Social media and crowdsourcing of learning domain interest would help to build an effective guide for the community. The creation of an evolving CoPLN seems like a natural extension of the benefits of the PLN structure we learned is ETEC-642.
If you agree or have suggestions for using the PLN development process for building CoPLN, please comment on this post.
