Mid-2008, I submitted my research proposal for review and gave a panel presentation about it (nerve-wracking stuff!). In my proposal, I outlined the literature and rationale behind the study, the proposed methodology and methods, ethical considerations, research instruments, intended analysis (and analytical framework), and so on – everything you’d expect to see in a qualitative research proposal. I talked about things like the context of the study, hypermedia ethnography as methodology, the use of the iPhone and an online database, how I’d interview people at schools, and how I’d ensure confidentiality for my participants. What I didn’t talk about was the use and potential impact of my Personal Learning Network (PLN).

In beginning my “research journey” (oh how I hate that term but here I am using it again), I had no idea how important my PLN would become or what an influence it would have on my work at all stages of the “journey”. At the time I considered my PLN to be quite peripheral to my work or “core business” (being research) and perhaps I thought it unnecessary to mention. After all, you wouldn’t necessarily describe your intended use of a pen, email or telephone in a research proposal. But over time it has become much more central, especially this writing (and thinking) stage, and I realise just how much it has shaped my readings, understandings, and subsequent analyses of “What is going on here”: my central research question.

A personal learning network is part of a personal learning environment (PLE). The two terms are often used interchangeably, but I distinguish between the two because I feel that the PLE encompasses everything I use in learning and researching (the total environment), whereas the PLN is the networked component, with an emphasis on connections, particularly ones to do with people. So in my PLE I include learning from books, journal articles and other scholarly works; lectures; conferences; fieldwork; and data analysis (just to start! There’s far more than this in my PLE!) whereas my PLN is largely based on Social Network Systems (SNS’s) such as Twitter, Facebook and Skype; chats with peers, friends, and my supervisors (technology-mediated or not); and the chance meetings and conversations at conferences that occur outside of formal sessions. It’s about conversations.  I count RSS feeds (to blog posts, magazines, articles, podcasts, etc.) as part of my PLN as well because although the way I read them is part of my learning environment (i.e. computer-mediated), the content is networked (through use of hyperlinks, track-backs, and RSS) and written for a networked audience. The information I access through RSS is designed to be a conversation (even if I don’t engage in it conversing back), and it is informal literature even though it is, in a sense, peer-reviewed. Essentially, though, when I think “PLN,” I think of the not-quite-synchronous-but-potentially-not-asynchronous conversations I have with people through SNS’s.

Follow this link to see different ways people have envisaged their PLN.

Or view this great presentation by the same author, Joyce Seitzinger:

Engaging with the not-quite-synchronous form of communication enabled through many SNS’s has been termed as communicating in the “nearly now.” Using Short Message Service (SMS) on mobile phones is a good example of this form of communication: The SMS may  be sent “now” and there’s a chance someone will respond immediately, but there is usually a lag. It is not as sychronous as a telephone conversation, but it is not as asychronous as email or letter writing either.

As a teenager, I was heavily involved in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and ran one of the Australian-based largest chat channels. IRC was a big part of my PLN because it allowed me to network with other high school students at other schools who were studying the same TEE subjects.  Nowadays, I mainly use Twitter and Facebook as SNS’s-of-choice. Twitter is my “professional” SNS, Facebook is my “social” SNS. I have made an active effort to follow colleagues and leaders in educational technologies/languages on Twitter, keeping it as “professional space,” and I’ve tried to keep Facebook as “social space.” Although the two virtual spaces do overlap from time to time, I see this akin to what occurs in physical space: You may run into colleagues and frolleagues at the pub (social space) but you wouldn’t necessarily go there for a seminar or for work (professional space). Then again, that pub may have a function room for hire, and so sometimes it might be appropriate for social space to become professional space (like joining a common professional-interest group on Facebook).

It is through these spaces (or networks) that a lot of my learning occurs, and through which my learning is filtered. This is both professional learning and social learning: Professional learning being that which I associate with “work” or “research;” and social learning being that I associate with friends, family, and hobbies. For example, I recently learned that Voki have started up an educational version (professional learning) and that one of my good friends is pregnant (social learning) through the use of SNS’s. In both cases I may have learned this news through other means or media, but it would have been very asynchronous and a lot further down the track! But the major benefit of SNS’s and my PLN are the conversations. The links and suggestions are important, but the conversations moreso. For me, it’s all about the Aha! moments, those highly motivational and important moments of inspiration that come during research work. People in my social PLN may not care about those moments, but I like to think that the people in my professional PLN do. It’s like having access to a 24-hour staffroom of people who share similar (work) passions and interests as yourself, and provide useful (critical) feedback and encouragement. Even if this is only my perception of my PLN rather than the actuality, that perception is important. An imagined community is better than no community at all.

Computers won’t ever have Aha! moments; only people are capable of experiencing that joy.  However, computers will support your access to previous work, consultation with peers and mentors, rapid generation and exploration of proposed solutions, and dissemination within the field.  They can help make more people more creative more of the time (Shneiderman,  2002, p. 17).

I do feel that my PLN helps me be more creative in terms of thinking and producing. I often send out questions regarding everything from opinion-seeking (“do you think language teachers should….”), to practice-seeking (“do you give homework to students?”), to website design/coding questions (“How do I….”), to asking for advice on thesis writing itself (“When using APA style…”). It really is a network of support, and a very effective one (yes, I do get @replies!). One constraint, though, is that it can be a bit of an echo chamber in that I follow like-minded people who in turn follow similar things as myself. Although this is useful in getting timely access to information-of-interest (filtering the internet) it also means that I may miss out on contrary and alternate views and information sources. And so it’s important to recognise that a PLN is not a PLE – it is only one component, and complements and extends other sources of information. Those other sources of information are also very, very important.

My research would not be the same without my (online) PLN. The conclusions I am coming to, the recommendations I will make, and the style in which I write have been and will be influenced by the connections I have in my PLN and throughout my PLE. It is a constant source of support, information, and motivation and forces me to reflect on and extend my learning in ways I would not when working in isolation. I do worry about how I will “disconnect” from my PLN when the time comes to submit but it is far more likely that my PLN will evolve to suit my new professional learning context, whatever that may be!

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