Wow and Wonder #1

For this Wow and Wonder post, I will be responding to the article, “What are Personal Learning Networks?“

Screen capture from https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks

Wow

The idea that one’s Personal Learning Network (PLN) is comprised of many meaningful and individual connections with the intention of learning from/with that person is a new concept for me. Originally, I thought a PLN was more similar to a Communities of Practice (CoP), where the people who make up your network are those who share your profession. I love the fact that PLNs can consist of informal and individual learning connections with anyone, from any field, as this can expand one’s unique network tremendously and allows for more information to be gathered and learned.

Wonder

On the flip side, I am curious if people ever run into issues of mistakenly creating connections with others who are providing them with inaccurate or unreliable information when trying to expand their PLN. Since informal connections are apart of our PLNs – how can we be sure that all of the information that we are gathering is credible? Although I believe that technology is a tremendous tool for learning, I wonder if there such thing as too much exposure or access?

Resource

https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks