Transparency, Blogs, and Personal Learning Networks (PLN)
Ed. Leadership, Ed. Tech., Web 2.0, blogging March 21st, 2008
There’s an interesting story (free registration required) in the New York Times about professors who blog and engage in other forms of Web 2.0-ness. I think the MtvU exec. makes the best point when he says that it’s about transparency. I’ve also espoused transparency as an orientation to my own work, and I think blogging is a natural extention of that for me.
What I think the NYT article misses though is any discussion about teaching or learning. Specifically, the edublogosphere has become my personal learning space and those who feed me (in RSS terms) and who I follow on Twitter are my personal learning network. I blog because I believe (maybe mistakenly?) that I have something to offer this learning space and because I believe I am somewhat obligated to give and not just take. Also, by making my thoughts and ideas “public,” I’m inviting others to join my PLN.
If I can get past the tenure hurdle, I’d love to embark on an empirical journey around this notion of collaborative/digital learning. I’d like to know how PLN’s jive with theories of learning, community, etc. I’d like to know how we can foster PLNs in doctoral education. I’d like to know how we can use PLNs to advance school leadership. So, I guess that’s why I blog, tweet, comment, etc. I’m learning about learning.
Tags: blogs, leadership, learning, PLN, transparency
Yeah, that article was silly. It seems to focus only on professors that have personal blogs, not professional blogs. It is one thing to make yourself a little personal on the web, heck, I have done it with some pictures of my family and the latest books I read and my sports affiliations, but I blog for mostly professional reasons in the same reason you do … because I learn a lot by doing it and I bring a lot of what I learn into my classroom. It is one thing to say there was this current event 8 years ago with a yellowed newspaper clipping or a reference to a 30 year old story in a textbook, but it is something else to say just yesterday ago a teacher in Chicago taped her student to a chair and then be able to link to the newsreport on YouTube and 2-3 articles about it in the blog and 1-2 professional analysis of it. I think the article and mostly the professoriate are not really to the next stage yet which is … okay, so I have this cool tool that I have figured out how to use by putting pictures of my camping trip up, but now how can I use that to improve my professional life, my teaching, my research, my relationship with students once they leave my classroom. That’s the step that professors are figuring out right now and something the article does not really capture.