Chapter 6 Blog

            In this chapter of The Connected Educator, we learn more about personal learning connections and how to create them. Personal learning networks help you pull more in depth connections and relationships. With those networked connections you are able to grow an association of connected teachers and learners. To start your PLN, choose a toll of your choice and add members as you feel more confident. The most important part of the tool is not the name, but the outcome of the tool. Once settled on your tool, you are able to decide who to follow and use familiar and well-known bloggers as a reference or inspiration for your own. The author also explains that it is important to engage and nurture your network in ethical and safe ways. There is research explaining that an individual can only manage a network with a hundred and fifty people effectively at a time.

            In the current day and age, professional development and network building is do it yourself friendly. This allows for anyone to feel comfortable enough to approach it, including myself in my future career. As a Physician Assistant I will be able to create and design a connected learning community that is unique and specific to medial related topics and patient healthcare. As the creator of the connected learning community, I will be able to see David Lee’s 4L model in play. “Lee’s model describes the roles and interactions that members of an online community adopt” (Nussbaum, 2012). This model will allow my colleagues and members of my workplace to self-select their roles in the community based on the frequency of their participation.  Connected learning is about engaging and collecting wisdom with others. Growing a nurturing my community will help members be committed and trusting of my learning space as a Physician Assistant.