Teaching can be a lonely profession. A personal learning space is network developed by individuals with the explicit purpose of sharing knowledge and resources, in order to become better at what they do. The network may consist of real-life work colleagues and other face-to-face relationships, and online connections via social media, and blog sites. Neil Chambers (as cited by Cassinelli 2010) states “Twitter is the water cooler of the internet”.

TEACHERS

Strengths

· PLNs allow you to form connections and share with others (Community of Practice or CoP) to be a better teacher.

· A PLN will motivate you to be a better teacher, builds self-efficacy and self-direction.

· Immediate access to information via searching

· Collaborate with other professionals in your field to grow skills and generate learning.

· No barriers to entry (Luca, 2012)

· The ability to quickly respond to change.

Challenges

· Understanding what a PLN is and how it can benefit you professionally, not seeing it as more work.

· It takes time to build up a PLN/Cop and has limitations until then.

· Managing the sheer volume of information available and not getting side tracked or overwhelmed.

· Overcoming feelings of intimidation online

· Teaching is an isolating profession is you do not make the effort to connect with others.

· Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do. (Claxton as cited by Luca, 2012)

· Understanding and conforming to netiquette or appropriate online behaviour

STUDENTS

Strengths

· A teacher with high self-efficacy and self belief models these traits to students

· Teachers with good technology skills provide more meaningful technology experiences for students.

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Challenges

· Understanding and conforming to netiquette or appropriate online behaviour

Resources and Approaches

· Run a workshop for the teaching cohort about using Twitter to connect with other teachers and educational sites. Review a list of Australian teachers who use twitter (Luca, 2012) and start following them.

· Show the teaching cohort your own PLN and how you share ideas and support other teacher around the world. Work though some other PLN such as

o https://www.tln.org.au/ - Teacher Learning Network which has online conferences,

o http://edupln.ning.com/ - The Educators PLN

Know what to do when you don’t know what to do… (Claxton as cited by Luca, 2012)