I would like to introduce all of you to my Personal Learning Network, or PLN. It’s based on the same concept as our district’s Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), but PLNs have a few advantages:

• While our PLCs meet once, or maybe twice, a month, a PLN is available almost all the time.
• Our PLCs, as they exist now, are limited to those members who can be physically present. PLNs have no geographic boundaries.
• The topics and goals of our PLCs are often determined for us, while the topics I study and discuss through my PLN are ones of my choosing.
• Everyone in my PLN wants to be there.

Essentially, a PLN is what we hope our PLCs will become one day.

Where do I go to find my PLN? My RSS feed where I have listed the most current posts of all the Edubloggers I admire is where I go most often. But you can also find them through social networks like Ning.com or through virtual worlds like Second Life. And increasingly, I’m using Twitter.com to stay tuned in.

If any of you clicked on the links in the previous paragraph while still locked within the walls of our district’s network security system, you now understand while in the first bullet I noted that my PLN was “available ALMOST all the time”. It is very ironic that where I most need access to my PLN — at work — I am generally denied access to it.

That being said, I love what I do. So, when do I access my PLN? Usually in the evenings, at home, after my little one has gone to bed. And here’s the craziest part — I ENJOY it. And the resources I learn about are invaluable to me.

So, I’d like to invite you to join my Twitter PLN. Go to Twitter.com and create an account for yourself. Then, do a search for “tekkieteacher”. I invite you to follow me. I know it sounds a bit like stalking, but it really isn’t. Then, check out who I follow, and follow some of them, too. Check out the links to their other web presences – usually their blogs. Before you know it, you’ll have a PLN of your own! A lot of the chatter is just that, chatter. But every so many lines will come a wonderful tidbit of wisdom that you wouldn’t otherwise know about. The collective knowledge of a PLN can be truly astonishing.

As with all social networking tools, use them with caution. I don’t recommend allowing strangers to become your online “friend” or to follow you on Twitter. And be careful about sharing any type of personal information.

For some additional ideas on how to use Twitter as an educational tool, check out this article.