“Why learn online with other people?” Jon Dron and Terry Anderson ask in their article Teaching crowds: learning and social media (2014). Their answer is as simple and straightforward as the question: because it is possible. At the time when article was written, roughly one third of world’s population had access to internet and the number has been rising since. And as with the internet comes both the possibility to connect online and to learn from all the information stored in there in can be seen that internet enables collaborative online learning.

Kay Oddone tells about personal learning networks in her video PLNs Theory and Practise. I have never really thought of them – or to that matter, any personal networks. I have maybe a hesitated even using the word – it has had a bit of a uncomfortable tone to me. I have favored expressions like “meeting new people” or “making friends” over “building networks”

But when I really think of it, there is of course nothing bad in building networks. When meeting new people from own field it is very natural to think of meeting them again to discuss an interesting topic, ask a question or opinion or share something that I myself know. Network is not about you benefiting from someone but about all people in the network benefiting mutually from each other. And that is especially the case in learning networks.

As I have never though of developing my learning networks, they have instead formed naturally. I think I could include in those: my design student peers from study years, my designer and teacher colleagues from different work places and freelance projects – and now also my PBL group members from ONL202. According to Kay Oddone’s video however, these people would form a community rather than a network – people in network do not need to know each other personally, but they rather share common interests.

So how to develop a learning network? Writing a blog could be an answer. Writing about things I’m deeply interested in – textiles and education for instance – and getting committed audience for my writings could form a learning network in itself. I should just keep on writing then!

Sources:

PLNs Theory and Practise by Kay Oddone

Dron, J. & Anderson, T. (2014). Teaching crowds: Learning and social media. Athabasca University Press