Becoming a connected educator: Reflecting on my PLN as a tool for transformation.

My transparent practice, growth mindset and the time I make to connect with my professional learning network (PLN) are transforming my practices to those of a connected educator (Morrison, 2016). As my interactions across my digital network slowly grow, my ‘digital identity is emerging’ to reflect my professional identity (Lupton, Oddone, & Dreamson, in press 2018). Participating in the ‘new media’ ecology informs me on innovative pedagogy, and engages me in digital, interactive, hypertextual, virtual, networked, and simulated teaching and learning experiences (Green & Beavis, 2013).  In my aim to become a connected educator I am buoyed by Dron & Anderson’s quote:

“teachers will become not so much guides as co-travellers on the learning journey, helping children to accommodate their vastly enriched and interconnected worlds” (2014, pp. 325-326).

My PLN grows as I connect with ideas and educational experts to bridge the digital literacy divide – the topic of my professional interest. My connectivist approach creates an education for myself (Downes, 2010). It empowers me to interact with the knowledge that resides in digitised databases and the wealth of peoples’ online opinions (Siemens, 2005). I can aggregate communications across my PLN using social software in synchronous and asynchronous interactions that can be one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-one [Images 1 – 3] (Kalisz, 2016, p. 56).

My PLN is tailored for continuous learning and development of my professional identity as a future-focused teacher-librarian (Trust, Krutka, & Carpenter, 2016, p. 35). My PLN informs my content creation, giving me capabilities that are ‘transferrable holistic attributes’ (Hase & Kenyon, 2007, cited in Dron & Anderson 2014 p.48). My participatory interaction gives me the competence to perform professionally in new situations and to create and disseminate quality information back into my network. This value adding is a sign of successful participation in networked learning. I use my PLN as an ‘evolved connector’ as the public nature of my PLN exemplifies high-quality practice and it positively influences my career development (Oddone, 2018a).

I seek to be a better teacher through my PLN (Trust, et al., 2016, p. 28). I am a secondary school teacher-librarian (TL) and my role forms a nexus between people, information and technology. I teach in a digitally mediated environment (Tour, 2017, p. 179). In adapting to the new ‘technologies and cultural shifts’ that define new media literacies it is crucial that I keep current with the rapid evolution of digital tools for innovative pedagogy (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2012, p. 14). I began my connected learning journey by mapping the initial state of my PLN using the Mindomo app, Image 1.

Image 1: My initial PLN. Image by Author, 2018. CC by SA 2.0

[embeddoc url=”https://xgenconnected.edublogs.org/files/2018/03/My-initial-professional-learning-network-4-1dfj50h-1yiketj.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

This first iteration of my PLN appears relatively diverse, drawing from multiple perspectives to avoid ‘homophily’ (Tour, 2017, p. 187). This initial PLN has typical sub-sets of people clustered according to six forms of communication (Trust, et al., 2016). Five nodes in this PLN are defined by ‘weak ties’ that I use to connect with expertise outside the parochial ‘strong tie’ of the node formed by my work-day in a rural township (Dron & Anderson, 2014, p. 135; Siemens, 2005). These nodes inform my practice; however, my online interactions lack the reciprocity of a truly networked space (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2012, p. 13). My practice, according to the transformative teacher development framework by Baker-Doyle (2017), places me at an emerging level of knowledge construction in this initial iteration. I lacked the confidence to interact with others in this network (Baker-Doyle, 2017, pp. 33-35).

My PLN activates my learning across three arenas, the pedagogical, the personal and the public (Oddone, 2018b, slides 7-10). In the pedagogical arena, I networked to enrich my content knowledge and practice so my learning was at an ‘exploratory’ level (Oddone, 2018, slide 8). I utilised my connections to blog sites like Edublogs and my Twitter feeds from Edutopia to design innovative pedagogy and to keep pace with educational trends.

In the personal arena, my learning was at a technical level (Oddone, 2018b, slide 9). I hesitated to diversify my network and engage outside of my strong ties, evident in the well-formed connections across the work-day communication node (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, pp. 35-36). My social media (SM) participation also reflects little sharing of my personal information. My connections across the web lacked reciprocal interactions in the five SM platforms (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 36). My weak ties to these SM nodes represent my ‘recognition of the professional capital of other individuals’ as my initial PLN enabled me to ‘access high-quality information and resources’ (Oddone, 2018b, slide 10). Initially, I was over-awed by high calibre educational artefacts online. The idea of contributing resources back into my PLN caused self-doubt. My learning was of a technical level in the public arena because I stymied the possibility of professional recognition by failing to share and interact with my PLN (Oddone, 2018b, slide 10).

My connected learning journey over the last three months is leveraging my PLN for positive social change for myself and my students. I reflect and grow as a teacher as I direct my PLN to find educational solutions for my interest area (Baker-Doyle, 2017). As a TL I see my students experiencing a widening skills gap in digital literacy. I see their lack of personal agency and their inability to critically question the corporate powers that control much of our digitally mediated world. By directing my PLN to bridge the digital literacy divide for my students, I will be ‘taught by the crowd’  (Dron & Anderson, 2014).

Learning from the crowd ‘when and where’ I wish is complex (Kalisz, 2016, p. 58). Cultivating a PLN means adroitly structuring this informational tsunami using superior social media skills. I am no longer an SM ‘noobie’, but I am still perfecting the art! As I reflect on my dispositions, capabilities and actions toward becoming a connected educator I acknowledge that active curation, reflection and contribution to the topic of bridging the digital literacy divide will be an ongoing learning process (Lupton, et al., in press 2018; Tour, 2017).

I began by openly curating content using Pinterest, Padlet, Flipboard, Tweet Deck, and Listly. I link to these on my website and share them on SM. Using social aggregation tools like ‘Feedly’, ‘Flipboard’ and Tweet Deck, I tailor my searches to key terms and hashtags for digital literacy to streamline the process and make retweeting high-quality resources straightforward. Crowd learning gives me the advantage of sourcing expertise as I explore and interact online to develop my PLN. (Kalisz, 2016).

Activity in the virtual learning community surrounding my topic of interest is high and provides me with ample opportunity to initiate my professional learning practices (Tour, 2017, p. 188). Socially mediated content on the digital literacy divide, the digital divide and issues regarding activating student ‘voice’ and student ‘advocacy’ demonstrate an intensity of interest into this area across the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia. Articles on contemporary online news sites, such as ‘The Conversation’  are plentiful and cover the digital divide, information literacy and the concerning rise in fake news and students’ inability to discern fact from fiction. Innovative educational programs and relevant articles are featured on blog sites and are tweeted by ISTE, CILIP InfoLit Group, TeachThought and Edutopia. Multiple organisations are sharing open educational resources online for digital citizenship such as The Global Digital Citizen Foundation and Common Sense Media – Education.

The majority of current tweets regarding the digital divide are arising from countries such as India, where access to reliable technology and stable, affordable internet is rare in educational settings. There is a similar digital divide in lower socio-economic demographics in Australia. I investigated this in my blog post, transforming information I found online into knowledge for myself (Tour, 2017). I hope to extend this learning to others through social networking in my PLN (Tour, 2017). A distinct lack of resources targeted to Australian schools gives me an opportunity for sharing my perspective and practice. I value-add to my PLN by sharing my scholarly blog on bridging the digital literacy divide and my program for digital citizenship is a rich resource for educators (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 56). I have mapped my activities in my PLN in Image 2 below to evidence how I connect and share in this system.

Image 2. My developed PLN. Image by Author, 2018. CC by SA 2.0

[embeddoc url=”https://xgenconnected.edublogs.org/files/2018/03/A-developed-professional-learning-network-8-sgvufh-1px2bf4.pdf” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

A thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon highlight my positive or negative interactions respectively, across the various nodes. Positive interactions include likes, retweets, or shares by others. I am working to develop discursive and collaborative interactions to enhance my reflective practice and encourage peer review (Hegarty, 2015, p. 5). My communications that meet with ‘deafening silence’, are negative, reflecting my emotional response to being ‘virtually’ ignored. My SM presence and my activities are professional and are in their ‘infancy’. I acknowledge that to build my professional profile as Amanda Taylor – @XGenLibrarian online I need to interact over time (Morrison, 2016). A critical incident occurred at the end of May 2018. I realised I had inadvertently locked my Twitter account and my tweets were seen only by my followers. I now enjoy an open Twitter account that will enrich my experiences of connected learning and grow my professional digital identity (Tour, 2017, p. 184).

To date, I have created and shared twelve new digital resources to my PLN and they form the ‘toolkit’ on my website. I have listed them in Table 1:

Digital artefact	Online Platform	Resource information	Shared via
Scholarly blog post.	Edublogs.	Bridging the digital literacy divide – a TL perspective.	My website, Email, Yammer, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, G+ communities.
Video clip.	Powtoon.	What is the digital divide, the digital literacy divide and pedagogical strategies to address this gap?	Twitter, G+ communities, Facebook, my website, Padlet,
Stage 4 program for digital citizenship.	Google Docs.	Scope and sequence of teaching digital citizenship to Year 7 students over ~20 lessons.	Email, Twitter, Facebook, G+ communities, my website, Padlet.
Quiz on Digital Citizenship.	Google Forms.	Assessment for learning. Pre-test/post-test on content knowledge.	My website, G+ Google for Education, Padlet.
A curation of my program’s resources.	Padlet.	All resource items needed for teaching my program on digital citizenship.	Padlet, my website, Twitter.
List of apps for student use to create digital content.	Listly.	A list of 14 content-creation apps that work within the strictures of the Department of Education firewalls.	Listly, Twitter, my website.
Video.	Adobe Spark.	A resource for teaching critical information literacy.	Twitter, my website, Adobe Spark platform
A curation of articles and news.	Flipboard.	Magazine style curation of news, articles, video and information on bridging the digital literacy divide and the cause of this gap.	Flipboard, Twitter, my website, Facebook.
Curation of educational resources, articles and news.	Pinterest board.	Interactive educational websites, posters on critical information literacy.	Pinterest, my website, Padlet.
Digital literacy quiz on fake news.	Plickers.	How to identify fake news.	Plickers, Padlet.
Digital literacy quiz on copyright.	Kahoot.	Copyright, Reverse searching, Referencing.	Kahoot, Padlet.
Poster.	Canva.	The three essential capabilities for future-oriented learners.	Twitter, my website, Instagram.

Table 1: My digitally mediated content and its dissemination into my PLN.

My PLN is always in beta. As I learn from the crowd I move to my next zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978 cited in Dron & Anderson, 2014, p. 43). I see gaps in existing ideas with each exposure to new and multiple perspectives (Kalisz, 2016, p. 59). Authoring creative content for the authentic audience of my PLN is transforming my professional practice across all three arenas of my professional learning (Oddone, 2018b). I share my content and as I share, I enhance my content knowledge and practice to work at a level of ‘connected learner in the pedagogical arena’ (Oddone, 2018b, slide 8). I have represented some of my online interactions and their consequent critical incidents in the slideshow below:

Slideshow 1: ‘Making connections’ by Author, 2018. CC by NC SA 2.0.
Visual_tour_Making_PLN_connections-1asvw8m

 

Attending my regional teacher-librarian collegiate network (CLN) at the very end of May 2018 has created another critical incident – the CLN has requested that I present my ‘toolkit’ to bridge the digital literacy divide at our next staff development day. I believe this face-to-face interaction will lead to an opportunity for collaborative interaction online as my TL group cooperate to refine and improve my toolkit (Tour, 2017, p. 185). My activities with my PLN are gradually augmenting my reputation and moving me to a level of ‘exploratory in the public arena’ (Oddone, 2018b, slide 10).

Learning through shared experiences enables me to remix and re-create my digital artefacts. Manifesting a body of creative work that is of value to myself and others in my PLN is enriching my connections and my perspectives (Kalisz, 2016, p. 59). My PLN enhances my professional reputation and morphs to suit how I share my content into my network. I create new nodes as I share online, and drop other nodes as being ‘dead-ends’ (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011, p. 37). I am at an exploratory level of professional learning in the personal arena as my confidence grows and I experience feedback through my PLN (Oddone, 2018b, slide 9).

 I reflect on my activities as a timeline of events and critical incidents in my infographic [Image 3]. A firework icon marks reciprocal interactions. The evidence shows I distribute my network learning across five branches of communication with incidents woven into the social collective (Dron and Anderson, 2014). The infographic reveals I have experienced quality learning situations but it is evident I must increase “interconnectedness of and intercommunications among all parts of the system” (Laroche, Nicol, & Mayer-Smith, 2007, p.72 cited in Dron & Anderson, 2014, p.55). My competence is demonstrated in a manner that is ‘authentic, targeted, and embedded in the social networks’ and I am ‘leaving traces as I learn’ (Dron & Anderson, 2014, pp. 325-326).

Image 3. A timeline of connections across various nodes in my PLN. Image by Author, 2018. CC by NC SA 2.0.

 

I am building my skills in social network literacy and I am working from a region of ‘low interaction and high coherence’ in my ‘emerging digital identity’ (Lupton & Oddone, draft manuscript 2018)! Applying a conceptual model of the connected educator by Lupton & Oddone (draft manuscript 2018) I can critique my activities. I have adapted their graphic here and use it with their gracious permission [Image 4].

I have a growth mindset. I see professional challenges as opportunities to learn and to evolve my teaching strategies. I am an open practitioner who is learning through a connectivist approach (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2012). I have the beginnings of network identity and my social network literacy is rapidly growing as I engage with my PLN (Lupton & Oddone, draft manuscript 2018). I am strengthening reciprocal interactions with innovative educators that create, disseminate and promote resources that bridge the digital literacy divide (Trust, et al., 2016). My PLN has informed my future-oriented pedagogy to meet the escalating digital literacy needs of my students. My PLN is crucial to my professional identity and I am extending the benefits of connected learning to my students so that they, too, may become lifelong learners and ethical digital citizens (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011). I have taken my first step as a connected educator and I will continue to progress as a transformational professional by contributing new ideas and outcomes to the education community (Baker-Doyle, 2017, p. 58; Lupton, et al., in press 2018).

 

 

 

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