Module 2 (Week 02) - Personal Learning Network

I think one of the things I would need to completely overcome is the shame of asking for help, and this could partly be cultural and personal. First of all, my upbringing is to be self-reliant and independent. Second, I generally do not wish to appear ignorant or weak. So, there's a lot of room for improving and expanding my personal learning network (PLN) or professional development network (PDN).

Mailing Lists and Groups

During my college years in the early 1990s, I often subscribed to various mailing lists usually through Listserv and Majordomo as a way to keep abreast on different subject matters.  If you remember, this was the time when the Web was still developing and growing in popularity.  (I was actually using Gopher a lot.)  Right now, I am just subscribed to one mailing list, Tomorrow's Professor.  I actually don't participate or read the posts much, but I'm keeping my subscription just in case I have more free time and am later able to mine information I might find useful.

As the World Wide Web grew, mailing lists metamorphosed into groups, and I had joined several ones in Yahoo! and MSN.  I have since unsubscribed from several groups, but I might once again join those in Business & Finance and Computers & Internet.

Electronic Newsletters

Since I also teach business courses even if I'm in the IT department, I have subscribed to the e‑newsletter of the American Management Association.  I would say that this is akin to reading about the latest trends and theories in Harvard Business Review.

Employment Web Sites

I visit job sites to see what IT and business skills & knowledge are currently needed in the market.  That then gives me an idea on which areas I need to improve on or what new things I have to learn.  In jobstreet.com, I have signed up to get good job matches by email.

RSS Feeds and Bookmarks

Since I use Microsoft products extensively, I have employed RSS feeds to become aware of various tips and tricks.  I keep in Outlook the messages which serve as bookmarks to articles that I want to keep track of as references.

I also do bookmark sites that I often use as references.

Online Reference Materials

Although I have a thesaurus and dictionary on my desk, I more often use webster.com for the convenience.  I used to enjoy Reader's Digest's Word Power, so I also subscribed to Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day.  (At least I get to build my vocabulary one word and one day at a time!)  Of course, I also visit Wikipedia as a starting point for information on many things.

FAQs and Downloadable Manuals

I often visit company Web sites to get more information about their products.  More specifically, I visit FAQs and download product manuals.  For instance, I wanted to learn more about the education technology hardware inside our new classrooms, so I searched for and downloaded the manual for the switcher.

Colleagues

Finally (and most importantly), my co-workers are a big part of my personal learning network.  In my old workstation where I was for 6 years, I sat near non-IT teachers so I inevitably became their immediate tech support.  I had invariably learned from their many computer-related questions and problems,

Moreover, hardware and networking are not exactly my forte, so I was glad that other IT teachers in my department were open to sharing thoughts, ideas, references, and class materials (BBVista stuff, exercises, assessments, etc.)   It was somewhat easy for me to ask help from them as we had built some rapport as we had worked together in various committees and events.