What+is+a+PLN?

=1. What is a Professional Learning Network=

media type="youtube" key="mghGV37TeK8" height="385" width="480"

[|Great Article by David Jakes on Professional Development and creating a network of learning.]

David Warlick Article: [|Grow your Professional Learning Community]

Stages of PLN Adoption


Jeff Utecht posted a terrific article on the adoption cycle of professional learning networks. He created the visual above. The explanation of the stages below are copied from his blog, [|The Thinking Stick]. You can view the copyright licensing for this information by [|clicking here].

**Stage 1 Immersion:** Immerse yourself into networks. Create any and all networks you can find where there are people and ideas to connect to. Collaboration and connections take off. **Stage 2 Evaluation:** Evaluate your networks and start to focus in on which networks you really want to focus your time on. You begin feeling a sense of urgency and try to figure out a way to “Know it all.” **Stage 3 Know it all:** Find that you are spending many hours trying to learn everything you can. Realize there is much you do not know and feel like you can’t disconnect. This usually comes with spending every waking minutes trying to be connected to the point that you give up sleep and contact with others around you to be connected to your networks of knowledge. **Stage 4 Perspective:** Start to put your life into perspective. Usually comes when you are forced to leave the network for awhile and spend time with family and friends who are not connected (a vacation to a hotel that does not offer a wireless connection, or visiting friends or family who do not have an Internet connection).
 * Stage 5 Balance:** Try and find that balance between learning and living. Understanding that you can not know it all, and begin to understand that you can rely on your network to learn and store knowledge for you. A sense of calm begins as you understand that you can learn when you need to learn and you do not need to know it all right now.