Cultivating Your PLN

There has already been so much fine tuning when it comes to my personal learning network. The problem is people get recommended and have great stuff, but it is not quite what you are looking for. Also, you may see one or two good tweets (depending on if you are on twitter, blogs, etc.) and so you follow them, but then it turns out they have more junk they post then good stuff. So, following them can be a waste of time. Fine tuning your personal learning network is a never ending process because you want to give everyone a chance who might be good, but you want to cut out the ones who do not meet your standards and keep looking at new potential people who might contribute to your personal learning network.

You can feed your PLN by never being satisfied. Keep fine tuning. Keep following more people and unfollowing the ones who do not meet your standards. Keep looking for those perfect people that you want to be a part of your personal learning network. Take the time to really invest and make your personal learning network worthwhile. You can feed your personal learning network by continuing to expand it and edit it over and over.

When it comes to finding and sharing resources on your personal learning network, I think being specific is the key. You want to be specific with your hash tags so people know exactly what they are about to read and so people can find it that are looking for that particular topic. Be concise with your summaries about articles. Short, sweet, and to the point is best. I also wouldn’t share anything that I do not find amazing. Do not share so-so information. If it was only kind of worthwhile for you, do not bother. Make sure it will be worthwhile for other people as well.

There are a few challenges I for see with feeding my personal learning network. The biggest one is time. It takes time to fine tune it and take out the people who you do not want in there. It takes time to find people that are really worth it to follow. It takes time to find and share worthwhile resources. It all takes time, and being a college student with 19 credits and three different jobs at the moment, spare time for cultivating my personal learning network is something I am lacking.