Blog: Chapter 6
Chapter 6 of The Connected Educator called "Building Your Connected Learning Community" serves mainly as a tutorial on how to create, develop, and perfect your own personal learning networks (PLNs) and professional learning communities (PLCs) in order to encourage continuous development and collaboration. This chapter gives descriptions of what an effective network should look like, such as being self-sustaining, relevant, and engaging for all members involved. The author also tells us how to keep these networks effective. For instance, a good way to keep your networks relevant and engaging for all members is by co-creating your content with members of the network. According to Nussbaum-Beach and Hall (2010)"If only the leader is sharing content, not all community members' needs are likely to be met." The author tells us what makes these communities thrive, like shared vision, trusting relationships, open dialogue, and balancing between structure and organic growth. According to Nussbaum-Beach and Hall (2010) "Designers face a balancing act between allowing the community to develop organically through viral interaction and intentionally structuring growth through an embedded design. This duality is essential to ensure that the community remains responsive to its members while still having the frameworks in place to support its sustainability and effectiveness”
One career path I am considering following is that of a social media marketer. This chapter's information about how to create and develop PLCs and PLNs is highly applicable to my chosen career path, if not essential to it. Social media marketing relies on creating engaging connected online spaces that are extremely similar to PLNs and PLCs. Successful social media marketing as well as successful PLCs and PLNs must be relevant to the viewer and provide value to the viewer; just as a community must provide value to sustain its members, a social media marketer must create engaging content that provides value to followers and encourages interaction. Both social media marketing and connected networks require community building, fostering trust, and encouraging participation. Lastly, media marketing and connected networks are both created and designed with the user's preferences in mind. Some examples of social platforms to market on that reflect the values of PLCs and PLNs are twitter and instagram. I was wondering what specific forms of social media marketing or specific marketing platforms you think are the most similar to PLNs and PLCs?
Refrence:
Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Hall, L. R. (2010). The connected educator: Learning and leading in a digital age (p. 18). Solution Tree Press.
Social media does greatly rely on networking. I think the social media platform that most closely resembles PLCs and PLNs are Twitter/X. Twitter is sort of like a blog in a sense that you can publish your own tweets and people can connect with you based off of common interests, mutual friends, or if they like what you're talking about.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I liked how you connected the concepts of PLNs and PLCs to social media marketing. I also agree that building trust and encouraging participation are critical in both areas. To answer your question, I think platforms like LinkedIn could be a great example because it's focused on professional connections and collaboration, which mirrors the values of PLNs and PLCs.
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