Chapter 6 of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall's
The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age discusses the importance of building a connected learning community. These personal learning networks are composed of many people from around the world who bring there own information, expertise, and learning objects that are interests of yours. The best part about a personal learning network is that they are all about the individual. These networks come in handy for anyone in any field because it allows the user to find new information and ideas and bring apply them for use in their life and at work. Creating a personal learning network does not happen overnight it takes time, effort, and perseverance. Social media is a good place to grow this personal learning network and there are sites that help you vet potential people to follow in order to ensure that you are following the right people who will aid in the personal learning network. By having a large personal learning network it allows someone to reach out to get information about topics so they can apply the results to their life. For example, they used an example of a high school teacher who "...learned he would be teaching a section of algebra in 2010-2011, he turned to his personal learning network as he planned his lessons and assignments" (Nussbaum-Beach and Hall 95). This is one of the most useful benefits of the personal learning network because it allows for an easy way to reach out to people to gain aid for you to apply to your field of work.
This personal learning network that Nussbaum-Beach and Hall describe would benefit me in my future career as a manager because it would allow for easy communication with anyone in different departments within the company or someone who is stationed in a branch in a foreign country. It allows for the sharing of ideas to be done with ease and research that they have for a project that they could be working on could apply to a project we are working on. Sharing this kind of information allows us to apply those findings into our project or vis versa our research or project could help them. The personal learning network would not only benefit me because it would allow me to aid others by helping provide valuable information that they would need. For me, personal learning networks are beneficial just for the communication aspect because in this day and age the ability to easily communicate with others is crucial in the workplace in order to accomplish what needs to be done. This is especially true for managers since they need to effectively let their staff know what tasks need to be completed and when and if they need help they would have access to this personal learning network allowing them to receive aid if they need it.
"Building Your Connected Learning Community." The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age, by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall, Solution Tree Press, 2012, pp. 91-108.
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of management using a personal learning network to post and delegate tasks is very interesting. It definitely adds a level of accountability that word of mouth doesn't really have, especially in a group that might have several projects going at the same time. I think that it's a great way to boost productivity.