An honest reflection on how to build a PLN from scratch from someone who is less than a year in:
This is probably one of the best statements made about building a PLN that I have heard in years:
“This is perhaps my most important lesson of all: You need to find your people. Being connected isn’t about building a PLN like a house, it is more like building a home. Your PLN is about the relationships. It is really about how and not who. It is about how you develop the relationships with your PLN, not who you add.”
I would emphasize the ‘your people’ part of this statement. There are plenty of people on social media, plenty of educators and folks who are doing interesting things. But, ‘your people’, is a whole other animal. Finding the people resonate with you or the people that want to learn with you is so critical to maintaining your sanity within an online space. If it feels like a exercise in broadcasting or argument with the ether, then it is highly unlikely that anything meaningful will come of it.
I am always intrigued by how someone starts this journey of becoming a connected educator. I would be interested to find out what it was for you that helped you to see the value in spending time on Twitter or writing a blog. What is it about these spaces that is proving so valuable to you? How are you building relationships rather than just ‘adding people’ to your network?
Thank you for chronicling your journey. We have a lot to learn from folks that are actively engaged in “building their PLN home.”
