Human connection is such an important part of life and of one’s learning. With the internet and social media as a tool, it makes sharing information and connecting with others, easy and instant. One of the ways I now network my learning is through the social media platform, Twitter. I must admit, I was skeptical at first, but found it to be a really helpful tool. I was able to connect with many educators who shared the same beliefs in education as I did. I love how interactive it is, and how easy it is to share resources through tweets. I also found that I did not need to spend a large amount of time on the platform in order to get something out of it, which was helpful as I find being on social media for long periods of time to be draining to my mental health.
Through sharing tweets, retweets, articles, websites, and more on Twitter, I was able to help others learn from my findings.
By reading and viewing others posts on Twitter I was able to grow my knowledge, as well as through asking thought provoking questions I was able to add my ideas to others knowledge and engage in critical thinking.
While on Twitter I was able to participate in #SaskEdChat. The topic was inclusion, which is something I am very passionate about. It was highly enjoyable sharing my thoughts and knowledge on the topic. Seeing others responses to the questions was a great way to further my learning, just as my responses contributed to others learning as well.
Another way I networked learning, was through creating blog posts, as well as commenting on others posts. It was interesting reading others thoughts and then commenting on their posts to deepen their thinking. It was exciting to motivate others in the learning journeys by commenting on their blog posts.
While writing my own blog posts I was able to share my thoughts and knowledge with other educators. Through their comments on my posts I was able to answer questions and clarify anything from my posts.
The last networking tool I used is Slack or Discord. Here I was able to interact with other students/educators in a group chat style setting. It was a great way to ask questions and get help from others. This tool really helped me when I was starting out on Twitter and when I needed help editing my blog and blog posts. It is my hope that the questions I asked also helped others who were experiencing similar problems.
Through all of these platforms I was able to expand my personal learning network. It gave me the chance to connect with other students in my class, as well as other educators, and professionals in the education field of work. I was able to share my knowledge and ideas to help others learn, and also further my own learning. Now that I am able to navigate these different learning networks I know I will be able to continue to expand my knowledge, connect with others, and be the lifelong learner that I aim to be.
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