Day 9 - Personal Learning Networks (PLN's)

At a recent conference I attended, there was a discussion lead by one of the keynote speakers regarding the creation and development of a "Personal Learning Network" or "PLN". PLN's have been described in the following manner -

The members of your network should be people, both inside and outside of your work group and your company, who have the knowledge that you are trying to master and who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with you (Tobin, 1998)

There are a number of ways that you can go about developing a PLN. As a music therapy student, the most obvious method is to develop friendships and relationships amongst your fellow students whom share you interest. However, as we are often all too aware, those friendships and acquaintances can fracture easily upon graduation.

In some cases, music therapy associations provide opportunities for sharing and networking. An example of this is the Early Childhood Network, within the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). Similarly, many organizations that represent "specialties" within the field of music therapy (e.g. Nordoff-Robbins music therapy, NICU music therapy, Neurological music therapy, etc.) maintain a list of professionals who have trained in that particular technique.

Finally, the advent of social networking tools, such as those shown below, enable the individual music therapist to seek out, find, and interact with a variety of individuals, unrestricted by geography, who share a common interest/philosophy.

#hashtags

I'll be writing more about PLN's tommorrow. Do you have any ideas for creating a PLN? How have you created a PLN?

Bibliography

Tobin, D. R. (1998). Building your personal learning network. Retrieved on May 8, 2009 from, http://www.tobincls.com/learningnetwork.htm.