Social Media as a Professional Development Tool: using Blogs, Microblogs, and Social Bookmarks to Create Personal Learning Networks
Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media
ISBN: 978-0-85724-781-0, eISBN: 978-0-85724-782-7
Publication date: 22 March 2011
Abstract
While personal learning networks (PLNs) are not new (Warlick, 2009), social media technologies are now enabling us “to fashion new kinds of networks that extend far beyond our immediate location and face-to-face connections, and to grow our networks based not on explicit decisions, but through the ideas of other nodes (people and resources), whose ideas intersect with ours” (Warlick, 2010, para. 5). What is new then, and what is changing the nature of PLNs, is the rapid growth of information and the emergence of new technologies capable of filtering that information and connecting us to others we can interact with and learn from (Siemens, 2008). In this chapter, we discuss the steps involved in building, growing, and maintaining online connections made possible entirely through new technologies. We argue that in the context of higher education, PLNs should be viewed as an informal alternative to the more formal professional development programs that are commonplace in K-12 education.
Citation
Weisgerber, C. and Butler, S.H. (2011), "Social Media as a Professional Development Tool: using Blogs, Microblogs, and Social Bookmarks to Create Personal Learning Networks", Wankel, C. (Ed.) Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media (Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 339-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2044-9968(2011)0000003020
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited