In setting up my online professional learning network as an aspiring teacher librarian, I would have to first set up some goals for my ongoing professional development. There are areas in the TL job context that I'm already familiar with (research, resource allocation, literacy strategies, technology integration), but without a lot of on-the-ground experience working as a teacher librarian, I know that I will be running into bumps related to the clerical processes, new collection management software, and school context issues that would be best served by having some local mentorship. Fortunately, the Greater Victoria School District has a professional association specifically for the teacher librarians in the district and they discuss matters synchronously and asynchronously through a global and school-level-specific email distribution list. This would be my first step.
For the larger issues related to professional processes, ethics around privacy, or even just looking for resource recommendations, I've had a lot of luck with Twitter. At one point I tried to separate my personal Twitter account from my "teacher" account, but it occurred to me that I was dividing my attention in ways that weren't especially helpful (and possibly confusing my network along the way). My Master's degree project involved developing a model for collective mentorship and some of my research examined the concept of Communities of Practice (Wenger). A chief takeaway from this reading helped me to discover that apprenticeship, mentorship and reciprocal learning can really thrive in social contexts when people are united by a common attribute and purpose.
As a means to expand my PLN, I would then make sure to establish and expand the tertiary connections that my established connections have, either through Twitter or LinkedIn (the latter indicates the "degrees of separation" another member might have from you based on who you both know. While Facebook is certainly the most active space for community networking, my concerns with personal information, targeted advertising and suspicious business practices led me to delete my Facebook account in early 2018. I don't imagine I'll ever return to the platform.
Works Cited
Cook, Rebecca J., et al. “Online Professional Learning Networks: A Viable Solution to the Professional Development Dilemma.” Journal of Special Education Technology, vol. 32, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 109–118, doi:10.1177/0162643417696930.
Wenger, Etienne. “Introduction to Communities of Practice.” Wenger-Trayner, 1 July 2021, wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/. Accessed 5 July 2021.
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