Personal Blogs

When I think of the term "personal learning network" I can only really do so in light of my own experience.  

I joined Twitter because my University wanted faculty to start using it to connect with learners.  I hated it.  But because I could see the potential benefits I signed up for a half day course.  By the end of this I was part of a group, all talking about health care service improvement.  Through this group I discovered the School for Health and Care Radicals and through their Tweetchats and webcasts my community grew.  Jim began following me, so I returned the favour.  Every week he sends me - and a bunch of other like-minded people - a tweet.  When I was hitting a brick wall with one of my MAODE assignments, I sent out a "help me" tweet - and Jim replied.  We Skyped.  He set me on the right track and not only that, gave me the courage to transform my idea into reality.  

In the process I had to wrestle with wikis.  I remembered seeing Staurt, medical student, present his work on wikis in undergraduate medical training, so I joined the wiki group and sent him an email.  Discussions on the H817 and H800 tutor group forums led to the germination of a research idea and after a few tweets to share resources Stuart and I are putting together a research proposal.

I've never met these people but they have helped me so much in my learning.  So, when Jim tweeted a link to his TED talk on virtual communities of practice and his personal learning network, what else could I do but share it with you?