Yesterday I say that someone in my Twitter feed, Jenny Luca, a Head of Information Services from Melbourne that I met at last September’s Learning 2.008 conference in Shanghai, posted about Learning 21st Century style. That title was just too enticing for me to leave alone. Also, I know from having met Jenny that she embodies the sort of information guru that schools need aka Doug Johnson, rather than the 20th Century Librarian that schools used to have. Funny to visit her blog and find a lot of old friends leaving comments there.

Anyway, Jenny was reflecting on her learning via her Personal Learning Network (PLN). To try to summarise it, she was reflecting on trying to come to terms with the prospect of being able to learn using the interperonsal network rather than from written material. My comment to her was as follows:

As someone who has always (since around the early 80s) valued the computer as a tool that motivated and supported my learning and someone who lives as an expat, I had an easy transition to a connected learning network. I am interested to see that some of the relative newcomers have been hooked to this way of learning recently.
As a facillitator for teachers, I am interested to know what motivated newbees to use ICT for their learning network and thus got them over the peak of frustration with the use of a new tool?
Also followed the link to the PLP. Keen to know more about getting onboard but my lack of a regular income from a school may be a problem.

Jenny was gracious enough to offer a reply.

From my perspective Paul, it was taking the leap into writing this blog that helped me to form the connections I needed to establish a personal learning Network. I see joining the PLP as a means of introducing newbies to the benefits of immersion in a learning community that is using the tools to form the connections. We operate in a private ning and have the benefit of many expert voices to support those new to this type of learning. It’s really a very high entry point and newcomers who are unfamiliar with the names probably don’t realise how fortunate they are to be able to establish connections so easily. The cohort I am involved with is Sheryl and Will’s first foray into the international scene. We have 8 Australian schools, a group from New Zealand and 9 American Schools. Other cohorts operate in the United States.

So true that people don’t realise how fortunate they are to be able to part of a community involving such great people!

Photo: Ethel Chop, Melbourne comedian