Notes to Facilitator

It is important to iterate to the participants that there is no one way to build a PLN. Everyone has their own preferred networking tools. The purpose of the practical is really to provide guidance as to how to set up such a network and what tools are available. Ideally you want them to ‘follow’ someone who is an established education ‘icon’ but also interact with people who are good but perhaps not of celebrity status. It would also help if you could get your colleague lecturers to ‘tweet’ or post regularly for a few weeks so that participants would get an idea about online networks and how they work in a non-linear fashion. Use the practical session to show off some of the tools and also to allow them to sign to start building a small network.

The class will need connectivity for this activity. Also try and use student expertise where it exists to extol any virtues of the popular networking services, especially Facebook and Twitter, where many will already have accounts.