Developing My Online Professional Learning Network

Hyperlinked Library MOOC Virtual Symposium:

Developing My Online Professional Learning NetworkBrian KellyInnovation Advocate CetisUniversity of Bolton, Bolton, UK

Email: [email protected]: @briankellyBlog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/

Slides available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence

Abridged version

2

• vvvWhat am I taking away from the Hyperlinked

Library MOOC?Processes for planning the development of my

Online Professional Learning Network. 

3

• cc

A New Job …

4

• cc

… and New Challenges

Need to:• Build links with new colleagues• Respond to the challenge of working from

home (everyone is normally an online contact!)

• Develop connections relevant to my new role• Explore ways in which existing contacts may

provide useful in the new job

5

The Hyperlinked Library MOOC Helped

The Hyperlinked Library MOOC assigned helped:

“practical assignments for applying the experiences that you are having while considering the lectures and content as well as to motivate you to create artifacts that have relevance in your professional life. ”

6

•

The Hyperlinked Library MOOC Helped

7

The assignment was published on 6 November 2013

8

The specific requirements are to produce:A Goals Statement: which will clearly indicate what you hope to accomplish in your OPLN.

Goals for my OPLN

My online professional network will provide a soundboard for my ideas, a way of finding out about what my user communities may want and what they find interesting, a means of helping to identify new funding opportunities and, last but not least, a way of having fun in my professional activities and ensuring that my work is interesting and stimulating.

9

Scope of my OPLN

 I have identified the following groups which I will need to engage with in order to support my work at Cetis.• Broad communities: Staff at Cetis and the

University of Bolton; key national event organisers and committees and funding bodies

• Subject areas: The e-learning community; the learning analytics community; the standards community; the accessibility community and the openness community

The specific requirements are to produce:A Defined Scope: brief narrative that can help define the scope of where you will be culling your resources.

10

Key Resources for my OPLN

 I have identified a set of key resources which I will use to engage with my communities.• Mainstream tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn,

Slideshare, mailing lists, ….• Other tools: e.g. Skype • F2F opportunities: Such as conferences & other

events

The specific requirements are to produce:A Resource Network: essentially, lists of resources that meet your goals and scope.

11

F2F Connections

The Old Man and Scythe, one of the ten oldest public houses in Britain

(image from Wikimedia Commons)

12

Network Maintenance Plan for my OPLN

My new job will provide an opportunity to prune my professional network, removing Twitter accounts, blog feeds, etc. which are no longer relevant to my new role (unless, for example, I still gain value for the personal connections).

The specific requirements are to produce:A Network Maintenance Plan: This will provide answers to questions such as: How will you maintain your online professional learning network? When will you adjust it? At what points will you actively add to it or delete from it?

13

Visualising My OPLN

The coggle.it tool was used to provide a visualisation of my OPLN

Visualisation created by coggle.it

14

My takeaways:• The value of planning for an Online Professional Learning

Network• The need to maintain the network – and even delete contacts

in the network (though this may be painful)• But we mustn’t forget the face-to-face contacts

Review

For further thoughts, please see my blog at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/