Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education

Our schools need to harness each student’s natural propensity for participating in online spaces and funnel that energy into building powerful networks for learning that are used in every class almost every day.

We need, first, to take charge of our own learning, and next, help others take charge of their own learning. We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something that is provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves. It is time, in other words, that we change our attitude toward learning

The definition of educational leader needs to shift from the person with the title to the person with the vision.

“learning networks”? We mean the rich set of connections each of us can make to people in both our online and offline worlds who can help us with our learning pursuits.

Learning networks are very different both in form and purpose in that we instead connect with people we don’t already know—helpful strangers who share our passion for a particular topic.

It means that static textbooks that are outdated the day they are printed can be replaced with up-to-date information online that is continuously refreshed and renewed.

Knowledge itself is moving from the individual to the individual and his contacts”

It means that teachers’ professional learning will take place in online connected spaces that span the globe.

prepared. We have to introduce our kids to a whole new method of learning that is less about memorizing and “doing their own work” and more about content creation and collaborating with others, and doing so in the context of their passions.