This is just a rough draft. I wanted to get my thoughts on paper -- as it were. I'm not sure if I have each circle quite named correctly, but it's a start. Here's the general idea -- let's work inside-out:
- My PLN starts with Me. I'm the one who has to build my PLN. I make the contacts. I cultivate the relationships. It's not that it's all about me, but the P does stand for Personal.
- The ring that directly surrounds me is my Support. I know that when I send them an email, I will get a thoughtful response. If I post on Twitter, the odds are pretty high that they'll respond.
- Listeners (yes, I'm thinking of a different title) are those that I feel connected to (in a PLN way) but they are not someone I expect a response from when I post on Twitter or a comment when I write a blog post. I follow their updates on Twitter and, for many of them, I read their blog posts. I believe (perhaps this is wishful thinking) that if I were to meet them in real life, we would be able to hold a non-awkward conversation. I hope.
- Outside the Listeners is the group I refer to as the Future. I guess that means it's people I'm hoping to connect with in the future. I'm not sure if it is a goal of mine, but it seems like it should be a goal to have people move inward toward my Support. It seems logical that the bigger my support group is, the more access to multiple minds I'll have. It's not a matter of "collecting friends". It's just surrounding myself with knowledgeable experts in the field of education. I just had an a-ha moment: I got nervous that my Support group would be come too big, and thus diluted. I think it's the poorly-named Listener group that I'm really looking to build. The group that I'm actively paying attention to, knowing that if I were to interact with them it wouldn't be coming from nowhere. That makes sense.
