DISCOVERING THE POWER OF PLN
Here I am.. Writing a blog post. It is really hard to find words when you attempt to write but I guess words will come out of my mouth (and head) once I start writing. Actually, I have a blog in Turkish, mainly including recipes and notes on life küçük tatlar (means little pleasures). I haven’t written a word for months, though.
About two months ago, I heard about ISTEK International ELT Conference, and I stopped by ISTEK ELT website. Something hit me on the website, and I began to browse. Finally, I met Burcu Akyol’s blog on the way. How strange! Although we are both in ELT business and live in the same city, I haven’t met her anywhere. While reading her posts, I met Shelly Teller, Özge Karaoğlu, Ken Wilson, and all other these amazing people from ELT arena. Each of them owns a blog, and you can see a lot of effort put in it. I was really shocked!!! I was familiar with networking but this PLN thing!! I didn’t know it could make such an impact.I haven’t felt that much excited and enthusiastic for along time. I gained a lot of insight from Burcu, Shelly and all these brilliant people, and now it was time to act!
NOW IT’S TIME TO ACT!
First, I participated in a project!! It might be starting from a few steps further, yo can say it. However, it just happened. Dear Shelly Teller had a very creative idea. She asked her PLN to answer a question: “Why do we connect?”. But they were going to do it by shooting a short video. My son, Can and I found our reason for connecting: “To make a difference, to feel the difference!” and this was totally correct! I sent the video to Shelly, and she immediately responded back with warm remarks. I didn’t know then that we were going to see each other at ISTEK!
GETTING TO KNOW TWITTER
The second step was having a twitter account. While reading Burcu and Shelly, I was convinced that twitter was a good thing:) I connected to twitter and got addicted immediately. First, it was a bit difficult to find people to follow. Thanks to Shelly, again I found very precious information on this wiki page, and not ony had more information about twitter, but also found valuable connections. Besides finding connections, I also subscribed to ELT blogs. Before, I didn’t know about RSS, and added the blogs to my favourites. It was so difficult to follow. Now, I subscribe with RSS, and with ”Google Reader” and I have the opportunity to see the new posts at a glance.
WHAT HAS CHANGED?
It’s weird, I don’t know about many great educators whom we work together under the same roof! By means of tweeter, I met @neslihandrmsgl and @melanieyilmaz, who love teaching as well as learning! I also met other great educators from Turkey: one of them @evab2001 whose blog is another platform I learn a lot from.
The biggest change in my life is that I feel I belong to a community who love learning, teaching and sharing! I haven’t felt that much enthusiastic for a long time.
To be continued…:)
