A practice thought of teachers’ networked knowledge activities in PLNs

I have thought teachers’ perceptions and behaviors in social media platforms for professional learning based on networked knowledge activities. This curiosity came from an imagination of teachers’ behaviors in professional learning networks (PLNs) doing networked knowledge activities. We can easily find evidence of teachers’ perceptions and behaviors in professional learning networks. However, there is a lack of studies focused on networked knowledge activities regarding teachers as learners.

When I talk to K-12 teachers, they say that they do use social media such as Facebook and Twitter for their professional learning. And, they respond that finding lesson plans or teaching materials are main activities as consumers. However, in the social network world, they play a role as producers and consumers at the same time. Even though there are key participants who engage in produsage, lead, and facilitate interactions in teachers’ PLNs, general teachers in PLNs can also have characteristics of networked knowledge activities such as sharing and negotiating because learning is their primary purpose to participate in PLNs.

Especially, I am interested in how teachers assess information (knowledge) in PLNs. Among networked knowledge activities such as collecting, curating, sharing, brokering, negotiating, and creating, I am curious which activities are focused on in teachers' PLNs and how teachers assess the knowledge in each activity. I think that we can identify answers to those questions by observations and interviews with in-service teachers participating PLNs. Ultimately, I want to verify components in teachers’ knowledge assessment perceptions and behaviors, and I hope to design a model of teachers’ knowledge activities in social media platforms. 

Meanwhile, I have learned that social media platforms have their own features, which means that the learning experiences could be different depending on the social media platforms and organization even though the networked knowledge activities can be found everywhere. This fact brought me to another question, but I temporarily concluded that I might be able to approach my research interests from the exploration of specific platforms classified by features into generalization.