Personal Learning Network

Before writing this post, just out of curiosity, I looked up "Network" in the dictionary, and this is the definition I came across in the Cambridge Online Dictionary:

"A large system consisting of many similar parts that are connected together to allow movement or communication between or along the parts or between the parts and a control centre."

I'm a teacher trainee and very often I find myself overwhelmed by the load of information on ELT one can find on the web. How many teachers or teacher trainees out there feel like me? Every single time I've felt like this the solution came from a peer I did not know; a colleague from some part of the world - or from the same neighbourhood as me - who, perhaps, had already had the same querie or interest as me, and was kind enough to upload his/her material, solution, app, etc. 

Going back to the definition of "Network", I feel part of a system, or rather a community, of teachers who need to contact each other, "to allow movement," or rather, LEARNING. 

So, why do we need to build a PLN? Because we cannot stand alone on the world wide web. At least not if we want to learn and profit from others' experience and learning. 

My present Personal Learning Network is modest, but increasing day by day, mostly thanks to a subject I'm attending at the teacher training college: ICT applied to ELT. I've created this mind map to tell you a little bit more about my PLN (click on the image to enlarge it).