My personal learning network opens up many doors to sources of information; however, it can sometimes be difficult to control due to the growing number of new technologies. That’s why, to solve that problem what I do is to find a medium that fits, to pick my PLNs, and to organize them so that I can learn better from these people.

First of all, I have personally maintained synchronous connections in my personal learning network. This network includes my husband, my family, my colleagues, my students, and other people. I need to be connected with these people to find answers to my questions, to be a better teacher, and to accomplish my goals. As for how I connect with these people, I use mobile phones, Skype, chat, instant and text messaging, and conferences and chats.

Second of all, I have personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections in my personal learning network. This network again includes the people around me; however, this time collaboration doesn’t have to be in real time because it is semisynchronous. When I have a question in mind, I send it out to these people whose personal interests or expertise can help me to find answers to my questions or to solve my problems. I use mails, group discussion boards, wikis, Google docs, Twitter, and Facebook to connect with the people in my network. For instance, although I am geographically distant from the people in MAET Certificate Program, I can still connect with them regardless of time zones. Although we don’t have a face-to-face conversation, we still have a conversation which we participate in whenever it works best for our schedules.

Thirdly, I have dynamically maintained asynchronous connections in my personal learning network. This time I connect with the people via news, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, podcasts, and youtube. The central tool in this network is the RSS aggregator. I mean when I subscribe to RSS feed of news, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, podcasts, and new videos from youtube with my aggregator, all this information organizes and delivers itself to me. As for how I manage my asynchronous connections, I organize my subscriptions by topic and also I organize the folders in my aggregator based on how frequently I read them.

In conclusion, I am at the heart of my personal learning network. I know that as my personal learning network grows, my responsibility to add value to existing knowledge grows. However, I enjoy the challenge and love harnessing in newer technologies and also engaging in knowledge-building activities.

Although many of my EFL students are willing to speak English in the classroom, they have difficulty in expressing themselves when they want to or have to speak English. Therefore, here is a goal-directed instructional design plan that aims to provide students with many opportunities to speak the target language.