Professional Learning Network (A. O’Brien 2014)
Hello!
I found a new mind mapping tool for my second Personal Learning Network. I discovered a great resource for different brainstorm and mindmap tools. I stopped at number nine, Bubbl.us. It was actually the first tool I checked out, unfortunately I can’t really tell you about any others. I plan to try a new tool again for my third PLN; not to say I didn’t like Bubbl.us.
Content wise, This time around I feel more comfortable listing people I haven’t known very long. I looked up contacts for my new position working with CLA, and I added undergrads from my classes. It was nice to separate my professional contacts by industry; because before I had people from very different professional backgrounds crowded all together.
The tool was very easy to use–I didn’t Google, seek embedded help, or flounder once in the couple hours I spent working on this. BUT- It was tedious to consider aesthetics. My colors are arbitrarily assigned, and most of the child bubbles are pined haphazardly in a frustrated attempt to move the shapes.
Usability wise, I never really got the hang of the curser-bubble techniques to move, connect or add child bubbles. Although that didn’t stop me from one-by-one colorizing and sizing my connections. Every. Single. One. Well, actually… the orange Restaurant Connections were a default color, and some of the child bubbles would change color to match their parent(?) bubble. I may have been exaggerating a bit.
I hope you check out the tool. It’s great to chart interconnected mindaps.
A Technical Writer's Guide to the Galaxy 
Hey Ashley,
I think that your PLN looks really nice! It is massive and really shows your breadth of experience. This tool looks really cool and similar to the Text2Mind Map application that some others in our class have used. I really like that you added in peers from your classes, as we are also a great resource for each other! You seem to have a lot of connections overall and I think that it is great that you are able to map these out, as it will only help you in the future as you plan out your next professional step after school.
Well done!
Collin
Hey Ashley,
I think that your PLN looks really nice! It is massive and really shows your breadth of experience. This tool looks really cool and similar to the Text2Mind Map application that some others in our class have used. I really like that you added in peers from your classes, as we are also a great resource for each other! You seem to have a lot of connections overall and I think that it is great that you are able to map these out, as it will only help you in the future as you plan out your next professional step after school.
Well done!
Collin
Hi Ashley, thanks for sharing this new mind mapping tool! Even though it sounds a bit frustrating to use, I think you’ve done a great job in showing your networking breadth as well as demonstrating how they all connect some how. The only criticism would be that the colors seem a bit chaotic. However, like you said, it’s definitely tedious work, and all of our PLN’s are continuing works in progress! I will need to continuously work on mine.