In his video, “Sharing the Moral Imperative,” Dean Sharesk challenges all educators to build personal learning environments that promote a culture of sharing. He goes on to say that students are the direct beneficiaries of sharing among educators. Well, I could not agree more that students benefit from what is made open and public by instructors at other institutions of higher learning. For example, third-semester nursing students at MiraCosta College view YouTube videos on heart disease to help them learn about cardiac disorders. What is unique about these videos is that were developed by an instructor who used to teach at MCC, but now teaches in a nursing program in Washington state. I recently visited with the instructor that lives in Washington state and informed her that a MCC nursing instructor (who is a POT graduate) uses the videos in her course. This news of course delighted her, yet in a sense seemed to surprise her. Because she “passively” shared this information, she has/had no idea how many students world-wide have benefited from her work.

As she and I spoke further, I came to learn that she had “flipped the classroom” in a course that she teaches. I then informed her that the instructor at MCC using her videos had done the same thing. I then suggested that the two of them communicate with each other to “share” their experiences. However, if I had already completed Week 22 of POT before we spoke, I would have suggested that they both build a personal learning network in which sharing would be purposeful and intended. According to Alex Curos, the first step in building a PLN is building a twitter network.

Speaking of Twitter, Martin Weller stated that “The use of Twitter can both boost and predict citations of journal articles.” As someone who just completed a doctoral dissertation, I absolutely want to learn more about this……………….