Transforming your social network into a personal learning network fundamentally changes the way you interact online.
This past year I have been exploring this exact topic while attempting to best maintain accountability while learning online. This has led me to multiple conversations with new online friends from all different realms of life.
In the midst of one of my conversations with one of my online friends Aaron Lewis, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Brendan Schlagel. Aaron is the same guy who introduced me to Roam Research, which I attribute to a transformation in the way I take notes online. Needless to say, I highly value his recommendations for all things online!
Brendan is the co-founder of hyperlink.academy. What is Hyperlink?
Hyperlink is a course platform and online school built for seriously effective learning.
Seriously effective learning online? I had to dive deeper.
Time To Get Meta
This led to myself enrolling into The Meta Course via the hyperlink platform to uncover more about what this online school entailed. The Meta Course is essentially a course dedicated to creating great courses. In the duration of the course, you work on conceptualizing the learning structures for the ideas and practices that you find most interesting and would like to teach on.
The initial factor that drew me in was the fact that the course was FREE and you got to flesh out your course idea all throughout the course.
A fun question to ponder while reading this is: if you could create a course dedicated to any topic, what would it be?
Nevertheless, due to my many divergent interests, as apparent throughout these weekly newsletters, I had a hard time picking just ONE topic to teach on. By the time the course finished, I had one idea that seemed most compelling. It was the idea of creating one’s own rabbit hole, but I felt that this would only be best understood by attacking it on an individual level first.
It was clear that teaching a course wasn’t the best option for me yet. However, what about leading a Learning Club?
The Hyperlink Learning Adventure Club
This led me to question, well what even is a learning club? How does one even go about leading a group?
“Clubs are a lightweight way to convene people with shared interests to explore new things together.” - Hyperlink
Due to my initial hesitation in hosting an online course, let alone an online group, I was then more than happy to partake in a rather intriguing experiment I saw posted by Brendan Schlagel.
Here is the Hyperlink Learning Adventure Club description that he had proposed:
A peer cohort for propelling ambitious self-directed learning projects. Join for motivation, accountability, feedback, structure, clarity, and creative momentum.
I was sold on the bit about creative momentum.
The price of this experimental learning club was fairly reasonable at ($25) for a month. This sounded like the exact jolt I needed in terms of structuring an independent creative project, as well as sharing some of the ideas I had wanted to touch upon more.
I enrolled.
The project I chose to tackle was creating this newsletter The Freelance Graduate Student. This is my 12th week of writing this newsletter, and I have to thank the Learning Adventure Club in making me pursue this individual project.
The most underrated part of this course, is the shared process of creative momentum. Over the 4-5 week duration of the course we set up weekly calls and established 1:1 partnerships. My partner from this course was Maria Papadopoulou. We actually still keep in touch on a bi-weekly basis, sharing the latest of our internet learning explorations. On thesee calls we keep tabs on our cumulative progress, as well as how this reflects back to our overall goals for the learning club.
Once the learning club was over, I was craving another way of establishing these connections and creative momentum. This led me to start the Newsletter Creator Club.
The Newsletter Creator Club
Essentially, the Newsletter Creator Club take a very similar form as the Learning Adventure Club. Here is an excerpt from my learning club description.
Join to build a consistent newsletter practice. We'll each create a system for writing and publishing, talk tools and platforms, share feedback, and get comfortable writing in public together.
This led to me organizing five weeks worth of weekly meetings, weekly co-working sessions, as well as a weekly 1:1 partnership correspondence akin to the Learning Adventure Club. For this course, I was paired with Maggie Appleton.
There were seven consistent club participants, and we drove to the fundamental core of why we actually wanted to start our newsletters in the first place.
Needless to say, this learning club format worked again!
Which is leading me to wonder… what is it that makes these work so well?
Friendship: In the three hyperlink experiences I have taken part in, I have been fortunate enough to meet new friends, doing all sorts of interesting stuff online! Meeting people from all walks of life, dedicated to learning… and best of all, for fun.
Rhythm: meeting on a weekly basis whether as a group, and/or meeting with a partner enables you to get in a rhythm. This allows you to segment a particular mode of thought. Generating creative momentum towards whatever your goals are when joining a learning club.
Shared Goals: joining a group with shared interests and shared goals serves as an amplifier for your learning. This also creates the opportunity for building community, as well as fostering relationships for future collaboration.
April 19th, 2021 was the last day my group met for the inaugural Newsletter Creator Club.
I WANT MORE.
What’s Next?
If you are looking to enrich your social network and transform it more into a personal learning network, I cannot recommend Hyperlink enough.
I am not exactly sure where my future with Hyperlink will take me, but I am thankful that I found them. Today, I ended up pitching another club that I intend on hosting. Further details on this will be disclosed in a future piece of writing :)
Through Hyperlink, I have found this really interesting corner of the internet unlike any other I am traditionally used to when it comes to approaching a way to find a meaningful education.
Learning online can actually be fun when done with others who are just as committed to their self-education as you are. Hyperlink is a playground for the intellectually curious, as well as those looking to double-down on their creative side!
Hyperlink has become the driver of my personal learning network. And I am better off for it.
Cheers to lifelong learning,
Adam Bartley
PARTING NOTE
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