MY PLN

Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network.  

A Personal Learning Network, or PLN, is a communication between people who are participating and learning from one another. These people often share an abbundance of knowledge with one another.  Through the use of different social networks such as Twitter, Tweet-deck, Diigo, Taskstream, and Classroom 2.0 I have been able to communicate with so many different students and educators who share similar personal and professional educational goals.  As a teacher I will benefit from having a Personal Learning Network because I will get excellent resources, ideas and feedback from the different members of my PLN that will help me to be a cultivating and tech sauvy throughout my educational journey and professional career. Using tools such as these make it so much easier because they are practically handed to you rather than having to search for them.

When starting this class I was assigned to create a Twitter account that I was told would be used as an educational tool. I had never used this specific social network previously and was quite hesitant in seeing how this would help me educationally. Now that I have explored the fundamentals and have learned how to network with particular people who share common intertrests and educational goals, I am able to use this site towards building my PLN. On Twitter I have set up a tool called Tweetdeck that allows me to have multiple columns to follow different streams.  I have been able to follow my home stream, edchat and ntchat.  Some of the people that I am now following include Lisa Dabbs, Greg McGough, Vicki Davis, Jefferey Heil and other Educators.  WHen folowing these people and using hashtags I can get resources and see different ideas posted by the people who tweet in these streams.  I am currently following a number of some family members, my classmates, my professor, and some of the participants from a ntchat discussion who I found interested and informative.

On Wednesday, November 2 at 5pm I participated in one of the ntchat discussions.  The topic of the chat forrum was “How should a principal support a new teacher?” I started with viewing the stream from Twitter.com but then switched to using Tweetdeck to view the chat forum because the posts were coming in at a very fast pace.  It was interesting to read all the helpful advice and the questions that new or future teachers posted. Everything discussed was insitful as well as motivational and it was interesting to have so many different people from all around the country involved in the same discussion at the same time. These strangers can come together and use this tool in such a positive way and I feel that I have benefited as a future student to have been now exposed to what is out there and will continue to utilize different chat rooms and social networks in the future.  A few ideas that were tweeted during this ntchat that especially stood out to me as great advice was, “Support me by actively checking up on my progress and giving me tips and constructive criticism to help me become a better teacher.” “I want a principal who understands that as a new teacher that I am going to make mistakes.” “Letting the new teacher know his/ hers and even the schools' expectations. And not to expect the new teacher to be a mind reader.”

I have also learned how Diigo can be such a great networking and bookmarking tool. Once you download the Diigo toolbar you can bookmark websites and information as well view sites that other people bookmarked and tagged onto Diigo. It is helpful to use and find people who are interested in the same information that you are and you can do this by reading how they tagged certain information. This allows you to benefit from the research they have already persued and use the same resources with only half the amount of virtually digging. Maybe thats where they got the name Diigo? I found numorous people to follow on Diigo for example my classmates, Terre Shoemaker, Samantha Webb, Angela Juragi as well as my profesor, Jefferey Heil, and some pcomplete strangers who share the same educational interests as me, Ms. Davis,Silvia Escobar and Tami Brass.  I searched the Diigo networks for subjects tagged such as math, education, lessons, technology, spanish, learning and PLN.  By doing this I was able to find other Diigo members who have bookmarked valuable resources simmular to topics I am interested in, and I am now following these people through the Diigo Network. I tagged five different sites under PLN along with other tags. One of the most important tag for PLN was the site that I bookmarked that gave me a list of tools I could use when creating my Personal Learning Network. I also tagged other sites that I found relavent which featured topics I could use when creating my PLN. Some of these sites include helpful tools for teachers such as different learning styles or Heinle learning center. I also bookmarked sites that my professor adviced me to use when creating my PLN. Every site that I tag on Diigo helps further me in my process of becoming a successful teacher as well as install a desire to research more by using my PLN and become comfortable and benefit from the process.

Along with using online social networking data bases such as Twitter and Diigo, I am now a registered member of a site called Classroom 2.0. Classroom 2.0 is another social network for educators, and students who are persueing a career in education. On this webpage you can participate in different digital discussion forums, watch educational videos or webinars, and read all sorts of articles. Of the different tools I will mention on specific recording that I listened to “Ed Tech News, Podcast, and the Hack Education Roundup” which was about technology solutions for educators. This discussion talked about how teachers adopt new technology tools quickly. I know this is true as I am a prime example and are witnessing this first hand. The disscussion continues to inform its viewers that technology is now a necisity in a classroom. Tools such as evernote, and dropbox are some examples they spoke of. Many different recordings and videos such as this can be viewed on the website and I find them very informational. They solve problems and answer questions that teachers may have.