A personal learning network (PLN) is basically a system for lifelong learning. For educators (like my future self) it helps to take control of their teaching by compiling resources that will aid in setting learning goals, and will help tremendously in the arena of communication with others. A personal learning network is also problem-based in that with any question one may have; they can most likely effectively, efficiently, and quickly find the answer. This type of network can be manipulated to the individual. This means as a hopeful middle school math teacher, I can adapt my PLN to my liking and my needs as a classroom teacher.
Twitter is a great tool to learn things from others across the nation and even the world. It is intriguing and exhilarating to connect, share, and learn from others who share the same common education enriching goals that I do. My network currently consists of not only other students who are in the same process and school as I am but it contains valuable people who can aid as a resource in my teaching. I have a male principal I am following who provides a lot of information to new teachers, which will also be beneficial in the future if I decide to get into administration. Another person I am following is a male math and business teacher from Canada who caught my eye because he posted an interesting Dateline NBC story on school bullying. A female primary teacher who is experimenting with new teaching tools is also in my network. She has some interesting tweets about technology tools that can be used in the classroom that I have not thought about before.
Another member is a male math teacher from near by (in the Pacific Northwest). He seems to be working in a middle school and a math teacher, which is directly in the field that I would like to be in. An exciting thing happened when a male math teacher from the UK responded to one of my tweets asking for referrals of who to follow so of course he is part of my network as well. I have quite a few others that I am following as well and I hope this number grows with valuable tweeters to add to my PLN.
On Wednesday March 30, 2011, I attended a New Teacher Chat (#ntchat) that started at 5pm PST. This chat is dedicated to helping new teachers become acclimated to the teaching profession and allows attendees to share ideas and collaborate through supportive information. The topic featured the website TeachHub and the issue of active engagement in the classroom. Ideas included using individual dry erase boards in the classroom, letting students select their own topic when doing a project, google apps and wikis, twitter, interactive white board, an app called multiplication battle, saying things like snap once if you agree, a website that allows you to create cartoons easily called toondoo or bitstrips, a website which shows how to use SmartBoard, thatquiz.org which produces math quizzes, studyisland.com, response clickers (or pollseverywhere.com), and edmodo.com (social learning for classrooms) among many more useful ideas.
Along with Twitter, Diigo can also be a great networking tool for teachers. My library and saved links can be shared with others and I can look into what teachers in my field have also saved as important. There are so many different resources and websites available that it is impossible to get all of the information just by hearce. Diigo offers individuals a chance to share and get answers even when you may not know exactly how to ask for what is needed. Some of the websites I found were saved under the tag PLN. One of these include a website which beaks down exactly what a PLN is. Defining this can be difficult and this site does a decent job of accomplishing this task. Another site saved is a PLN for educators. Here podcasts, chats, videos and event information is provided. Another site provides a wide range of PLN examples that educators can use. A final site tagged under PLN describes how educators keep updated with technology information.
The digital discussion forum that I joined and added the badge to my blog was Classroom 2.0. I explored this site and learned a lot more than I expected to. One of the videos that caught my eye is about iPads in the classroom. This correlates with the discussion I participated in on Twitter and is interesting because I have an iPad. At Puster Elementary, a 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Price, persuaded her school to get iPads instead of iPod touches for her classroom. The students love this tool and it’s a wonderful way for them to engage and participate in the classroom while having fun. Although this is a wonderful idea, it’s a reality that many schools can not afford technology like this.
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