Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network (PLN)

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My PLN is a variety of resources and tools that I have access to that consists of individuals, articles, videos, blogs, discussions, and wikis. My PLN will help me as a classroom teacher because I will be able to ask questions and find information that will help me to build my curriculum, stay updated, and get advice from mentors.

I am currently exploring Twitter and adding several organizations and people to my network. I followed Education Week Teacher, which is a leading source for K-12 teacher leaders that offers information about instruction, school environment, classroom technology, and curriculum. I also am following Teachers20.com. This is a place I can go and connect with a collection of teachers sharing resources to help us prepare students for the digital age. After exploring Twitter for helpful resources for information for students studying to become future educatiors, I found TES New Teachers. This is a useful resource for advice and support for all new teachers

I participated in the educational chat Ecosys#: Exploring the Future of K-12 Education. The chat took place on Wednesday 5/4/11 at 7pm. The topic focus was the “Next Steps to “Challenges” framework.” My experience was mostly observations. It took me a while to figure out the time difference for other tweeters. I realized that when joining a chat it is very beneficial to go to the front page for the chat group and read the context of the discussions. I was warmly welcomed by several members. I found it challenging to keep my tweets to a minimum letter capacity. One of the topics discussed was related to require reading “classics” that might be fruitless to the learning of the students. I am glad that I had this experience because I am now not afraid of the unknown world of Tweetchat.

I use Diigo as a networking tool. I share important information that I find about schools, teaching, and students with other teacher professionals around the world. I can easily access information on topics that I am researching and implementing in my own classroom through tagging and bookmarking. I tagged three sites PLN. First, Twitter4Teachers is a wiki that has great resources to other professionals in the teaching field and gives users access to great resources for all educators. Second, I tagged the EducatorsPLN, in which I am a member. This is a ning site that focuses on encouraging developed personal learning network for educators! Lastly, I bookmarked an article titled “Personal Learning Network 101.” This resource gives digital users access to information about how to create a Personal Learning Network online. The multiple authors have a variety of experiences in education with great advice.

After I was approved as a member of The Educator's PLN I began exploring this ning site. I watched the video Rhee the reformer, a creative fiction story narrating the current challenges that educators are faced with today. This six minute video highlighted the problems with the school systems emphasis on testing scores. The motto of the story was, “When you live by the Data, you die by it too!”