Journal 7: Creating my PLN

(NETS-T 3, 4, and 5)

    A PLN is a "personal learning network". It is a way of using social networking to increase your professional development. A way to have your questions answered, as well answer other people's questions. It is a way to keep up with developments in your field by following blogs, using social bookmarking such as Diigo, and following people's Twitter streams, and participating in conversations and chats on Twitter. Other things that could contribute to a PLN could be digital discussion forums such as Educators PLN or even email. The amount of resources available through PLNs is endless. My personal learning network includes Twitter, Diigo and the Educators PLN.

     Twitter is one of the best ways to connect with people who share your interests. You can simply follow them and see what interesting thinks they post that might be helpful for you and once you feel comfortable, you can start having conversations with people who you "follow".  The people that I follow are all interested in education, as I am. However, unlike me, they actually are teachers in the field and therefore have great resources for me to explore. First, I follow Angelyn Cheathan from Texas who is a  "Lover of all things technology and ways to use it in elementary education". She post several interesting links daily and has hundreds of followers that would also be beneficial for me to follow as well. I chose to follow her because I, too, want to teach at the elementary level. The next person I follow is Lorraine Mulick, whose biography states: "Elementary Education; Research; Ed. Policy; SPED; Change Agent; Leadership Acquisition; I care about education; My greatest achievement is student success." She posts so many great tweets about how teaching values, life skills and forming relationships are just as important as learning the basic standards such as the ABC's. I agree with her and enjoy seeing these posts. I also follow Mr.Nesi, a social studies teacher, because social studies is my favorite subject. Another person I follow is Suzie Nestico. She is an aspiring principal currently teaching kids and is a Flat Classroom Certified Teacher. I was attracted to her page because she has over a thousand followers.The last person I follow is Matthew Nathan whose bio reads: "Analysis and perspective on the intersection of K-12 education, policy, research and business". I chose to follow him because he offers a different perspective (policy and business) on education, compared to most of the teachers that I follow who post ideas that are useful in the classroom.

     Another great aspect of Twitter is participating in educational chats. The chat that I participated in (or more accurately, lurked in) was #edtech. I chose to participate in this chat because it is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so it fit well with my schedule. I participated twice, first on Thursday, July 28th, and again on Tuesday, August 2nd, both in the middle of the afternoon. Also, I  was sure that it would fit with everything I had been learning in this ED422 class. I was right! Though the format of the chat was different than I expected (I expected more of a "conversation" between people), it was still very informative. I was a little surprised how it was just people basically posting links related to the topic, but nonetheless, I was directed to some great resources through this chat. I saw several posts about ipads and the fun apps and games that can be used on them, 1-1 initiatives, and then a lot of posts about blogging, which seems to be a very widespread technology in classrooms recently.

On Diigo, a social bookmarking website, I follow Casey Mayfield, an 11th and 12th grade teacher who is passionate about using technology in the job that she loves. I also follow Melinda Waffle, an educational technology consultant, Steve Moore, an excited new teacher that is bursting at the seams with enthusiasm for education, Tracy Seyb, an elementary K-5 technology teacher interested in exploring the vast resources for my kiddos that are out there on the internet, and Sylvia Martinez, who does not have a bio but bookmarks several useful technology websites and blogs. Along with people in my network, I also have a library with blogs and websites related to technology, education, and of course, PLNs. A few examples of items in my library include, "Cybraryman Internet Catalog", which I tagged under PLN, because it relates to twitter chats. I also tagged the website "The Educators PLN" under PLN (of course). Another item that I have tagged with PLN is "How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN" on Edutopia. The use of tags is helpful so that anytime I want to find something that I bookmarked that relates to PLNs, I just have to click on my PLN tag and everything I have ever tagged with it will appear. This resources saves a lot of time and is a very helpful organizer of online resources.

     The last part of my PLN is the Digital  Discussion Forum (Ning) called The Educators PLN. On this website, members of the PLN can message each other, read blogs, watch videos and more related to education. One video I watched on this website was titled "Karen Cator on Cyberbullying". In this video, Karen Cator, the Director of the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education, talks about how all of the tragic events related to cyberbullying are a call to action. Adults need to give students wisdom about digital citizenship. There needs to be a way for everyone who is online to know what is appropriate and what is not. Students need to know that the effects of cyberbullying are amplified compared to "playground bullying", and more importantly, that what they put on the internet will stay with them for life. A video they made about a classmate can always be resurfaced and can cost them a job. She is in favor of a campaign in this country to teach digital citizenship to all.