Journal 7

My Personal Learning Network

What is a PLN     

     A Personal Learning Network for educators, or a PLN, is the term used for connecting with others in the education field for the purposes of sharing and gaining new information and ideas related to education.  Creating a PLN is easy because of social media and other online resources. A PLN can be as big and integrated or as small and simple as you need it to be.

Twitter

     Twitter is a great resource that anyone should have in their PLN. It is so easy and fast to share quick ideas or links to information that can be very helpful to many people. I have followed quite a few people that I interacted with on new teacher chats and technology chats. I follow people that post interesting and useful information that relates to education and that I think will be able to benefit me in the future. I have tweeted and retweeted when I think the content is valuable and should be shared with others.

Diigo

     I have followed a few people that looked like they have shared useful bookmarks. This is a great tool to use in a PLN because not only are we sharing the links to articles, videos, and other sources, but we can also annotate and highlight the important parts or the main ideas of why you though they are important enough to share or save. The items that I tagged with a PLN tag are sources that will help me while I am still getting my PLN started. They offer tips and strategies to get the most our of my PLN and why these ideas will help me to connect with others in education.

Educators PLN

     I joined Educators Personal Learning Network website. Educators PLN is a website where members can link all of their blogs, and social media profiles in order to extend their PLNs. Members can post articles that they write. I read an article written by Lacey Smith on April 23, 2013 about the characteristics of a collaborative classroom. They include shared knowledge between teachers and students, and shared authority of designating classroom goals. Smith also stated that in a collaborative classroom teachers are the mediators of knowledge, but that it is the student's responsibility to take charge of their learning. I think this is a great way to think of school, that it is not just the teacher feeding the students information, but that students are there to learn about their world and the tools they will need to be successful in it. The fourth and final characteristic of a collaborative classroom that Smith talked about was to integrate all interests and ability levels "which promotes healthy interactions and dialogs among students."