A Personal Learning Network, or PLN, is a resource
used in one’s professional world to utilize accessible resources; it is a collection
of online tools that create a network in which many educators from around the
world share their ideas, communicate about educational tools, and manage their
professional development. PLN’s allow for educators from all around the world,
new and experienced, to connect online and discuss teaching techniques. A PLN
can be made up of websites such as Twitter, Diigo, Blogger, and Edmodo. It is
through these websites that I am learning to build my own network, advancing my
development in the professional world. These sites and many more, will aid me
in building my network with their contributions of valuable, educational tools.
These available resources will help me to share and receive new ideas for my career
in the field of education. Overall, this is a great network that will only advance
and benefit education in our society today!
I do not really like Twitter, and I was not a big
fan of it until recently. However, I have found it to be valuable with the
resources it has given me. Having created it for my technology class for educators,
I truly believe that it will be of aid to me when I start my student teaching
and more importantly, when I begin teaching in my professional life. I recently
have started following Teachers.net, Ed Week Teacher, and 21st
Century Teacher. Thus far they have offered some enlightening ideas for me to
take notes on! Twitter will allow me to receive information and ideas from
those that I am currently following. I am following many of my peers who will
go through the credential program with me at Cal State San Marcos, and I know
that this will be a great support system and place of reference when I have
questions.
I participated in #edchat on Thursday, August 2nd at
9 am. I thought following the chat was very interesting and informative. There was
an array of people with different expertise who were participating in the chat.
One woman posted an article about technology and ipads in the classroom that I
found to be very fascinating; I found it to be so fascinating that I commented
on her tweet. So many people were posting resources through articles and
websites in response to questions or even asking their own questions. It was
all very cool.
Diigo is a wonderful resource for educators because
it allows educators to truly build their PLN and stay connected to the
educational system through the world wide web. Diigo allows me, as a
prospective educator, to find resources through tags that I am interested in,
and to delve even further into specific educational topics that I can benefit
from learning about. One of the advantages about Diigo is that I am able to
follow others, which allows me to expand my knowledge in the field. I am
currently following professor Heil and some of the followers that he has in his
Diigo network. I am following Joel Garcia, Tom Whitby, Susan Glasset, David
Warlick, and Tim Heck. I found their profiles to be interesting and the information
that they tagged to be very relevant to me as a future educator. These people have
experience in the field, and lead the way for an abundance of resources to help
me in my career. By following these few, I was able to find more people to
follow and expand my PLN, that is forever growing. I also found groups that I
was interested in that I chose to follow. The websites that I chose to bookmark
were sites that related heavily to building one’s PLN. Two of the three
websites discussed how to advance your PLN, and the other website is an
educational news website that comes out with the latest information in the
educational system. These are all sites that will be very helpful to me on my
journey to be an educator.
The digital discussion forum that I decided to join
was Classroom 2.0. The video that I watched/listened to was Classroom 2.0 LIVE!
This video was really interesting because the topic was Symbaloo Edu, which I
have had some experience with. The guest, Pam, was discussing how to be
involved in the world of technology. She introduced the idea of Symbaloo and
what it means to the other educators. She summarized the idea of Symbaloo
really well by saying that it was essentially a mapping of your mind in the
world of technology; a digital source that maps out where you have been by
showing all your resources. I really enjoyed listening to this video and what
the women had to say. They explained everything thoroughly and made the chat enlightening,
allowing me to see Symbaloo in a new light.
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