Journal 7: PLN

     My personal learning network is a means to connect with people and resources that will enhance my understanding of education and classroom techniques. By using networking tools like Twitter, Diigo and other digital discussion forums, I have created a virtual web of knowledge that is ever changing and enlightening. My hope is that I will be able to refer to this net to challenge my methods as a future educator and to expand my resources for teaching.

     I have decided to include Twitter in my PLN because it acts as a forum for people to tie-in information about millions of useful topics. I have decided to follow a number of people on twitter because of their potential for sharing information about education that I find personally interesting or useful. One such person was Joan Weber, who values the use of theater in strengthening communication skills and critical thinking; two more resources were the US Dept. of Education and Education Week because they provide updates and news about education; another person was Adam Steiner, who uses a website to share free or low-cost web resources for teachers; a final resource is Office Ed Tech, which advocates the importance of using technology to contribute and improve education.

     To further my introduction into the world of PLN, I participated in an #artsed chat at 9am on April 7, 2011. The topic was “Reflections on Arts Advocacy Day,” which is an annual event that spreads awareness about the importance of the arts and the development of strong public policies and funding for it. Although it was hard for me to spend an hour watching the conversation develop, I enjoyed seeing the wealth of people and resources come together to discuss art education. An element that struck me was use of the word “Advoctweeting.” I think this word stresses the useful nature of twitter in that it can be a vital tool for advocating important topics.

     I have also decided to use Diigo, the social bookmarking site, as a networking tool because it allows me to not only tag and organize useful education sites for people in my network, but also highlight and annotate those webpages. This enables me to have conversations with my peers without leaving the page we are discussing. I used Diigo to create a network with various colleagues who post and update information about educational resources. In return, I am able to tag and post my own ideas and information for them to use. To tie-in my PLN directly, I tagged Twitter, The Educator’s PLN and Scholastic Teacher Share because they are all relevant ways of sharing information with people in my PLN.

     As my Diigo tags allude to, another tool I have decided to include in my PLN is the digital discussion forum, or ning site, called “The Educator’s PLN.” This site is useful because it acts as a social community for sharing conversations, events, news, and videos with other educators. One video I explored was entitled “Digital Footprints – Your New First Impression.” It was surprising to see the percentage of employers that use information from social networking sites to judge potential employees. I am now much more aware of the things that I am posting online, as well as the information that my friends post. You can learn a lot about someone by what they choose to post on their websites.