A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is an entanglement of connections a learner creates in order to share, swap, and save ideas in a particular area of interest. Through PLNs professionals, students, artists, teachers, parents, or your average Joe can come together to learn about the same field and strengthen their own knowledge by interacting with others that have the same interests. Some tools I use in my network are: Twitter, Diigo, Symbaloo, and The Educator’s PLN. As a teacher, being part of a PLN will give me access to a wealth of knowledge and ideas from others in the field of education. By being able to readily access information online from others in my network, I can infuse my lessons with new ideas and constantly seek fresh perspectives to address in the classroom. The beautiful thing about a personalized network like this is that it ensures our continuous growth and constant learning as people.
One resource I have become fond of is Twitter. As a future teacher I have used Twitter to learn from other teachers, find resources I can use someday,and discuss issues specific to education. Twitter allows people to share short bits of information or “tweet” and then tag their thoughts to be categorized with a specific group. This allows people to search a particular topic and find all the tweets relating to that topic from anyone and everyone on the web. This aspect of Twitter makes sharing information especially interesting because you can gain perspectives from all over the world. I enjoy participating in chats on Twitter, specifically the new teacher chat. This weekly chat allows for educators to have discussion about topics pertaining to students, lessons, the classroom, etc and share relevant resources at the same time.
On April 10, I participated in the new teacher chat focusing on struggles new teachers face and techniques they use to overcome them. This was a great experience because it gave me insight to a variety of challenges I may face as a teacher as well as multiple strategies to get around these roadblocks. It seemed as though most new teachers found organization and taking on so much at once to be the biggest issue. I was able to save my favorite parts of this discussion through Storify, an online personal story publisher, which is shown in another blog post. Mostly, I take away from these chats a deep enjoyment from talking and sharing with other educators and a huge reminder that teaching is my biggest passion.
Diigo is another tool I like to use to connect with educators. Once I find a resource I like from Twitter, a chat, or online I can save a link to the resource in my Diigo library. Diigo allows for bookmarking, or saving, as well as highlighting, capturing, and sharing of any resource found on the Internet. In addition to creating my own library full of resources, I am able to view the libraries of people with similar interests to mine. On Diigo, I follow other educators with a passion for teaching, and most of them also take an interest in technology. By connecting with these people, I am able to see the resources they bookmark and even bookmark them for myself to use later. This ability to share and save information highly contributes to my PLN as a whole. The main resources that I tagged PLN in Diigo are the websites I use to share ideas with others, specifically: Twitter,Tweetdeck, Tweetchat, and Symbaloo.
To enhance my Personal Learning Network, I joined The Educator’s PLN, which is a digital discussion forum. This is a website where people of a common interest (education) can come together to share ideas, videos, discussion, thoughts, and resources. It works like any other social media site being that the overall goal is to serve as an outlet for the exchange of information. This site is different, and special, because its purpose is specific to education. Through The Educator’s PLN, I am able to watch videos that other educators find worthy of sharing. One video I watched was a taped speech by sociologist, Sam Richards, titled A Radical Experiment in Empathy. This motivational speech uses the current war over oil in the Middle East as an example to catalyst empathy within the audience. The speaker continuously challenges the audience to put themselves in another person’s shoes and sincerely try to understand the life of another individual. By the end of the speech, a very powerful message in empathy is conveyed, and I was inspired to be a little more patient with others and to remember that despite our differences, we are all just people with the same desires, fears, dreams, and needs at the end of the day. Having the patience to stop and understand each other before jumping to conclusions and being reactive is a trait that should be emphasized in the classroom. As a future teacher, I plan to encourage my students to see the world with a perspective similar to the one Richards presents and to approach conflict resolution with kindness instead of frustration.
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