Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network

PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK (PLN)

NETS-T (5) 

A personal learning network (PLN) is pretty simple if you break it down. It is a network usually web-based that helps you personally learn. It is a community where people can gather and learn from one another. Me, the learner can create connections and develop a network that will help me in my professional development and knowledge. A PLN is like a backpack where all of the essentials to learning are located but rather it be a physical thing it is a web-based backpack. For example I use Twitter, Diigo, and Classroom 2.0 to help me learn in the field of education.My PLN will help me when I need new methods of teaching new material, or need more resources. My PLN will only help me grow and succeed in my pursuit of education.
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Twitter is an amazing outlet for people to dicuss topics about education. I never knew how influencial Twitter could be until we had to go to the educational chat. Before I just thought it was a place where people aka celebrities would make a stink about their lives and why things were not going their way. But now I know that it is a community to learn and grow from. In my community there are many students and educators that I respect and appreciate their input. I believe that they would help me and be able to discuss education in depth. I got to experience this first hand when I joined in on a chat. Here is how it went. :)

Chat: #mathchat Topic: "How do we get parents involved in the math teaching/learning revolution?" Date/Time: Monday, Nov 21. 2011 @ 1:30pm

This was an awesome experience. I felt that I was involved by just reading what people had to say. The best part was how supportive everybody was with one another. They supported and disagreed but in a kind manner. I actually saw someone that I am a following post. I was cool to see that my network is expanding.  The thing I did notice is that there was no definite answer to the question, there were many. People made suggestions that could help everyone, and that is the part I enjoyed most. There were so many different ideas that one of those ideas could fit any teachers teaching style. I loved that with Twitter you can post links to websites so that you can get more information on what you are looking for, I really loved this feature. I was able to upload an application to my desktop called Tweetdeck that allowed me to follow the whole conversation. Here is how some of it looked. ====> It was really neat to watch and I love the fact that these chats go on all the time. I am really looking forward to getting involved next time. :)


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Diigo is another great tool, it pretty much is exactly what it's advertisement says, collecting, highlighting, and then remembering. It allows you to see sites that other people have bookmarked. The greatest thing about this is you can search for things that you are interested in. The community that is in Diigo is one that you can rely on and seek help if needed. I added more people to my friends list aka community and they will see what I post and I can see what they post. This is a great tool to have for personal and professional. The greatest thing is that it is all saved on one site. You no longer have to save book marks on the internet browser it is all in one digital space. The Diigo toolbar is pretty cool too. All you do is click on it if you are at an interesting site. You can highlight special sections or even add sticky notes to write a note. Diigo is an awesome online resource that I will be using for a long time. 


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School 2.0 is another amazing PLN that all educators should add. While on Classroom 2.0, I watched a cute video called "Education in Human Values." It had to do with empathy. I think that as an educator empathy is necessary, considering that everyone has different cultures and backgrounds. This video made me think about how I am perceived. Sometimes I may not be having the greatest of day and my student will see this. But I need to being thinking about them at all times. They are my priority and I want them to see and through seeing they know that I do care. This website is made for educators and students it is a great resource and will be used often by me. Check out the video it is awesome.