Professional Learning Network

“We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world.” 

– David Warlick

I am now halfway through a Learning and Technology course (I can’t believe how time flies) and would like to take a moment to self-assess my progress in cultivating my Professional Learning Network a.k.a. PLN.  After reading through the PLN Guidelines, I find myself between two worlds in the areas of reading, tweeting and sharing.  I have been reading many articles and blogs and exploring different professional websites on a near daily basis to help me as I take on more responsibility in my current student teaching site and get into my Action Research project.  However, I have not been using an RSS aggregator.  I usually search particular sites (Pinterest, Twitter, Learnist, Teachers Pay Teachers, Google Scholar) to find relevant articles and information but I can see how having an RSS aggregator can make finding information more time efficient.

I have been trying to share my findings and thoughts regarding my AR inquiry project, the projects of my peers, or general educational tools that I found to be helpful by bookmarking them onto my Learnist and/or Pinterest account and tweeting them.  I have also found some great resources on Twitter, but I feel I am not being very efficient when searching for specific resources on this particular site.  Additionally, I know that I need to spend more time exploring the tweets of the people that I am following.  Professor Heil has said this many times, and I know it to be true -- to really get a sense of how to use Twitter, you actually have to commit to spending regular amounts of time Tweeting, reading Tweets and utilizing Tweet deck.  This is definitely something that I plan to do, and like some of my classmates have said, I plan to set aside time (at least 30 minutes) each day on Twitter.

In terms of Bookmarking, Writing and Commenting, I do feel like I am approaching the Matrix.  I feel a lot more comfortable blogging and it has helped me reflect upon all of the things I am learning at my student teaching site and in my course work.  I also enjoy reading the blogs of my classmates, the comments they write for each other and and their contributions to our EDUC 578 blog and Edmodo site.  

I would like to learn more about thinglink, Popplet and edcanvas and plan to explore each of these sites before the end of this semester.  I would love support in how to use these sites and how I could utilize them in the classroom.  

P.S. I just found this article on Twitter (yay, me!) that proved to be extremely helpful.

Great Tips on how we can cultivate our PLN