A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is an online social network dedicated to learning and education. By incorporating multiple social networking tools like: Skype, Facebook, Diigo, Twitter, and blogs an educator can gain easy access and links to educational material, cohorts, and insight online. By creating my own PLN I am able to connect with professionals with the same interests in teaching, access to their resources, and vice versa (i.e. they can gain access to my: materials, resources, and incite). My PLN and I encourage communication and access to better our teaching abilities, experience, along with that of our students. My network of cohorts and resources is, also, no longer limited geographically.
Via my Twitter account I was able to follow professionals already in the teaching feild. Using hashtags specific to education (ex: #edchat, #edtech) I was able to link to other educational professionals and to online resources for education. Since, I am relatively new to Twitter along with other online tools and resources for teachers, I was mostly an observer in my first Twitter #edchat (date: 4/3/12@noon). The question of, "What should a good Administrator look like & how can we get there from here?" It was overwhelming at first to keep up with many of the posts on the question, but soon was able to navigate the discussion well. Opinions on the topic were posted quite rapidly. I agreed with most and disagreed with others. I did not partake in return tweeting but I explored links (posted by other participants) to: PLNs, teacher forums on educational administration, and teacher blogs. The links I explored were then integrated into my Diigo tag role and I selected to follow individuals who I found interesting and informative. I also chose to follow education professionals who I found interesting and informative: Cube for Teachers - and educational bookmarking community, Mark Brumley - a Tech-education advocate, and Joan Young - an elementary school teacher also involved with Scholastic Books.
With my Diigo account I am able to tag, bookmark, and highlight websites and material resources online. After tagging these online resources I can make them available to others via my Diigo tag role. I can also follow others, gaining access to their library of tags and websites that they find insightful or useful. In turn, others can follow me. I am currently following: my Educational Technologies professor, Jeffery Heil, who is helping me to develop my PLN, Mark Brumley, a Tech-education advocate (also a member in my Twitter network) and Discovery Educator Network, because of my interest in Discovery Network media and its uses as a pedagogical tool. The rest of my PLN tags can be found in my Diigo list Robert Mendiola's PLN and My Groups.
Joining Educators PLN, an discussion forum designed for teacher networking, I am able to join in on conversations related to: educational practices, tools, and resources. I was able to explore video posted to encourage better education. I chose the video with Pixar's Randy Nelson on the Collaborative Age posted by Thomas Whitby (also in my Diigo network). In the video, Nelson discusses the heavy importance of a collaborative effort among people, starting with students, to reach an end goal. The end goal is more easily obtained and in most cases exceeded with a collaborative effort. I agree with the collaboration and is reflected in the development of my PLN.
I encourage other educators and future educators to build their PLN. You may utilize the links in this post or find other online tools and websites to build your own PLN.
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