PLN: A PLN (Personal Learning Network) is a custom personal learning environment created, managed and utilized by its owner. A PLN is a virtual place where a learner can interact with people who hold the same views and interests to help develop and contribute to their personal and professional development and knowledge. In my PLN I currently use a social bookmarking site called Diigo, Twitter, Skype, gmail, Google Docs, and Blogger.com. These learning networks will help me as a teacher by enabling me to access information, expertise and experiences shared by other, more practiced teaching professionals as well as share my own.
Twitter: Though i was apprehensive in joining Twitter at first, this networking tool has proven to be a valuable tool for me as a future educator. I am currently following 9 people, organizations or blogs with some connection to education. I have already leared quite a bit from either reading their tweets or the links that these people have posted. I recently participated (or rather observed) an education chat, #edchat. I found this discussion very interesting to say the least. I was most interested in the subject of professional development (PD). One participant in the chat wrote, "If we view teachers as professionals, then PD should be focused on what they think they need, not state, fed and district mandates." I believe this is a very important statement, because teachers know better then anyone else what is needed in the classroom. This directly correlates with what another participant stated, "The best educators do not wait for PD days. They know their weaknesses and have the drive to improve on those weaknesses everyday!" I agree with this who heartedly. A good educator reflects on thier classroom experience everyday and alters their lesson plans, approach, est. to better their students' experience in the classroom. I do believe that is important for teachers' voices to be heard, because not only do they understand better then anyone what their classrooms and schools need, but they have a responsiblility and direct connection to the students to follow through. I have also learned, thanks to my participation in this chat, that there are resources, such as http://cybraryman.com/profdevelop.html, where one can find blogs directly related to professional development. Overall this experiece has graced me with valuable knowledge.
Diigo: Diigo is a social bookmarking website that allows a user to bookmark and tag web pages that interest the user either on a personal or professional level. Diigo also allows you to highlight and or attach comments to any part of the bookmarked page. All bookmarked pages can be shared with your Diigo network, shared with specific people or kept private. I currently follow 8 people and am followed by 2 and I plan on continuing to expand those numbers! I decided to follow Jonathan Tepper, Phil Taylor, Karen Richardson, and others, because they bookmark great resources for teachers, technological websites as well as great informational websites. I believe that I will benefit greatly from these educators' bookmarks, comments and highlights! I have also bookmarked 3 websites using Diigo and used the tag feature to label them PLN. I bookmarked a blog called Eduwonk because it focuses on the current educational policies and news. As a future teacher, I believe that it is important to be aware of the ongoing education problems and successes. I also bookmarked the blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity because it houses really great technological projects for classrooms as well as educational news, est. Finally i decided to bookmark TeachingSagittarian (Living to Learn) it contains a lot of technological ideas for the classroom as well as the blogger's own feedback on using these ideas. I am very interested in technology in the classroom as well as current educational policies, so these blogs have great promise in being great learning resources for me.
Digital Discussion Forums(Ning): For my Digital Discussion Forum I chose to join the Educators PLN. The Educators PLN is a Ning site dedicated to the support of Personal Learning Networks for Educators. After adding the Educators PLN badge to my Blog, I hand picked the blog entry titled, "What's Love Got to do With It?" from the Educators PLN website. I found this blog very touching because it relates directly to the inspiration that drove me to enter the teaching profession. This blog is about a young boy who's home life was loveless which lead to behavioral problems at school. Most teachers and administrators made no effort to help this child, instead they began to take action to remove him from their school to rid themselves of this "problem" child. One teacher saw this child for what he was, an innocent child in desperate need of love and care. This teacher took the boy under her wing and because of her love and care, he began to improve behaviorally. This blog entry inspired me further and reaffirmed my personal reasons for entering the teaching profession. I believe that it is not only a teacher's job to teach their students, but it is also their job to provide a positive environment for their students. This story was very refreshing to me, because not only did this teacher create a positive environment for this child, but she got to know him and recognized his problems for what they were, but took the time to change his life.
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