Sunday, August 5, 2012

Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network

A personal learning network (PLN) is an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment. The tools that I use to establish and communicate with this network include: Twitter (an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets") Diigo (a social bookmarking website), and The Educator's PLN (a website dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators). Having a PLN will help me by introducing me to websites and other resources to assist me advancing my knowledge and skills as an educator. 

 Twitter provides me with broad range of educators to interact with. I am following, subscribing to a persons tweets, my Education 422: Technology for Educators professor in order to continue my access to the resources he has discovered. Being a member of Twitter allows me to access a live chat on the topic of education. The chat I observed is known as #edchat. I logged on to the chat at 5pm on Sunday August 5th. Logging on to the chat meant that I could read the tweets of people interested in sharing the websites they found to be valuable resources on the topic of education. Participating in the chat allowed me to find resources I would either have not thought to search for or spent too much time searching for. Twitter has provided me access to a wide variety of resources.

Diigo also provides access to websites other educators have found valuable. I am following (I have access to the websites a person has bookmarked) an individual known to me only as Denis S. I chose to follow him because he is self-described as "educational technology geek, educator, blogger" and he has bookmarked 141 websites on relating to education. One of the websites I have have tagged (add a label to) as PLN is Teacher Reboot Camp because it provides tips and websites to efficiently network with other educators.

I joined the digital discussion forum known as Educator's Personal Learning Network. The Educator's PLN is a website dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators. I viewed a video called How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries, that I found on the website. The video was part of a series known as TED and was posted by a member of the website. The video was a brief history on how scientist have been motivated to make major scientific discoveries. The video would be an good resource to show to students to encourage curiosity and exploration.

No comments:

Post a Comment