Personal Learning Network

When we were introduced to this course one of the first things we learned about was a Personal Learning Network and how important it is to us as future teachers. By taking this course it has helped me expand my PLN and by doing this opened me up to many new and useful resources.

The first step I took in this class of expanding my PLN was creating this blog. In this blog I have been able to share thoughts and work I have done with teachers/classmates while also being able to see some of their work as well.

Another aspect of my PLN is Twitter. I have already been on Twitter for just over 4 years now and although I do not tweet a tonne I am on my way to 400 followers. I have always thought of Twitter as a excellent source of information and for me it has replaced reading the newspaper in the morning and saved much time surfing the web for information. I had never really thought about using it for education but I gave John Evans a follow after his presentation and he has been tweeting many great links for educational web technology which I have been able to check out. So already by just giving one person a follow I have expanded my PLE to many great ideas and programs. I can see Twitter having potential in the classroom as well for updating homework or classroom news but it is important to separate your professional teacher twitter from your personal ideas and thoughts.

Reading the Connected From The Start E-Book and having discussions as a class on the Ning forum has also opened me up to a lot of creative ways to use this technology in the classroom. Our discussions have also been able to point out a lot of potential positives and problems that we could encounter using these as well in our future classrooms.

 My digital portfolio which I have just finished putting the final touches on has much future use as well for potential career options and teaching interviews. It is a great way to show off some of your assets and give someone the chance to look at it if they want rather than throwing a bunch of paper in their face. I look forward to expanding my Digital Portfolio as I attend more professional development and pick up more experience student teaching. I also hope that by looking at other classmates E-Portfolios this week we can maybe pick up some pointers from one another.

Overall these are some of main things I have done to expand my PLN and start building these connections. This is just the beginning though and it is very beneficial for us to continue to open up our world and bring in and share ideas and to learn from others as well through the world wide web.