Creating My PLN!

Journal 7: Personal Learning Network (PLN)-EH
NETS- 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5


PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. With my own personal learning network I can gather information, collaborate with others, and gain life long learning. Such technological tools that contribute to my PLN that I've used are: Twitter, Diigo, Google Docs, Skype, and more.  I use my PLN to consult others who share similar interests and have discussion and comments between others near and far. A PLN helps me to connect with others through the world wide web by bringing the world to me by a click of a mouse. With my PLN I have another way to be a life long learner and to make the classroom, that I will one day teach in, more interesting.


Twitter 
Twitter is a social network that one can use in their PLN. Twitter allows me to take part in online chats with others who share my interest, it also allows me to gather information and collect it on my twitter account. In Twitter I am able to use hash tags to find others interested in a subject I'm interested in or find information on that subject. The five people who I decided to follow are : Dean Shareski a teacher, learner, and someone who try's not to take twitter too seriously. Heartteacher is a H.S. teacher, who likes art, education, and sports. Tiffany Della Vedova is an educator, runner, and mini mountain climber. Kendra Gilmore is a music teacher, coach, and likes to incorporate technology into the class. Lyn Hilt is an elementary school principle, technology integrator, coach, reader/writer, and likes connected learners. I choose all these people because I feel that I can learn something from them and because we share similar interests. I participated in 2ndchat on 7/25/11. Its a chat for second grade teachers. The discussion topic was about goole + and skype. The discussion talked about how goole + and skype can help second grade teachers connect and share ideas for their classrooms. Google + is a video chat between several people and skye is very similar. Two websites that people recommended were guide for skype: http://bitily/hov14 or skype for educators at http://t.co/zuwltkl. As I was watching the discussion reveal itself I noticed that it was going at a fast rate and I had a hard time keeping up or getting a word in. I ended up agreeing with someone and saying it sounded like a great idea. This only happened after three other people had tweeted, after the comment I originally wanted to reply to. It seems like a great way to bounce ideas off of others and get information for one's own classroom and teaching strategies.


Diigo 
Diigo is another social network or PLN that has helped me not only retrieve and share information, but it also bookmarks sites of interest and gives ideas for other relevant sites. I have used it to bookmark a few sites thus far, along with using tags, which allow me to go to other sites that pertain to that tag. I have used these bookmarks and tags to gather information and display it on my Diigo library for others to see and read. Therefore, I have created a information gathering cycle through networking with others who use Diigo. I am currently following these five people: Sylvia Martinez because she is interested in web2.0 which is finding facts fast, and wiki. Martinez also knows secrets about macs, which I would love to learn more about. Barnara Lindsey caught my eye because she knows about google+ , which I learned about in the 2ndchat on tweetchat. Also she is interested in twitter and classroom setup and procedures which I think all new or beginner teachers should know about. I decided to follow J. Black because like me she seems hands on. She is interested in design, photoshop, newsletters, which we did in class, and blogging. I choose Caroline Bucky because she knows about google apps which I'm trying to learn more about. She works in k-12 sites and I figured she would have good information for elementary school teachers and has lots of activities for the classroom. I decided to follow Julie Elmore because she is a science and linguistics elementary school teacher. I prefer art and english so I thought Elmore could help teach me things about science that I could use to teach my future students.
Tagged PLN on Diigo:
-Personal Learning Networks 101
- Comments 4 Kids
- English Companion 


 Digital Discussion Forums(Ning)

Visit The Educator's PLN
I decided to become a member of the Educators PLN. I had to become a member and be evaluated so that the site could check to see if I am a scammer or not. My membership is still pending. It is a Ning site, which is another collaborative site. I used it to find information through the videos that are on the site among the links and discussions it also has. I went to the videos on the site and  checked out, "What is Google+ (Google Plus) and do I need it?" In this video I learned about google+ and what some of its features are. Google+ is a social network, like Facebook. In google+ not everyone is your friend, rather contacts are grouped into circles.  From here I can choose what to share with each group (circle) and what not to share. It also groups together other google apps that may be interesting. Google+ also has the ability to do conference calls, or group video chats. I chose this to stick with the theme from my 2ndchat that I participated in on twitter. I discovered that this a tool that links to my PLN and a tool that I'd like to use and learn even more about.