NETS-T (5)
As a lifelong learner and future teacher, it is my responsibility to continuously pursue a practice of professional growth and leadership. Taking advantage of the global online community via the internet, I have established, and continually add to, my Personal Learning Network, or PLN. A Personal Learning Network is a system of connecting people to collaborate and share resources, thoughts, and ideas to expand the knowledge base of a particular field. My particular PLN is based upon three social networking websites and/or applications: Twitter, an online social networking and microblogging service; Diigo, a social bookmarking website that allows users to tag, or categorize, their favorite websites; and the Educator’s PLN, a teacher based social networking site. Each piece of my PLN offers various routes for tapping into educational resources, but in unique ways.
As a lifelong learner and future teacher, it is my responsibility to continuously pursue a practice of professional growth and leadership. Taking advantage of the global online community via the internet, I have established, and continually add to, my Personal Learning Network, or PLN. A Personal Learning Network is a system of connecting people to collaborate and share resources, thoughts, and ideas to expand the knowledge base of a particular field. My particular PLN is based upon three social networking websites and/or applications: Twitter, an online social networking and microblogging service; Diigo, a social bookmarking website that allows users to tag, or categorize, their favorite websites; and the Educator’s PLN, a teacher based social networking site. Each piece of my PLN offers various routes for tapping into educational resources, but in unique ways.
Twitter is a unique in comparison to other social networking services because it allows users to microblog. Users can post updates like other services, but it limits the users to 140 characters. Therefore, posts are often quick and concise. Through Twitter, I decided to participate in the New Teacher Chat (#ntchat) on Wednesday, August 3, considering my plans to be a new teacher. The participants in #ntchat posted a link for a webinar, or web-based seminar, called the New Teacher Bootcamp. Since I was directed to a link, the forum was different than a normal Twitter chat. Though participants were able to chat via text, most of the discussion was led through an online voice session. The moderator could choose who to give the virtual microphone to, and thus, the participant could actively speak to the audience. At the same time, we were able to watch a Powerpoint presentation introducing other teachers and tools used in the classroom. By the time I had joined the chat, it was the last week for The New Teacher Bootcamp, hosted by Edutopia.org. I was blown away. I was able to participate in a discussion with
teachers and administrators across the global community about ideas, websites,
and online services that would improve technology implementation in the
classroom. I almost felt bombarded with so much information and resources available to teachers. It was great to hear stories of how technology is being integrated NOW rather than how it COULD be integrated. From this chat, I found valuable links and people to network with through Twitter.
Lisa Dabbs, @teachingwthsoul, was the moderator for the New Teacher Bootcamp webinar. I later found out that she is also the founder of #ntchat and a blogger on Edutopia.org. She shared stories and resources other teachers had given her, as well as her own. I am also following TJ Houston, @tjhouston, for two major reasons. He was an excellent participant in the chat, encouraging others and provided many of the links to the tools in the discussion. Secondly, he is not a teacher. As a director of technology, he works with teachers by helping them integrate some of the technology into their classroom and shared a few stories about how these tools were so helpful. It is useful to get an outside perspective on technology integration in education. Megan Palevich, @mrspal, was also one of the contributors to the New Teacher Webinar. Following Jerry Blumengarten, @Cybraryman, was an obvious choice because his Twitter name is great, but I also used his website to find the various Twitter chats that are available. Another great name, @ClassroomChaos, has a very cool and hilarious education blog.
Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows me to save favorite and useful websites in an online library. This becomes a social networking service, however, because the websites can be shared with the online community. Each account holder can tag, or categorize, the websites they are saving. For example, I tagged a website called "Free Rice" with descriptions like "education, games, activities, multicultural". These tags allow other community members to search for these keywords and find pages that have these descriptions.
I was also granted membership into a Digital Discussion Forum (Ning) called the Educator's PLN. Just like it sounds, the Educator's PLN is a forum for teachers to connect and collaborate by submitting posts, blogs, videos, etc. Out of curiosity, I decided to check out what videos were available and one had caught my eye. Considering failure has a bad reputation, I was wondering what would be said in a video called "Why you need to fail". The video gives three major points why failure is necessary in education: 1 - It's required for learning. 2- It keeps you in the growth mindset. 3- It reminds you that everything is an experiment. If you are not failing, you're not learning because doing what you know is fun, but it doesn't improve you. Knowing your failures helps guide you where to practice. The growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed mindset. The Fixed mindset says that talent is innate and that people are naturally given skill. The Growth mindset states that talent is derived from work. When creating something, we have selected from a seemingly infinite amount of choices, so what says those choices are right or wrong? We must remind ourselves that everything is an experiment, therefore nothing is really a failure, just a choice. "If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough"
Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows me to save favorite and useful websites in an online library. This becomes a social networking service, however, because the websites can be shared with the online community. Each account holder can tag, or categorize, the websites they are saving. For example, I tagged a website called "Free Rice" with descriptions like "education, games, activities, multicultural". These tags allow other community members to search for these keywords and find pages that have these descriptions.
I was also granted membership into a Digital Discussion Forum (Ning) called the Educator's PLN. Just like it sounds, the Educator's PLN is a forum for teachers to connect and collaborate by submitting posts, blogs, videos, etc. Out of curiosity, I decided to check out what videos were available and one had caught my eye. Considering failure has a bad reputation, I was wondering what would be said in a video called "Why you need to fail". The video gives three major points why failure is necessary in education: 1 - It's required for learning. 2- It keeps you in the growth mindset. 3- It reminds you that everything is an experiment. If you are not failing, you're not learning because doing what you know is fun, but it doesn't improve you. Knowing your failures helps guide you where to practice. The growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed mindset. The Fixed mindset says that talent is innate and that people are naturally given skill. The Growth mindset states that talent is derived from work. When creating something, we have selected from a seemingly infinite amount of choices, so what says those choices are right or wrong? We must remind ourselves that everything is an experiment, therefore nothing is really a failure, just a choice. "If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough"
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