Sharon

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Journal Wrap Up

When I initially signed up for this course I thought I was going to learn about tools to use in my classroom with the students. I quickly learned that the focus of the class was me and tools I could use-with or without students. What I have gained from the course will definitely work its’ way into my classroom, but it was refreshing to have a course all about me growing and extending myself as a professional. I have more connections than ever before through twitter, Diigo and RSS feeds and will continue to build this network. On the other hand, I need to focus in more on those connections that are most effective for me. Some of the most active contributors are posting all the time but not saying a lot of anything. With time, I will be able to identify my favorite people to follow and increase my interaction that way.

The most important idea I have learned from creating my PLN is how much is out there. I have only begun to touch the surface of a variety of tools but I see the potential and worth in each of the tools we have covered and in my PLN itself. I can post a question and have almost instant feedback from around the country. At this point, I use Twitter, Google Reader and Diigo for professional purposes on a daily basis. Twitter has been effective for creating connections. Google Reader has been most helpful for quickly identifying resources to use in the classroom. Diigo has been helpful in keeping everything organized and I would like to pursue it further as a department collaboration tool as well.

For anyone wanting to expand their pln as we did in this class, I would tell them to just jump in there and do it. I would encourage them to be exposed to as many tools as possible and then choose a few that works for them. To keep up with your pln it was to be relevant and personal to you-something you want to do and not something that is being forced on you. If you see the relevancy and resourcefulness in it, then you will make the time to continue to contribute and building the connections. Now that I have some connections, but next goal is to be more of a contributor.

Week 5

“Mrs. Straub, you haven’t tweeted in a while…you’re disappointing your followers.” I think Nick was exaggerating a big when he pointed this out, but he did have a point. As much as I enjoy twitter, I haven’t actually posted that much. I participate in the structured chats and do want to explore more of these, but on a daily basis, I don’t have that much to say on twitter-at least not at this point. I could make it a goal to tweet a certain number of times a week just to get more in the habit of doing it, but I also don’t think I have to do this either. I would like to use twitter more often to familiarize myself with the most effective people that I follow. So then I can read their blogs, make sure to read their tweets, etc.

I enjoyed exploring the various options that we could use for our final project in class (animoto, slide share, photo story). I have seen students use these resources, but I haven’t and I would like to use them in the classroom. I’m going to use the final project not only as an opportunity to reflect on my pln, but also learn how to use one of these resources.

Sharon - Great reflection! It seems that you are finding resources that are useful to you as an educator and that can fit into your classroom instruction. I hope the back channel chat went well on day 2. I am looking forward to your final project and the culmination of your "journey". Amy

Week 4: Google Reader, Diigo, Skype

This week Google reader became a bit more overwhelming because I subscribed to more news sources and blogs but then didn’t have as much time to check it on a daily basis. I see the black bold number of how many hundreds of unread posts I have and just the number can be overwhelming but again, I know I just have to get over it. I don’t have to read or even see every headline that’s out there! I would like to subscribe to more educator blogs just to see what other teachers are feeling and thinking.

I loved going back to Diigo and now regret not using it sooner. I went to a training in Oct and even started bookmarking sites and potential resources for class but then I never went back to it until class last week. I even found articles I bookmarked that could have helped me last week in Gov’t class-had I ever gone back to Diigo. I’m confident that I will now use it on a regular basis since I have so many different sites, blogs and sources from my PLN. It is so easy to bookmark a site as I’m skimming twitter or google reader and then go back to it when I’m working on lesson plans. I installed it on my laptop at home as well and now wonder why people don’t use it. I also suggested to my dept the idea of setting up a dept group so we can all see each other’s resources and collaborate even if we’re not physically together. We haven’t done it yet but definitely an idea for our next tech training. I’m sure many of us already use Diigo so it makes sense to set up a group.

Some tools like Facebook and Skype I use regularly in my personal life but never thought about how they could be a part of my PLN until last week. Skype would be such a great tool for bringing in guest speakers and getting students to interact with people in the field. This is something I definitely want to pursue further. I can see it being powerful in economics since so much of what we do is theoretical and can be difficult to understand without real life, practical examples. I can see powerful connections through skype in my gov’t class as well, since many young adults feel disconnected from the political process.

The more I learn and extend my PLN, the more I realize how much I want to do in the classroom so my students also benefit from the network.

Week 3 This week twitter took more of a backseat while I explored google reader. I initially liked twitter because I could access several newspapers and other sources in one place, but this is the point of google reader. I try to include current events in all my class on a regular basis so Google Reader makes it more convenient to do this. I have created folders and subscribed to several news sources and blogs focusing on education, politics, economics and general news items since this will help me in my classes. It’s easy to organize and quickly skim through the headlines. It can be overwhelming to see that I have hundreds of unread articles or unwatched videos but is something I’m getting used to just letting go. It’s also easy to skim through them while eating lunch or whenever I have a few spare minutes. Unfortunately, this has also led to me eating less often in the teacher’s lounge because it’s easy to come up to my room and skim the articles while I eat. I’ll work on creating the balance between my online personal network and real life personal network.

I have used Goodreads only briefly when I joined a book club but I never thought of it as a tool to extend my professional learning network. To me it was a tool to track books I read or my friends read for fun. I can see how it could beneficial though to share educational books as well. At this point, it is not a priority in my online tools since I think other tools will be more beneficial for me and my classroom.

I did enjoy the twitter edchat and would participate again to see what others are thinking about education. It’s a good way to stay informed and aware of education trends and philosophies but on the other hand, it was different to have a discussion with such short “snip its” of thoughts. I always encourage my students to go for more depth instead of a superficial coverage of a topic so it’s interesting to try to have depth, but at the same time you’re limited in how much you can say and how many other thoughts quickly flow by as you’re trying to keep up.

Week 2: Journal Response

I have continued to enjoy using twitter as a means of staying aware of current events. I’m following several political and economics news sources so it is an easy and convenient way to see the major news at that moment and identify articles for class.

I am also following several educators but find these posts more overwhelming because some of them post so frequently-I don’t know how bhsprincipal does it! I’m sure once I’m following longer, I’ll realize who is more likely to have the most useful posts for me and I’ll have a better idea of what I am looking for to benefit my classroom or my personal learning network. It is also overwhelming, because the posts quickly make you realize how many tools are out there that I’m not using and how much more there is to learn. It is exciting and overwhelming at the same time because I think about all I could or should be using in the classroom that I’m not. Some day….

Tweetdeck will also help make the posts less overwhelming since I can organize them and not have to scroll through hundreds of posts. I haven’t downloaded tweetdeck on my computer so that is something I would like to do. I did set up some columns based on lists and a couple of organizations that I follow. I’m not sure if this is an option or not, but it would be helpful if I could organize the columns by category to better align with my classes so all economic related sources would be in one category, all politics in another, etc.

Although I am on twitter several times a day, I haven’t tweeted that much. I have reposted articles I have found interesting and thought others may also appreciate but that is it. I find it interesting whenever I get a new follower that I do not know. How did they find me? What made them choose to follow me? I’m sure the same way I found others to follow but it’s interesting to think about the new connections formed.

Week 1: This week was my first time using twitter and now I wonder why I didn’t start using it earlier. So far the most useful aspect has been having several news sources posting articles in one place. Instead of going to each newspaper’s individual website, I now follow them on twitter and can access the information more efficiently. By just logging on to twitter I can see the highlights from The Economist, Washington Post, CNN, NY Times, NPR, etc. I follow a lot more newspapers and journalists than I would look up on a daily or even weekly basis so it’s helpful for staying informed and getting ideas for current events to use in my classes. Before last week I thought twitter was mainly used for posting mindless updates and following stars but even in one week I have seen the professional benefits from it. As I started using twitter, I thought it would be annoying to have to check another site, in addition to the multiple emails, facebook, etc. I have found it easier since there is so much potential information in one spot and I like that I’m using it only for professional reasons, whereas, facebook has become a combination of professional but mostly personal use. Something that has already come up is having students follow me. I see how it could be a powerful tool in the classroom but I’m not to the point where I feel comfortable using it with students. Since I’m only using twitter for professional reasons it doesn’t matter as much if students are following me but I was wondering if there was a school policy on this or if schools will start establishing policies for teacher/student social media uses.