I was not familiar with Personal Learning Networks (PLN's) until I started EDM 310. It was very new to me, and I found it very interesting, helpful, and creative. There are several ways to build PLN's, but I found a few different websites to be very helpful for me.
Pinterest, Twitter, and Blogging are great ways to begin PLN's. Pinterest allows you to search boards from other pinners, some are current teachers and students, and you can create your own boards. When I searched "Personal Learning Networks", I found all kinds of ideas. It was great for me because I was a beginner and just starting out. The more I searched, the more I was learning, and getting new ideas for myself and my future classroom. Twitter is a great resource because it allowed me to follow up on college-level teachers such as Dr. Strange and Mrs. Vitulli . These teachers are great resources and are always tweeting links that are great for adding to your PLN. Twitter is useful because you can post one thing and it immediately gets around and so many people around the world can see it! It is a great tool for learning and interacting with people around the world. Blogging has become very popular around the world and is great for building any PLN's. I am so glad Dr. Strange introduced us to blogging. For example, our weekly C4K comments. I love doing those because we get to interact with different students around the world and get to know them through their blogs. Our C4T comments are good resources because most of those teachers are also on Twitter and constantly blogging and posting links and articles that are helpful to add your PLN. I commented on Julie Reuter's blog Student PLN's. She introduces PLN's at a young age, which is a good idea so they can starting learning and building up their PLN.
Personal Learning Networks are really fun, and I am glad I got to learn more about them. I can not wait to add more resources to my PLN and learn so much more along the way through my teaching career. I cam so excited to watch my PLN continue to grow as I become more experienced with teaching and become an educator.
Ashlyn,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I also was not familiar with PLN until this class. I think you gave great examples of what a good PLN consist of. Personally, I did not think I would enjoy blogging but now I think it can be a great tool for communicating and making networks. Of course, I use Pinterest and I love to get new ideas and share mine with others. You did a good job explaining what PLN you use.