Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network

A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is a way for a person to gain and spread knowledge through a form of interaction such as sharing resources and ideas for future professional growth. Studying to become an elementary school teacher, there is a lot that I can learn from more experienced teachers. Creating my own Personal Learning Network, I have been able to use connect with other educators and learn through their experiences and ideas. My PLN consists of Twitter, an online social networking service which enables members to follow, communicate and share ideas with others; Diigo, a social bookmarking website which organizes specific websites through tagging and grouping; and Educator's PLN, a personal learning network for educators.

Using Twitter, I am able to communicate with other future educators, current educators, and education groups. I follow all of my classmates as well as other educators such as CATeachersassoc, flourishingkids, teachingwthsoul, teachersnet, and Weareteachers. You can also follow specific hashtags which allows you to participate in chats of the specific topic. I was able to participate in a chat with #urbaned on October 30th at 6:00 PM to discuss the relationship with standardized testing. Most of the people involved in the chat were saying that they thought education needed to be more about passion in learning instead of pressure to learn. Many also said that they were happy their schools were "data informed rather than data driven". I understood that as being aware of the standards and requirements of teachers to cover specific material for testing, but they were not teaching solely to do well on those tests, but to teach their students to have passion for learning and motivate them to participate because they want to, not because they have to. The chat was very informational and it also gave me a good insight on how to veer away from teaching for testing, especially because teachers now have an increased workload from budget cuts. It gave me good ideas such as assigning the students to write two sentences after each lesson about how they can use the information they just learned in real life. This way, the students are recognizing the information is useful, and not only taught to be tested on. It seems to be a good reminder for everyone when the pressure to do well on tests is overwhelming. The chat was very beneficial and gave me good ideas for my future teaching profession.

Diigo is a very accessible resource for organizing certain websites to refer back to it in the future. It is done by simply downloading the Diigo toolbar and bookmarking websites! You also can give the website certain tags for an even easier way to locate specific websites. And, Diigo also allows you to follow other users and have access to search their bookmarks as well. In that way, it acts as an excellent PLN resource to collaborate with others in your field and share information. I currently follow 7 people including Vicki Davis, Shelly Terrell, and many others. I chose to follow these people because they are educators and bookmark interesting information that could benefit me and other educators. In my Diigo library, I have tagged 3 bookmarks as PLN. The first is an educational blogger who titled his blog "learning.now". His blog discussed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and talked about the pressures it gives the students as well as the teachers to perform well due to testing. Another bookmark that I tagged under PLN was entitled "School Matters". It talked about educational news, specifically Tennessee's charter schools testing and how most charters schools do not have accurate data. The last bookmark that I tagged was from an educational blogger named Joanne Jacobs. Her blog post was entitled "A Tale of Two Teacher Evaluations" and discussed a teacher, Marilyn Rhames, and her experience at a school with an inexperienced principal and the importance of having an effective principal to manage a school and its staff.
By tagging all three of my sources under "PLN", they will be accessible to other Diigo user educators that search for resources under PLN. I also can search for PLN tags and come across others' posts for my own knowledge, so it truly acts as a great connecting network.

In addition to Twitter and Diigo, I also use a personal learning network called Educator's PLN. It displays educational forums, blogs, and videos for members to watch to learn about educational news and resources. I watched a video called "Ipads in Classrooms on Long Island" because it interested me. The video discussed the benefits of using Ipads in classrooms, the educational benefits rather than the focusing on the popularity of the device. It said that the Ipads have more applications that can be very useful to students. For example, it showed the Ipad's ability to highlight text and add a note to that specific portion to refer back to. About the issue of costs to provide all classrooms with Ipads, they said it is less expensive than one would think because it takes away from other expenses such as photo copying, printing, and textbooks. It was interesting to see how useful and user-friendly the Ipad was, especially for students in a classroom. I wonder if this idea of using Ipads in class will spread throughout the world!

Journal 4

It's In the Bag

Basham, J. D., Perry, E., & Meyer, H. (2011). It's in the bag. Learning and Leading with Technology, 39(2), 24-27. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20110910?pg=26&pm=2&fs=1

The article, "It's in the Bag" seemed very interesting. It discussed a new idea about students carrying a digital backpack which carries three specific forms of technology. The first is foundational technology, the core hardware and software of the backpack, such as a laptop. Next is modular technology which are devices for specific instructional goals such as an ipod touch or digital camcorder. Lastly it mentioned instructional support materials which are curriculum resources that provide structure and specific information for learners to learn and be guided. These materials included instructional documents, podcasts, videos, and content-based apps.

These backpacks are modified to be specific for different age groups by altering the materials for different leveled curriculum. They were tested in the fields that the content was based in, specifically for Elementary schools, Middle schools, and High schools. These field experiences tested the students' ability to learn using the different forms of technology and proved to be successfull in all three fields. Although it may not be realistic to provide each student with a digital backpack, this idea definitely did teach me that using forms of technology can be very useful in the learning process of students. It will help my future with incorporating many different forms of technology into lesson plans, but also helped me currently with my nanny job, as I help children with homework every day. These lessons might help my approach in helping them to understand.

Questions:

1. The article showed that the students were able to learn at a higher capability with the use of technology. Why do you think the technology improved the students' ability to learn so well?

2. How might a teacher be able to incorporate this idea into an everyday routine? What types of technology could be effective?

Answers:

1. I think children learn well when they are presented with material in a way that is hands on. When they are able to participate by doing, instead of listening or writing, it may be more understandable.

2. A teacher could incorporate all three technologies in lessons by using a variety of specific technologies with specific material. Some examples that could be incorporated into the lessons would be videos and photography, for a visual understanding photography, certain interactive computer software, for the hands-on understanding.

Journal 3

Students Dig up Dirt to Learn About Internet Safety

Morehouse, J. (2011). Students dig up dirt to learn about internet safety. Learning and Leading with Technology, 39(2), 34-35. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20110910?pg=36

After reading this article, I became much more aware of the dangers of posting personal information on the internet. I have always been the type of person to not really worry about the possible consequences of sharing online, especially when so many other people are doing it as well. I thought the posibility of someone looking up individuals' identities seemed a little farfetched. However, this article informed me that it is much more common and easy than I previously thought. People often search for questionable personal information during an interviewing process to find reasons no to hire you. Also, maintaining a professional demeanor at a current job can be ruined because of something online. The author's approach to writing this article was very effective. Making his readers learn how easy it is to find specific information about a person by having them actually try it themselves, makes more of an impact on the severity of the issue. With the popularity of social networking websites and the youth now getting involved, I feel that it is a teacher's responsibility to encourage technology but also to provide them with the knowledge that this article entails so they can continue in safety.

Question1: The article showed the dangers of posting information online. How would I, as a teacher, be able to encourage students to not post personal information online?

Answer: If I tell them the consequences and give them the tools to set their posts private, I think they will be influenced enough to not post publicly. Also, encouraging them to not share personal information that they wouldn't share to a stranger could help them realize the dangers as well.

Question 2: Learning about the consequences and dangers of adding information online, who do you think should be at blame: the person posting, or the people using the information in a negative way? Also, do you think this unsafety is a negative aspect of technology?

Answer: The personal information is posted by the person, so, it is therefore the fault of the person allowing it to be read by all who sees it. However, it is simple to fix. We just need to encourage more people to avoid posting personal information and it wouldnt have an effect on technology at all.

NETS-2



Journal 2

Join The Flock

McClintock, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience.. (8 ed., Vol. 37, pp. 14-16). International Society for Technology in Education.Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20100607?pg=14&search_term=JOIN THE FLOCK&search_term=JOIN THE FLOCK

Before this class, I was not very clear on what Twitter was or the purpose for it. I thought it was just another social network website where you can read about celebrity's social lives and conversations. And, having a facebook, I decided I didn't need another social account to maintain. I was also hesitant to start something new because I was intimidated with having to figure out a whole new network style, especially when I am slow to catch on to new technology. But, after a few weeks of this course and reading the informative "Join the Flock" article, I realized that Twitter is much more than a communication method. I learned that it can actually be very useful professionally as well as socially. It also is not difficult at all because the information that interests you appears automatically without having to do anything! I learned that Twitter is a great resource for teachers to contact other educators and talk about and share effective lesson plans, new helpful sources and ideas, and even just to seek advice. I now realize that Twitter is more than just another method for communication, but it also acts a source to learn and educate yourself in whatever subject you chose to "follow".

Question: The article showed us that twitter can be useful for teachers for finding resources from other teachers. How can Twitter be helpful for teachers in other ways than finding resources for lesson plans?

Answer: Following teachers can also be helpful because you can seek advice about the teaching experience. With the budget cuts effecting the education system, teachers are struggling all over the nation. So, being able to communicate successful ideas and methods of adapting to the new teaching environment, it could help to create an outlet to the difficult system.

Enhance Your Twitter Experience

McClintock Miller, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading With Technology, 37(8), 14-17

I felt like the "Enhance Your Twitter Experience" article was a much more hands on, learn as you go approach to new Twitter users. The "Twitter Twerminology" section was my personal favorite because it was a quick and helpful guide to learn about the concepts and lingo of Twitter. Being a new "tweeter" myself, I found it to be very easy to understand the capabilities of Twitter and how to use them. I learned how to search already established hashtags and how to retweet other posts to all of my followers. Also, I learned how to make certain lists of my followers and how to search through other user's lists by using my Tweetdeck. After learning about Tweetdeck, I feel like I will be able to use this a lot in order to find other teachers or educators to follow so I will be able to get more information and insight into new teaching resources. I liked how motivated the author was to spread the idea of twitter and encourage that everyone can benefit from it because I was hesitant at first and now I am grateful that I got a chance to learn and share information by being involved in Twitter.

Question: Twitter sounds like a very useful tool, but it sounds like it takes a lot of effort to  post information for other teachers to use as well as look for sources that others have posted. How much time do you have to invest in Twitter to maintain a useful page?

Answer: Twitter makes things easy so when you need to look for new sources, everything is laid out for you, so it does not take much time at all. Also, posting tweets is easy also so it is not time consuming. You can spend as much time or as little time as you need.

NETS-5

Technology Self-Assessment: School 2.0

After the technology self assesment quiz, I chose the NETS-T 1 module: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. I chose this because I think creativity allows children to have more fun with learning and makes it more enjoyable, which is extremely important and can possibly encourage further learning. I chose to use the "Create Art All Together Now" resource under number 3 in this module. This lesson showed a video of the creativity involved in google spreadsheets. It showed how you could color specific squares in the spreadsheet to create specific designs and illusions. I decided to chose this resource because I think it is important to allow students to show their creativity through art with technology because it not only teaches them important technological resources that they could use in the future, but also shows encourages and helps spacial management, planning, cognitive thinking, strategic tools, and imagination. From watching the video, I learned that spreadsheets did not have to be business oriented and boring. I didn't know you could provide color, so therefore, I did not know that designing pictures from the specific colored boxes could be possible. It adds something new to spreadsheets, and could possibly affect the use of them in schools.