When I reflect on my teaching over the past five years, I find that my teaching pedagogy has changed quite a bit and one of the important contributing factors that helped these positive changes happen for myself and my students has been the PLNs I've joined. Being a part of a PLN is invaluable. I love how others share their ideas, what's working, what's not, resources they like, and offer suggestions, etc. It's really a community where you can grow together, feel supported, and offer support to others.
Most of the digital PLNs that I've been a part of, I've been a consumer. I've also been part of a local PLN where I was both a consumer and contributer working with in-district colleagues on lessons, the integration of Web 2.0 tools in class for teachers and students, teaching with higher ends of the SAMR model, student voice and choice, and divergent thinking to name a few. Digitally, I have a few favorite PLNs:
Alice Keeler is one person that I've learned a lot from about Google Classroom, using class collaborative Google Slides and Google Spread Sheets both by following her on Twitter and her blog, which is linked to her name.
Another source I subscribe to is The New York Times: The Learning Network . This is a tremendous resource for teachers. As an English teacher, one of the the areas I really like is their Multimedia page where I can find their "What's Going on in this Picture" lessons. Basically, there's a picture and students write what they think is happening and explain using specific evidence from the picture to back up their claim. There's also a discussion post for students to contribute what they think and why as well as read what other students' thoughts are beyond their own classroom. They have the ability to comment, too. As well, there's a live discussion to join with a facilitator who reviews some student responses and how to go deeper in their thinking. I have a lot of EL students and one way to work on strategies for writing is to take the reading part out and let them practice writing using lessons like these.
One of the PLNs that I use quite a bit is Tweetdeck. I hardly ever go to Twitter on my phone because Tweetdeck makes Twitter so much easier on my laptop/PC. Tweetdeck has columns you can set up for people, hashtags, notifications, home, etc that are in reverse chronological order instead of all jumbled up like on Twitter. Also, if you use are in a Twitter chat, it's so much easier to keep up with the pace of comments than on your phone. Some of the hashtags or @'s I follow are: #station rotation, #making learning visible, @Catlin_Tucker, #BLinAction, and #Personalized Learning to name a few. If you don't know how to use Tweetdeck, here's a link to a short video to you get started using Tweetdeck
At this time, I'm looking to join new PLNs as my focus has zoomed in quite a bit more through Lamar's DLL program. I've joined a couple of groups on Facebook, followed some people, like Dr. TNT on Twitter, a few blogs, and Personalized Learning's Barbara Bray's "Rethinking Learning" Podcast page. I'm looking forward to growing in DLL's PLN throughout and after the DLL program.
To see more of the digital and web 2.0 tools I use currently, go to my page, "Digital Resources and Web 2.0 Tools".
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