Creating Your Personal Learning Network (PLN)

I have waited until mid way through the course to have you begin to formalize your PLN.  We have been discussing PLNs in class and I have tried to model for you ways in which we could use tools such as Twitter, Delicious, and your blogs to communicate with peers and learn from educators all over the world.  If you look at the graphic above, you will notice that you are utilizing most of the tools listed.

For this assignment, I would like you to accomplish a few tasks using some specific web 2.0 tools:

1.  Twitter - Now that you have your Twitter account, I would like you to add at least 5 members to your network by following them. These members can be fellow students, teachers, or anyone who may give you information on education.  Also, I would like you to participate in at least one educational chat and reflect on the experience in a Twitter/PLN blog post (explained below).  Click here to get a list of the educational chats and the dates/times they meet.  I would like to recommend #edchat, as it is not only an interesting discussion, but it is held @ 4pm - 5pm on Tuesdays, right before class.

2.  Delicious - Again, I would like to see you have at least 5 members of your network who have an interest in education (hint: looking at some of the people who are in my Delicious network is a great place to start).  You will look for educational bloggers, digital discussion forums, or educational wikis.  At least 5 sites will be bookmarked and tagged PLN on Delicious.  Here is a link to a great blog post that not only discusses PLNs, but gives links to resources that you may want to add to your Delicious account!

3. Digital Discussion Forums(Ning) - Find a digital discussion forum, join, and put a badge on your blog.  Two that I recommend are the Educators PLN and Classroom 2.0.  Explore one video, article, or blog post on the site and reflect on what you learned in your PLN blogpost.

Here is a link to a great video that gives an overview of PLNs in general.


To complete/submit:

You will create a blog post called -Journal 7: My Personal Learning Network.  

1. Write a few sentences explaining what your personal learning network is and how it will help you as a classroom teacher.
2. Discuss your use of Twitter, including who is in your network and why, and your participation in an educational chat (list the topic discussed and what you learned)
3. Discuss your use of Delicious, your Delicious network, and describe what you tagged "PLN"and why (there should already be a link to your Delicious Tag Roll on your blog)
4. Discuss which digital discussion forum you joined, add the badge to your blog, and reflect on the blog post, video, or article you explored.

As this is both a journal reflection and the PLN assignment, I expect a blog post of at least 300-400 words that is a sincere reflection of your best effort. 

You will submit a link to your blog post in Moodle.




Originally uploaded By itektrekker, August 24, 2009