Chapter+2

Chapter 2 - "Becoming a Networked Learner"
Chapter 2 pp. 33-57 The authors have listed five tools that would help educators grow their own Personal Learning Networks: Twitter, Diggo, Google Reader, Blogger, and Facebook. Tell how you are using each and some of the positives and/or negatives of each. As I examine the tools that authors of __Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education__ highlight five tools that teachers should use to grow their personal learning networks. The one tool out of all of these that I use the most on a regular basis is blogs. I do not have my own personal blog but I do follow several blogs by educators and, specifically, art educators. It is difficult to follow all the blogs daily, but by bookmarking the blogs, I can go through all of the blogs quickly. A way I have found to organize my blogs is to bookmark them Livebinders. This way I can browse through the blogs quickly all in one place. To be honest, the other tools, like Twitter, Diigo, Google Reader, and Facebook, I have used but do not use them as part of my personal learning network in my classroom. One tool that I would really like to use more is Diigo. I think that the features of being able highlights, sticky notes, creating a snapshot, capture screenshots, and download pages to read later. This tool has a lot to offer that my other bookmarking tools do not yet have. I think the overall negative to all of these tools are using these tools in consideration of the time constraints of a teacher. It definitely takes time to follow all of these groups. I think the best way is when these tools are able to be on your toolbar or sent straight to your mobile device or email. The convienece of those kind of tools makes it easier to stay in touch more frequently.

On page 55, which of the seven activities do you fit into? Hopefully, not the Inactives! How do you fit into the other six? When looking at the different levels of participation within PLN’s, I have several areas where I have been able to participate by receiving and sharing ideas. Being a creator, conversationalist, critic, collector, joiner, and spectator, all are roles within a will functioning PLN. While examining these roles, I discovered that I take on some roles like being a creator, joiner, spectator, and collector better than being a critic or conversationalist. As a creator, I have a wikispaces website for my classroom. On this website, I post information and a video about myself, calendar of lesson plans, projects made by students, and links to other important websites. Also, I have created an online gallery for my students were I upload images of their artwork. In terms of social networking, joiners, conversationalist, and critics are all participates but in varying degrees. I consider myself a joiner of social networks. As a conversationalist, I do a much better job of this in my personal life but not in my professional career. I have occasionally posted on Facebook statuses about my life. I have yet to use Twitter to update my own statuses. In terms of my professional career, I have not updated statuses about new educational resources and techniques. Finally, as a critic of social networking, I usually comment on social statuses but not on a professional level. In terms of social networking, I have not complete committed to a complete conversation in many areas, especially as a tool to improve the environment and learning that occurs in my classroom. Overall, in these roles of participation in PLN’s, I am probably best at being a spectator, along with another 68% of adults that are online. While some internet users, consume the information but never leave a record of the information that they have found. As a collector of online information, I have organized a lot of my online information by creating Livebinder, using Pinterest, and an online journal, Penzu.