What are PLN's?
You will be the creator of your PLN, by following others on twitter, blogs, and various other social media sites. Your PLN will consist of the group of people you follow and share ideas with. Although I had never heard of a PLN, I realized we use them everyday for all sorts of things. For example, often people are looking for new ideas for their homes, or social events so they will turn to pinterest to find ideas and creative ways to do things.
I found Michael Fawcett's video, "Michael Fawcett discusses his PLN", to be very helpful in understanding what a PLN is. He explains how you can enhance your PLN on twitter by following more people and asking questions. When you ask questions you can get suggestions from other teachers and people from all over the world. Suggestions about new tools to use and new ideas to take into the classroom.
To begin building your PLN all you need to do is sign up for a social media tool like twitter and begin to follow others from your area and around the world. Once you begin following them you can find interesting facts and ideas that you can take with you as a teacher. It is just as important that you make comments about your ideas and suggestions, so that you may help others as well. When you begin to explore more people and more tools, your PLN will begin to grow. As I grow my PLN I will start by following some of my local friends and instructors from South Alabama, in particular Dr. Paige Vitulli. She is such a unique person with great ideas. Then I will most likely follow Michael Fawcett.
I also thought Fawcett was very helpful in explaining in detail what a PLN was. I think following local people for your PLN will be very good, because you actually know them and have learned from them, like Dr. Vitulli!!
ReplyDeleteI use pinterest all of the time, but never realized that it was a PLN. I realized that using PLN may be easier than I thought, and actually very useful.
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