We're Not That Different After All

It was refreshing for me to look at my classmates’ blog posts after working on my own this past week. I say it was refreshing because I could connect with them. From those I read, I could relate to Carly, Kuuipo, and Marie. Let me say, I don’t know any of these women, however, I feel I know them a little more after visiting their blogs.

Carly is going through some family things that made it difficult for her to complete all the assignments for this class. OMG, I won’t even start with what I’ve been through! I’ll only say that I know exactly what Carly is going through. Kuuipo’s life was taken over by PLNs and had a great image that got me thinking. I didn’t realize how much Pinterest was part of my PLN…no wonder I spend so much time there. Now I can justify my time spent there; I’m doing my homework after all (check out Kuuipo’s picture). Marie spoke about collaborating. This is something we all experienced in this class from the first week. She modified an image to show that everyone needs to do his/her part to complete the project. I’m placing it here because she said we could use it, but also because it’s so important that we all get this concept. For those of us in the online program, we cannot see each other’s expressions. Place this picture in your mind so you can imagine what your classmates’ faces look like when you don’t do your part.

Image Credit: Marie Sack

Once again, this assignment allowed me to see how we are more alike than we are different. We are never alone; we are never the only one. Thank you ladies for reminding me of this!

One Task at a Time

When you have so much on your plate, how does one keep up with all that she has to accomplish? This week was one of those types of weeks for me. We started back to school…whew, do I have to say anymore when I tell you I’m the tech person at my school? On top of that, my husband’s family was preparing for the funeral of my in-laws. During the funeral, my husband was not feeling…shorten version…he’s in the hospital right now.

This is a Social media class right? Well, this story is related. You see I did something I’ve never done before. I couldn’t sleep last night and I was extremely emotional. It was late and I couldn’t call anyone at that hour. I decided to go on Facebook to check on my friends’ posts. I then decided to write a post about my day and my husband and my feelings were included. I thought that writing it on there would help me release some of my emotions so I could go to sleep. It worked. I didn’t wait to see responses. I went to bed right after that and woke up refreshed to continue to work on this week’s assignments. It’s a one task at a time for me…this week and every week.

Here’s the summary that Nick and I worked on for Part 2 of our final:

A Learning Network for You…Seek, Sense, Share

Annette Ahuna and Nick Alexander

Here’s a link to our Prezi presentation.

PLNs versus SNs

The differences between professional learning networks (PLN) and Social Networks (SN) are subtle yet important.  Social media is defined as “forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media).  Social networks can be further narrowed down to an online community.  Online communities generally have a higher quality, continuity and degree of commitment in the relationships between members. (NetSmart, p.162). In short, members of an online community care about one another.

According to edudemic.com (http://www.edudemic.com/2012/10/build-personal-learning-network/), personal learning networks are “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning”.  A personal learning network allows you to organize resources and materials, learn about current trends, as well as network and be a part of a community of learners.  The PLN is a place to learn from community members and resources as well as the ability to contribute to other people’s learning. 

Using a culinary context, imagine you are making a pizza.  Your ingredients, toppings, crust, etc., are your social media tools.  You evaluate which stores have the best ingredients, and then you buy some ingredients from Safeway and some from Foodland.  Once you combine the ingredients and cook it up, you have a pizza, which is your personal learning network which you consume.

A Look at PLNs

After learning what a PLN was, we both realized that we each have a PLN of our own. We didn’t realize that this is what it was called. Because of our interests, we naturally look for environments that ignite and fuel these interests. Nick’s PLN includes forums, Facebook groups, Twitter feeds as well as online publications that help him to gain an understanding of new trends and best practices in the audiovisual field. Annette’s PLN includes teacher blogs, a ning called Elementary Technology Teachers, Twitter feeds and Facebook groups that involve elementary education or educational technology. And within both our PLNs, we are both members of the Tech Cadre. The Tech Cadre is a Department of Education mail group where members are involved in technology at the school or department that they work at. Since we are both Technology Coordinators at our schools, we network amongst our peers by sharing resources, posting questions and answers, and even giving away equipment/supplies from time to time.

Having a PLN is very important for educators. PLNs allow them to connect with others in the fields that they are intrinsically interested in. Within PLNs, they learn, share lessons and ideas, and keep up with current trends and best practices in education or the area of interest. Instead of “one size fits all” professional development (PD) classes, educators can choose the environments they want to learn from and include these places in their PLNs. Because they choose, they engage themselves in the areas they are passionate about. Having a choice makes educators want to learn and continue their learning thus developing themselves as professionals.

Organizing Tools for PLNs

LiveBinders is a free online tool where users can organize their digital life.  In a LiveBinder, users can create a visual portfolio containing websites, documents and media.  All of the content can be annotated and placed in different tabs for easy sorting.  Each LiveBinder can be shared with students, colleagues and administrators, along with the general public.  With LiveBinders, users can also collaboratively build a binder for things like presentations, teaming and evaluations.

Organize and Share with LiveBinders - This resource covers: What The Heck Is LiveBinders, Getting Started, Navigating, Livebinder It Tool, and Challenges of using LiveBinder. It shares videos, screenshots and resources such as An Educators Guide to Twitter and iPads in Schools. Rating 5

Diigo is a social bookmarking tool which allows users to share internet resources with others.  In Diigo, users can tag bookmarks, follow other people’s bookmarks, and search popular bookmarks.  Within Diigo, users can also perform screen captures and use sticky notes to comment on resources.  Diigo is a cross platform software with Android and iOS apps available.

12 reasons why teachers should use Diigo - This resource takes readers through 12 different, and effective uses for Diigo.  From tagging to multi-platform operation to highlighting, this article demonstrates the capabilities of Diigo in education.  Rating: 5

Comparing the Features

	LiveBinders	Diigo
Cost	Free (premium available)	Free (premium available)
Content Stored	Any	Bookmarks, screenshots
Sharing	Public/Private	Public/Private
Platforms	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android
Other	Blog Integration	Blog Integration
Collaboration	Multi-User	Multi-User

References

Attwell, G. (2007). Personal Learning Environments-the future of eLearning? eLearning   Papers, 2(1), 1–8.

Gilbert, E., Bakhshi, S., Chang, S., & Terveen, L. (2013). I need to try this?: a statistical overview of pinterest. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2427–2436). Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2481336

Lieberman, A. (1995) Practices that support teacher development: Transforming conceptions of professional learning.

Rheingold, H. (2012). Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. MIT Press. 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142.