According to
Edublogs post by Robert Burt (Burt, 2014), Personal Learning Networks (PLN)'s
are about making connections and building personal relationships with everyone
around you, while sharing ideas and resources, collaborating, and learning. It
is also a global learning network that enables people to share diverse, global
perspectives on teaching strategies, educational issues, and technologies. In
my presentation, a PLN to me means to be connected, organized, and a
self-improver.
My first PLN mentioned in my presentation is Google+.
Google+ as Martin Shervington (2013) explains it is not another "social
network" site such as Facebook, it involves more than "social",
"communication", and "people"; it is a way of bringing
people together within the context of many Google services. Google+ provides
what is called Circles; it helps you stay connected to everyone such as family,
friends, colleagues, bosses, and everyone else around the world without
worrying about the content on your site. We all know there are some content
such as pictures that you would love to share with family and friends but not
your bosses, Circles provides the opportunity for you to have as many friends
as you would like and select who sees what content is on your site. Another
great feature of Google+ is called Communities; it provides people with
opportunities to stay connected with those of similar interests. I am a part of
the Physical Education community, which comprises of people from around
the world who have similar ideas, educational strategies, and issues on
Physical Education.
As
a teacher, we tend to feel overwhelmed by the amount of resources and documents
provided and given to us on a daily basis. A great way to stay organized is to
use a website called Livebinders. Livebinders is a free online binder that can
neatly organize your resources or electronic documents that can be shared or
presented to anyone around the world. A great advantage of Livebinders is the
ability to have an unlimited amount of binders. I have created Livebinders for the
many resources I have found for teaching physical education, my created
documents for my school content’s Professional Learning Community, and my quad’s
Professional Learning Community.
Professional
Development (PD) indicates a teacher’s development of a person in his or her
professional role. All teachers are required to attend PD; it provides teachers
with new ideas and strategies for teaching in all content areas. Most of the
time we do not acquire information that we feel is useful or information was
left out that you feel was important to your content area. A useful idea is to
be a self-improver and take hold of your professional development by finding
resources to help solve issues that may come along in your teaching process.
There are great websites for all content areas and are specific to that
content, for example for Physical Education, I use PE Universe for personal professional
development. It provides discussion boards to post ideas or questions on
critical issues in physical education, videos of game ideas for different
skills, and a clipboard to post lesson plan ideas or documents to enhance
lessons.
Overall,
my PLN provides an opportunity to connect with other physical educators around
the world, to stay neat and organized, and to enhance my capability as a
teacher.
References:
1. R. Burt. (2013, September 23). Step 1: What is a PLN? Retrieved from http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/pln-challenge-1-what-the-heck-is-a-pln/
2. M. Shervington. (2013, June 8). What is Google Plus? A Complete User Guide. [Videos and Blog]. Retrieved from http://www.martinshervington.com/what-is-google-plus/
