Wondering about Personal Learning Networks?
While taking a MOOC called "
Becoming a Dynamic Educator" instructor Savilla Banister provided us with an article about PLNs.
Kate Klingensmith's article gives a terrific overview of PLNs and their benefit. If you only have a couple of minutes, I highly recommend watching the video on her page.
She also provides this great list of resources you can use to create a PLN for your students. If you're like me, you were probably already using some of these tools individually, but not using them in conjunction with learning.
Build Your Own PLN
If you’re interested in expanding your PLN, here’s a directory of some of the best web 2.0 tools:
| Category | Value | Examples and Guides |
|---|
| Social Networking | Keeping up with personal, more social contacts like friends, family, and former students | Facebook, Myspace |
| Microblogging | Populated with educators from around the world who share best practices and resources in short bursts | Twitter, My guide to Twitter, Plurk, Utterli |
| Professional Profiles | Find other professionals and experts in your field | LinkedIn, Brightfuse |
| Wikis | Community-monitored sites that can function as websites or for group organization and projects | Wikispaces, pbwiki,wetpaint |
| Blogs | Great sources of information such as classroom best practices as well as personal opinions; Blogs monitor the heartbeat of new trends in education and the commenting back and forth leads to many great ideas and relationships | WordPress, (check out my ‘Blogroll’ to the right – they’re my favorites),Blogger, Typepad, Alltop – top blog headlines by subject, Technorati – a blog search engine |
| RSS Reader | RSS means “Real Simple Syndication” – an RSS reader is a tool that allows you to keep up with many of your favorite blogs, all in once place
(see this video ‘RSS in Plain English’) | Netvibes, (My Netvibes),PageFlakes, Google Reader |
| Nings | Communities of people interested in similar topics, with forums and messaging | Classroom 2.0, Future of Education, Ning |
| Social Bookmarking | Share bookmarks with others, see what others are bookmarking; you can join groups and get email updates on new bookmarks | Diigo, Diigo Groups,Delicious |
| Webinars | Live, on-line presentations or conferences, with real-time chat, hosted by experts on specific topics; Great way to learn about new things and to meet new people | Classroom 2.0 Live!,EdTechTalk Live,Elluminate – host your own!, Dim Dim |
| Backchanneling of conferences | When there are neat (and expensive) conferences that you can’t attend, follow conversations and links about the highlights | Twitter search – use acronyms like ‘NECC’ or ‘SXSWi’ |
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