Personal Learning Networks

 A twitter? Me?

I must say upon first thought personal learning networks or PLNs intimidated me.  I feel like I have so much to learn myself. How would I contribute to a global conversation about education?  Eric Sheninger’s blog post helped push me into thinking that I could do this.  He made a list of 10 reasons why every leader should have a PLN.  While I am not a leader in the sense of administration, in my district we promote leading from every seat.  In this way I have leadership roles on my PLC and in my building.  

Three of Sheniger’s points that most spoke to me were the PLN’s allow you to work smarter not harder, offer support and feedback, and allow for 24/7 inspiration.  Access to support is so important in teaching.  It is easy to get lost in the day to day and be bogged down by all the to dos.  It is always comforting when you realize that others out there are going crazy over their students misuse of there, their, and they’re or that someone else feels like they are herding cats every time they ask their students to line up.

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On a more serious note, the experience other teachers have is an invaluable resource.  I have always learned the most at conferences from the people I sit with so I decided to think of Twitter as a huge table at an educational conference.  

With this thinking in mind I created a Twitter account (@HHPack122) that could serve as a resource for new resources and idea as well as a way to connect with parents in a less formal more consistent manner.

After creating my Twitter and first following my favorite baseball team (@cleguardians), I started looking for educational accounts to follow.  I started with other teachers I work with and have worked with.  Then I looked first at the pages they were following.  After that I looked at the pages of some of the podcasts I listen to and really went down a rabbit hole from there.  I was able to follow pages specific to education as well as pages that I would call education adjacent that can relate to topics I teach to my students.  Education pages I would recommend following include @WeAreTeachers, @TheTeacher Studio, and @DiscoveryEd.  Some education adjacent pages I would follow are your local library, @FieldMuseum, and @NatlParkService.

My Twitter Chat

I have to be honest from the start.  This Twitter chat intimidated me.  I have always thought and rethought what I put in writing and much prefer a face to face conversation (I know, says the girl blogging for her online grade school class).  It is true though, when posting or writing e-mails I hesitate and read and reread what I am putting out into the world.  The speed of a Twitter chat intimidated me.  I was also intimidated by the fact that I was sending a tweet out as opposed to just commenting on a post.  A comment feels like lower stakes.

All that being said I gave it a go!  I found a chat from a company called Nearpod that works to implement active learning in lessons and assessments.  Nearpod held a Twitter chat on a Wednesday evening posing 6 questions to its feed.  Being new to this, I was much more of a listener and passive participant.  As questions were posted I read through answers and liked comments of people I agreed with.  Then I left some comments to connect with other teachers.  Finally, I felt confident enough to add to the conversation.  

After this initial experience, I think I need to give a few more a try before I can say whether this will be something I participate in regularly.  It is nice to know this resource is available to me every day, and that there are educators to connect with on a consistent basis.  I think I just need to find the right chat to be a part of!

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But the Resources!

Discovery Education is a resource I was introduced to by my district as a part of our innovate learning initiative.  Discovery Education offered our district engaging lesson ideas and coaches to help us implement these more engaging and effective ways of teaching.  When I found their Twitter, I was excited to have those resources come across my feed as a reminder of all the great content that is out there.

One of the resources that stood out to me was the article Shifting to Student Centered Instruction.  After discussing active learning, this article caught my attention.  This article helped me reflect on my own teaching practices especially in math.  This year I am teaching our accelerated math group in sixth grade.  These students are ready for something new, and I am making it my goal to give these students a more student centered learning environment.  

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References

50 funny teacher memes that are painfully true. FamilyMinded. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://www.familyminded.com/s/funny-teacher-memes-21477c5b214f4574 

Lattanze, R. (2022, August 23). Shifting to student-centered instruction. Discovery Education Blog. Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://blog.discoveryeducation.com/shifting-to-student-centered-instruction/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blog&utm_content=student-led-learning 

Sheninger, E. (2016, October 30). Why every leader needs a PLN. Why Every Leader Needs a PLN. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://esheninger.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-every-leader-needs-pln.html 

Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://twitter.com/home 

What is active learning? prezi.com. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://prezi.com/vltahpm3b1hn/what-is-active-learning/?token=21acedd662237401cb58486f35352d6fba7d05e6b30cf495979ca34cbf121958&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy 

Your daily learning platform. Discovery Education. (2022, September 19). Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://www.discoveryeducation.com/