Blog Post #5

What are Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)? I, personally, have never heard of it before until Edm310. A Personal Learning Network is the set of people and tools that you can call upon for help, consultation, collaboration, or other assistance. According to the Personal Learning Network YouTube video, "PLNs are a fancy way of saying you are going to connect with other people who also teach. The goal is to get better at what you do and/or help someone else improve because they spoke to you." They can be very resourceful when looking for different ideas for the classroom. They are always changing so when you go back and look at them you can see newer ideas than you saw when you looked the last time. It can be formed by any social network, like Facebook, Twitter, and even by blogging. You can connect to others who may have a similar interest that you have and maybe even someone who has the same goals as an educator.

When creating my PLN, one of the first things I am going to do is add Dr. Strange because he is the one giving us different ways we can connect with teachers around the world. He has been a big help in this because I would have never known any of these ways to connect without having him as a professor. I will also add people from my group so that when we all move on and start to teach our own classes, I could see what they are doing for their classrooms. A couple of teachers that I have observed have had great ideas that they bring into their classroom that keep the students motivated and I would like to connect with them and see what all they have done with their classes. I am starting out small but overtime I will be able to find new people that I can connect to.