My Personal Learning Network Reflection
Social Media:
The two social media platforms I chose to do my PLN on are Twitter and Pinterest. Through Pinterest, I was able to look through other educator’s boards and get inspiration from them for mine, which is probably the extent of my Pinterest use. Though it is a great tool there are some difficulties in ways to communicate with others. On Twitter, I was able to follow a handful of educators and participate in Twitter Chats. A few of the chats were, #TeacherMyth and #CreatEdu. Through those chats, I was able to get some extra help in finding more educators to follow as well participate in quality discussions of teacher inspirations and creativity in the classroom.
In addition to Twitter and Pinterest, I also used Schoology to create a lesson and share it for a class assignment. This allowed me to learn and utilize the website so that I can integrate it in my future classroom. This is a great program that gave me the opportunity to be a designer by using technology to create, adapt and personalize learning for students.
I learned through Pinterest and Twitter that there is a big community of educator presence online and they are very helpful and friendly to everyone. I’ve also learned about new online programs that were not introduced in the classroom such as Adobe Spark and Doink by participating in local learning networks/chats. This allowed me to stay current with different supports that helps improve student learning outcome, which is part of the ISTE learner standard for Educators.
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I plan on continuing to use these platforms in order to expand my PLN. There are copious amount of new technology out that still needs to be learned and examined. I feel that these platforms are awesome tools to explore and communicate with other educators. Additionally, Schoology is innovative tool to utilize for lower levels and great way to see intent feedback/analytics on student's progress.
Professional Organization:
The professional organization I joined is the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA). On their learning center page, I was able to participate in forums for early childhood science discussions. I posted to a few discussion boards where I was able to give my opinion, as well as, looking at snip bits of articles that I found interesting and could be used as a reference for future lesson planning. One article/post I found interesting was "Inquiry at Play", I asked the person who put up the post, "Have you tried this in the classroom? How effective do you think inquiry at play is for students who are struggling in the classroom?” but have not received a response (as seen in the pictures below).
I learned that this organization was very informative and helpful in providing others with suggestions that can help them in their classroom. I enjoyed looking through others posts and see the communication between members in the community. I would definitely look to this professional organization in the future to get inspiration and to ask questions regarding teaching science subjects. Exploring this organization, has helped me utilize digital resources in order to explore and evaluate tools for learning.
Resource Community:
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The resource community I joined was Common Sense Education. This community allowed me to see ways in teaching digital citizenship. I was able to look at lesson plans to teach digital citizenship at varying grade levels. This gave me the opportunity to examine ways in which I can inspire students to contribute and participate in the digital world positively and responsibly (ISTE Citizen Standard for Educators).
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Common Sense Education also allows for reviews of educational technology resources. Through this community, I was able to try new educational technology and utilize them in some of my assignments. I learned through the website about Powtoons, where I was able to use in my Schoology project as well as other projects in different courses throughout the semester. I also gave reviews on some other resources so that others can see the type of programs available and to decide whether or not they would like to try it themselves. Common sense is a great tool to use to explore and find new educational programs to utilize in the classroom. This is definitely a community I will continue to use in order to find new technology and explore what is out there for my students.
