PLN

Before today I have not heard of a PLN or Personal Learning Network. A PLN is essentially a group of people, websites, or organizations. Most PLN's are formed over social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Social media has not only changed the way we communicate but also how far we can communicate. PLN's through social media can help you connect to educators all over the world and share ideas and tips for teaching in the class room. Also having a PLN can help you connect your students to other students around the globe.

As a teacher you are always trying to come up with new ideas for the classroom to keep the students engaged and excited about learning. A Personal Learning Network is perfect for coming up with new ideas and sharing your ideas with others. Before Personal Learning Networks teachers where limited to their peers within their school walls. In many schools their are teachers that are experimenting with using blogs and other online tools to help their students learn. Having a PLN will allow those teachers to reach beyond their school walls to connect their students to others.

You can form your own PLN by using Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Blogger. While forming your PLN the list of information, links, and sites can get extensive. To organize all of this data you can use tools such as Symbaloo. Symbaloo is useful tool that you can use to organize all of your PLN information on one dashboard so tat you can freely move back and forth between networks.

The first addition to my Personal Learning Network will be Mr. Finnigahn a teacher at W.P Davidson Highschool in Mobile Alabama. I have spoken to Mr. Finnigahn about project based learning and i found out that he is one of many teachers that use this method of teaching in Mobile. I have actually planned to go and observe a class that he teaches to see how his students like this type of learning.