PLN

PLN (Personal Learning Network) Reflection post

       Within the past few weeks or so, I have been able to explore many new technology outlets (some that I wasn’t aware of before) for educational discovery. Along my journey of discovering my own PLN, I have found a handful of cons and many more pros in using the tools we were asked to use for this assignment. In using Feedly, my RSS feeds consisted of TED Talk videos, TED education, Edutopia, and dictionary.com.  I thoroughly enjoyed using Feedly to access new found information. I generally really like ted talks as I felt that they provide tons of information that easy to follow along with and its constant pushing individuals to think in new perspectives, I think ted talks are great for being well-rounded as a teacher and always consider new perspectives in teaching. The TED education was amazing though, I didn’t know that existed before, it’s quite beneficial  in the classroom in my opinion, for example there was a riddle about lockers, which made a great connect with factors, square roots and prime numbers. This is a perfect example of something that can be add as a classroom activity that is fun but stays on the subject.  For twitter, I followed Edutopia, DML research hub, Lee Kolbert, and Kathy Cassidy. To be honest I didn’t find much interest in twitter as a whole, though I really liked the articles and information that DML research hub was posting. The DML research posts ranged from technology in the classroom- to larger issues that affect education and schools. One of the articles I enjoyed the most was one that discussed the connection teachers must make with their students when having desired technology in the classroom. That the technology itself isn’t going to transform learning but how the teacher implements and uses the tech will be the deciding factor on how or if it transforms that classroom’s learning. In terms of my experience with classroom 2.0 Ning, at first I found it rather confusing and it took me a little bit of time to see where I could find the articles and/ or posts. It was interesting see the things that were posted, such a wide variety of topics that range from tools for the classroom, how to be aware and prevent teacher burnout, and living internationally. The Pros of my PLN experience is the discovery of new information and a wide variety of articles, videos and educational knowledge that are easily accessible in central hubs. My favorite part of the experience is getting to understand Feedly and how it works, and thus discovering TED education videos which I think will be a large benefit to possibly incorporate into my teaching later on. The main cons of this PLN experience, was that it took me a  little while to fully comprehend how to maneuver around  the sites at first, and  it was a struggle for me to see twitter with a clear  mind. I don’t understand the point in twitter for the most part, and I don’t like it as a media site, and I’m not big on hashtags. Though I enjoyed some of the articles I discovered through twitter, I realized that I could also have access to such articles like the ones I found through using Feedly instead of twitter. Even though I will probably only use Feedly as a source in my teaching, in the long run it was a profound learning experience.