Learning and Sharing with Others

I was fortunate to find Kate Klingensmith’s blog at the beginning of this week while exploring PLNs.  It is a good starting point as it clearly explains what a PLN is and gives examples as to how to get started, in a straightforward and easy manner for people new to PLNs.

Click here to view.

Photo taken from Creative Commons.

I was also fortunate to have my principal lend me the book, Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. This is an informative book full of ideas on how to connect with other educators and adopt a “do-it-yourself mentality.”(Nussbaum-Beach, 2012).

I also subscribe to LM_NET, which is a terrific discussion forum for librarians.  As described on their website, “ an excellent way to network with other school library professionals, connect to new ideas in school library practice, seek advice, and ask library related questions.” (LM_NET, 2008). The book suggestions and lesson ideas have been most helpful being new to the library.   I subscribe to the digest version. 

I had heard quite a bit about Pinterest, a site full of visual ideas on different topics, so I went ahead and joined earlier in the week.  I have much to explore on the site but did subscribe to some of their educational boards.  Here is one on PLNs. Click here.

 Through Aaron’s suggestion, I joined Feedly; a news aggregator, which allows you to keep your news feeds all in one place.  It is such a timesaving tool as it allows me to check who has posted in their blogs and comment easily without having to check each one directly. 

I am not there yet but from what I have read Twitter is definitely one of the more useful tools in developing your PLN.  I am now starting to use the favorites for saving tweets and exploring with more confidence the hash tag symbol.

I had an aha moment when during our Google chat, Aaron talked about how he had connected with other educators through Twitter at a conference he had attended.  Earlier in the day on Wednesday, I had been following #sd36learn and noticed a number of people tweeting about the dinner series they were at with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beech, the author of the     Connected Educator.                                                                           

You can check out her presentation here.                                                     

Twitter Photo taken from Creative Commons

I had just thought they were tweeting out to inform others who were not there as to what was going on.  It had never dawned on me that they were connecting with each other.  I was trying to figure out a way of becoming more active with Twitter and I can see myself participating in something. 

The link to the blog below shows the power of connecting through Twitter.  I happened to stumble upon this blog while exploring PLNs and surprisingly, it involved some teachers from my district, Surrey!

(http://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/category/connecting/)

I have also signed up for Discovery Education Network group with another teacher from my school.  I hope to make some new connections through this opportunity.  It starts next week but I believe it might be the same sessions that Emily took.

Attending our local teacher-librarian association meetings and checking out our district’s teacher-librarian discussion board continue to be good ways of developing my library skills and connecting with other teacher-librarians in my district.  I also try to take advantage of any workshops offered in our area.

I am also a French Immersion teacher-librarian.  One of the ways I try to stay current with the French Immersion community is through ACPI (L’Association canadienne des professeurs). One great feature of their website is the fact that anyone can view past presentations/workshops from their annual conference @ https://www.acpi.ca If you go to évènement- congrès annuel- archives, you will be able to view several of the presentations presented at this year’s conference in Calgary.  I was fortunate to go but only wish I knew what I know now and had actively tweeted while there.  Missed opportunity!

References:

Klingensmith, K. PLN: Your Personal Network Made Easy. Retrieved from http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/pln-your-personal-learning-network-made-easy/

Nussbaum-Beach, S., (2014, February 12).  Light a Fire in your Learning Communities[Video Streaming].  Retrieved from (http://www.alivestreaming.com/broadcasts/4273)

Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Ritter, L. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree