By the end of the unit, students would be able to;
describe PLN
site examples of PLN
list the stages of PLN
state at least three ways PLNs helps teachers
Professional Learning Networks – PLNs
A PLN is one in which participants in a professional community learn together
Any group of people sharing the same profession or interests that share ideas
Your department is an example of a PLN
PLNs enable teachers and student teachers access to a wide range of experts and communities to support their professional learning.
P – It is building professional relationships with teachers, university professors and experts around the world. No matter your location in the world, there is always someone else to answer questions, and share their expertise
L – It is about sharing ideas and resources, collaboration, and learning. We share our learning, ideas and expertise in different ways; using different media and tools.
N – It is a global learning network, enabling people to tap into and share diverse, global perspectives on teaching strategies, educational issues, and technologies.
The internet allows us to form PLNs with more people and much more easily
Why write a letter when you can email?
Why email when you can text/twitter?
PLN also Stands For Personal Learning Network
Informal Learning
“Just In Time” Learning
Social Learning Theory: Bandura, Vygotsky
Professional Learning Community-PLC
The stages of PLN
1.Lurking/Skimming
2.Asking for help/opinions
3.Giving help/opinions
4.Starting something (group/discussion)
5.Joining every social network possible
6.Finding the right balance
PLNs & ICTs
PLNs can be facilitated through the use of a range of ICT tools
Professional development – learn from content-area specialists;
Locate resources for your classroom, such as free websites and software;
Get lesson plan ideas from master teachers;
Learn about new technology and how to integrate it into your teaching;
Find collaborative solutions;
Find interesting links to education news
PLN Extends that Tradition
PLNs helps teachers to get recommendations from other professionals, which makes it easier for me to find great resources.
Therefore teachers can share ideas, give their opinions and add their suggestions. Thus, making the internet human again.
For example,
If you have a favorite lesson, but don’t want to set up a website to share your opinions, knowledge, experience, and lesson plans you can jump into active online communities and get positive feedback!
Five Steps to building your PLN via Twitter
Join
Sign up for twitter.com and create a username.
Username should not be too long
Complete your bio so people know who you are, and add an image.
Follow
There are thousands of teachers around the world on Twitter.
Once you have a few people to follow, look at who they are following and you will start to build a PLN.
3. Lurk
You’ll need to spend some time checking out the streams of tweets and getting hang of
Tweeting
Retweeting
Direct messaging
Hashtags
4. Contribute
The more you put in, the more you get out.
Make sure you
Reply people
Retweet tweets
Ask questions
Strike up conversations
5. Stick with it!
Check on Twitter daily for a month before you make decisions about whether it is for you
It is about rapports with people and your professional world will be so enlightened.
Blogging
A blog is a way of sharing your knowledge with the world by writing regularly about your ideas in a particular area.
Steps
Decide what you are going to blog about
Choose a domain
Decide on the blogging platform
Start your blog
Design your blog
Start blogging
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin
Objectives
By the end of the unit, students would be able to;
Professional Learning Networks – PLNs
A PLN is one in which participants in a professional community learn together
PLNs enable teachers and student teachers access to a wide range of experts and communities to support their professional learning.
P – It is building professional relationships with teachers, university professors and experts around the world. No matter your location in the world, there is always someone else to answer questions, and share their expertise
L – It is about sharing ideas and resources, collaboration, and learning. We share our learning, ideas and expertise in different ways; using different media and tools.
N – It is a global learning network, enabling people to tap into and share diverse, global perspectives on teaching strategies, educational issues, and technologies.
PLN also Stands For Personal Learning Network
The stages of PLN
1.Lurking/Skimming
2.Asking for help/opinions
3.Giving help/opinions
4.Starting something (group/discussion)
5.Joining every social network possible
6.Finding the right balance
PLNs & ICTs
PLNs can be facilitated through the use of a range of ICT tools
◦Professional learning communities and websites
◦Social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn),
◦Social bookmarking tools (Diigo, Delicious),
◦Wikis (wetpaint, Wikispaces)
◦NB. Pick one username, use the same email, and a consistent password for all of your PLN sites
Social Networking – Twitter
Diigo – Social Bookmarking Site
Diigo is a free social bookmarking tool that allows users to share online resources like websites and web tools in a private or public group format.
There are lots of different groups on Diigo, many for professional and educational use.
A place where you can store all your bookmarks, pictures, and notes too.
–Your school, district, department, class could set up a tag to collect all of your finds
Many Other Ways to Connect…
–http://www.curriki.org
–Share lesson plans
–http://www.moodle.org
How can PLNs help teachers?
PLN Extends that Tradition
Five Steps to building your PLN via Twitter
Blogging
A blog is a way of sharing your knowledge with the world by writing regularly about your ideas in a particular area.
Steps
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin
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