Friday, July 25, 2014

ED 7714 Personal Learning Networks

Honestly, I have been terrified about PLN's for about a year now.
I looked at the resources we were given for class, and I feel much better. I realized I have already started putting together a personal learning network.

This year, the school librarians in the Danbury area put together a roundtable. We meet physically and we are all on Google+ where we have shared documents. I am also a member of the ITDML community. These pieces of my network are populated with people I can talk when I need to.

I need to expand my online network.

I have always been enamored by Kathy Schrock, a former School Library Media Specialist from Massachusetts, who has been publishing her accumulated knowledge for years in School Library Journal and now on the internet. She is now consults as a self-employed Educational Technologist.
This is her website:
Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything
Boy, can she market herself! She intimidates me. She has since I came across her articles in the 1990's.
After a conversation with my "computer expert" neighbor last night (he is NOT in my PLN!) we decided that "expert" is a relative term. Kathy Schrock has become an expert. She most likely started publishing before she felt like an expert. I'm sure I look like an expert to others. I need to build on that.

I will be attending LearnZillions' TeachFest next week. I am looking forward to networking there and expanding my PLN.
One of my stumbling blocks is Twitter. I have had negative feelings about it since I first heard about it. Maybe it is the name or the "tweet" terminology. I only dabble there when I have to. Apparently, it can be a valuable resource, so I need to give it a more robust try.

I have started to accumulate sites and people I would like to follow in an Evernote document. 

1 comment:

  1. Great work Sally. Thanks for your thoughtful reflections. We've had some thoughts about having a common Evernote notebook...do you think it would be valuable...or "one more thing to keep track of"?

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