1. For
RSS feeds, I use http://feedly.com/. The resources I subscribe to are educational such as: Voice of
San Diego » Education, TED Education, and Education. I use these feeds in order
to stay updated on what is going on in the educational world in both my town
and in the country. I can stay updated on new policies, research, and tips.
Another RSS feed that I follow is called "Well". I use this because I
need to stay updated on information on wellness of children, especially if I am
going to spend the rest of my life teaching them. I need to understand how
their minds and bodies work so that I can effectively teach them using various
strategies. Not only does this resource include helpful tips for eating
healthier, but it also includes information on how to increase brain activity
in children and other articles like effective learning methods. The final
resource type that I follow is technology. Technology is rapidly
developing and being integrated into the classrooms more often. Through these
feeds, I can stay updated on new technology coming in and think about how I can
use this in my classroom.
2. Personally
I use twitter to stay updated on my favorite artists, musicians, and actors.
However thanks to this class, I have now begun to use twitter to help me stay
updated on what's going on in my city and in education. I am currently
following a couple of my classmates on twitter along with 10 different
education pages and two newspaper accounts. Like I said, I use these to stay
updated on current events and even funny anecdotes from teachers, parents, etc.
I don't really follow any discussion hashtags but every now and then I will
search for discussions with the hashtag education. I have learned a lot from
these discussions. I have learned how to improve study skills, helpful tips for
time management, better ways to learn, and even apps that were recommended by
other teachers to use in the classroom. I honestly only tweeted once and there
was no response to it.
3.
I use Diigo as a networking and learning tool. I follow my classmates so
that I can network with them and build a working relationship with them. I know
that I will be in a lot of classes with them because we are all a part of the
ICP program so I follow them to keep updated on any finding they have. I have
learned from them different websites that can be used for education purposes in
the classroom. They have also showed me different apps and websites that are
good for teaching. I like that Diigo makes it really easy to keep all the
websites that I find interesting all in one place.
4. The
ning site that I chose to explore was The Educator's PLN: The personal learning
network for educators. As stated by the website, the purpose of this ning site is
“dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators”. The
article that I explored is titled “Equity between schools in the same district”.
This article was all about finding a way to get money and resources to all the
schools in a district, whether poor or magnet. It did not occur to me that just
because a two schools are in the same district, doesn’t mean that they share
the same socioeconomic status. They don’t always get the same funds nor have
the same resources available that the other does. A good point that this
article brought up was how the government expects the same results from every
school without providing the same resources. Having students test online when
they rarely even get to use a computer because of lack of parent support and
school resources and expecting them to succeed is unrealistic.
5. My overall experience was ok. I liked
exploring new websites and finding things that I liked and did not like.
Twitter can be a good social networking tool if you use it frequently and share
your ideas. It is easy to find other accounts that you might find interesting
but I feel like when you start following multiple people, your feed gets too
crowded because of all the re-tweets. I like that with a lot of the website we
explored, I was able to search for general topics and that the layouts were
clean and easy to navigate. I felt that some of the websites were more useful
than others at this point in my life. My PLN experience can help me as a teacher
if I use these sites for everything that they offer. As a teacher, I can follow,
read, and learn from people who share their life experiences or methods that
they have found to be effective. I can also stay updated on upcoming education
legislation and research as well.
