#professional learning network

Scholar.Social: A Mastodon Network For Teachers

I wrote a short time ago about how I really liked Mastodon and thought teachers should give it a try. At the time I’d settled on a home server but lamented that there was no instance (each Mastodon server is called an instance) set up specifically for teachers. Well never fear, because scholar.social has stepped in to fill the void! As the name implies, scholar.social is not JUST for teachers,…

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These are the following steps I will take to grow my own personal professional learning network:

Tag things. In the past, I thought hashtags were a waste of time and energy. However, after reading multiple articles and hearing from multiple sources that hashtags can actually help future employers pick you out of a crowd or help people that view things similarly to you find you and connect with you, I decided that hashtags might actually be helpful. For this assignment and for these past few posts specifically I have used hashtags to organize my tumblr to help me find certain posts that I would need to pull up for any given reason. 

Keep a list of email addresses of professors and other educators that I have come in contact with (that would be willing to be contacted after I am out of their class or field experience) so that I can contact them with questions, for a reference, or for ideas and collaboration. 

Create professional profiles so that when other professionals look up my name, they find the brand I have made for myself rather than what I was doing last weekend. (For example, this tumblr and my professional twitter account are both separate from my personal accounts). 

When reblogging, retweeting, or sharing people’s posts on social media websites, always tag that person so 1) they receive the necessary credit for the post and 2) they see that you shared their post. While it might not happen every time or even at all, this still increases your chance of connecting with someone you might not have had the opportunity with without technology or tagging them. 

Clean up my personal profiles. I know that the things I have posted in the past will never be completely erased, but I can make them more difficult to find. I do not have a plethora of “bad” content on my social media, but I do have some complaints about homework and some conversations with friends over twitter that I do not want future students, employers, or parents seeing when searching my name. I also have some posts that were just unnecessary or stupid so getting rid of those would also help people searching my name realize that I am a professional. 

Give out my social media information (twitter name, tumblr profile, Facebook name, etc.) to other professionals that I would want in my professional learning network. 

Social media can be used in many ways: connecting with friends, advertising events (theatrical productions, concerts, local events, etc), finding out information, and even growing your professional learning network, or PLN. 

Teachers should be able to use social media so they know what kind of things their students are exposed to as well as having a way to connect with parents and other teachers. Teachers lack time, especially teachers that need to write IEP’s for their special needs students, so social media might be the only way they can collaborate with other teachers. 

Teachers also might have a ton of ideas to help organize their classroom or do certain things in certain ways, so they should have a platform to share that on so people can benefit from their good ideas. Sharing ideas through social media would not only give you attention from other teachers, but from administrators and future employers as well. 

Last time we took a look at some behind the scenes steps to building a Personal Learning Network, aka PLN. This time we’ll take a look at some more steps to get a fuller look at what truly goes into building a PLN.

1.      Active participation

A PLN won’t just build itself once it’s been set up. In order for a PLN to flourish and grow, it needs you to actively be involved with it. For example, if you’re using Twitter, you’ll probably want to be tweeting at least once a week, and reading through tweets of those that you follow. If you’re a blogger, you’ll want to make sure you’re posting somewhat consistently. If you’re reading blogs or sites, make sure you set aside time in order to do so.

It’s easy to let things fall to the side. I’m just as guilty of doing it myself. Sometimes things just happen or life gets busy. I’ve made sure to set aside time so that I may focus on my PLN. It’s easier to start with one day a week at first, and if need be, add more time as your schedule fits. I may check Twitter throughout the day, but by evening, I’m rarely checking it, unless I get a notice about someone sending something my way. When it comes to reading blogs, I’ll try to catch up on my reading at least once a day. This doesn’t take too long because I only follow certain blogs, and they don’t always update each day. As for writing my own blogs, I write down my ideas on a Word document when I think of them. I aim to post one piece of content a week. I write when I am inspired and have the time. If I can write more than one post in a setting, I will. I’ll simply set it to post on a future date in my blog. This particular post was written in May, but it won’t have posted until sometime this summer.

Since most people will only start with one tool, they only need to sit down and determine how much time they want to sit aside to engage with the tool. It doesn’t have to be a lot at first, and probably won’t for awhile. As you become more comfortable with the tool, increase engagement as necessary.

2.      Give and take of information

Building a PLN works best when you’re engaged in finding new information AND sharing your own information at the same time. At first, you may feel as though you don’t have very much to give at all, but in time, you’ll find that there’s a lot of information that you can share. Don’t feel obligated to share right from the start if you’re just getting used to how to use the tool in the first place. Give it some time, and then jump right in!

For example, when educators look at others who blog, they might wonder how they can do it, or if they’d ever have anything worth sharing. The answer is yes. From class updates to reflections to lesson plans to opinions about what is going on in education today, educators will find they do have plenty to say.

Many educators find they get the most out of their network when they can discuss or talk with others in that network. This can spark impromptu discussions on topics and allow educators to see how others might feel about a particular topic.

3.      Using Tools to Build Smarter

Tools can help make managing a professional learning network easier. After all the saying goes “work smarter, not harder”. Twitter is an easy tool to keep up with at first…until you have a lot of people you’re following, or an edchat running. There are tools that allow users to break Twitter down into more manageable chunks.

TweetDeck is a great tool to use on Twitter. It allows users to create columns for certain users, hashtags, topics, and more. I can add the people I follow to lists. For example, I may choose to have a list of people who mostly tweet about Minecraft, and another who tweet about edtech. I might follow the hashtag for #stem at the same time. Tweetdeck allows users to customize to their heart’s content, making it much easier to sort through large amounts of data.

Another way your professional network can get out of hand occurs when one follows blogs. It’s easy to keep up with one or two at first, if you bookmark the site and remember to check every site that is bookmarked each day. Once you add more blogs though, it can be hard to remember to keep up with every single one. A good tool to utilize here is an RSS Reader. RSS stands for “rich site summary”, but is also known as “really simple syndication”. An RSS Reader allows a user to gather content from multiple sources into one location. Instead of me checking each blog individually, I simple add them to my RSS Reader, and then sync the reader each day. If new posts are up, they will appear in my reader immediately.

There are many RSS Readers out there, and which is best is all going to depend on personal preference, and the device being used. I use Feedly’s website to set up my Reader, and then use Newsify on my iPad because it syncs with Feedly. I like the layout that Newsify uses, so I stick with it. A quick Google search will provide many results, so make sure to narrow down your searches by using “RSS readers android”, “RSS readers iOS”, and so on. Try out a few options and then stick with the one that works best for you.

Personal Learning Network. It’s a term you hear more and more often these days. Colleagues speak about it. Articles online speak about it. It’s toted as a great and wonderful tool that can connect educators and network them with others around the world. Others speak of their connections and how easy it is to connect with someone when they need to bounce ideas. It sounds so amazing that you go home, sit down, and begin setting up your network. Over the next few days, you find that it’s not as exciting or revolutionary as the presenter made it out to be. What gives? Did they lie?

The short answer: No.

When you’re attending a session on benefits of building a PLN, you’re not seeing the work that went into building it. What you’re seeing is the “final” product. I say “final” because one is never really done building their network, but it does get to a point where things are very active, and usually on the upswing. At the time of the presentation, the presenter has many examples to provide or people that they connect with. So what really goes on “behind the scenes”? What affects how your network prospers?

1.      Time and Effort

Nothing is going to ever be successful in just a few days. Your PLN is the same way. A good question to ask the presenter is how long it took them to get to a point where they felt their PLN was successful. It has taken me a year to really get to the point where I feel that my network is active and beneficial to me. During that time, I didn’t always work on building it. In fact, I would say that once I actively started, it took me 9 months to get to that point. I didn’t do everything I do now all at once either. I started slowly and added on as I could handle more items.

When building a PLN, you must realize that it will take time. Keep that in mind as you work, and make sure to put in the effort needed to build it. It won’t grow if you don’t do anything to help or keep it going. If your PLN is stagnant after a few months, step back and see what you could do to improve. Talk to others or research online.

2.      Key influencers

Key influencers are often some of the first people you follow or look up online. These are usually going to be popular names in your field, or someone you’ve heard colleagues talking about. Are they blogging? Are they using Twitter? How do they communicate with others online? To be very honest, my own network started out small, and I wanted to use Twitter as my focus. I only used key influencers that I knew from talking about our state’s edchat. Once I followed them, I looked for others that participated in the edchat, as well as who my influencers followed.

Once I had this set up, I was now able to read conversations being held between my influencers and other people. For a time, this was all I did so I could get a feel of the wide world of Twitter. After I became comfortable though, I then started looking at the hashtags that my influencers were using. I would check them out if they intrigued me, and I learned to search for my own as well.

From here, I began getting involved in edchats. Edchats on Twitter are conversations held between groups of people, using the same hashtag so everything is easily found. Usually there is some kind of moderator, and a list of questions that will be asked during the session. Participants respond and discussion ensues. I started with the edchat for my state, as that was the one most of my key influencers participated in. From there I added a second one. I have yet to add any more, but it is something I plan to do in the future.

3.      Exploring avenues, one at a time

There isn’t just one right way to build a professional learning network. Some educators use tools that other educators don’t. It all depends on the needs and comfort levels of the educator. The important thing is that you build slowly. Trying to incorporate a variety of tools all at once will be overwhelming and spell disaster. Just as with anything else, try one thing at a time.

First, determine the different options that interest you, and what would be easiest for you to start with. Also note the options that you are interested in, but may need some assistance in learning how to use. Many educators start with Twitter because it’s a very easy way to get in touch with other educators. However, it can be hard to learn if you’ve never used it before. Other educators will start with blogging. They will either seek out blogs in their content areas that interest them, or they will begin writing their own experiences and ideas into a blog. Some educators seek out teacher friendly groups on Facebook, and others look for websites that include forums or message boards.

Once you’ve figured out the tools you’d like to start with, it’s time to jump right in. Pick one tool to start with. Of course, it’s easier if you can get assistance from someone you know, but oftentimes, you’ll have to research the tool and how to use it on your own. Once you’ve figured out how to use the tool, it’s a good idea to also research how other educators use the tool as well. There may be a chance that others have thought of something that you haven’t.

If you’re looking to get involved in doing #edchats on Twitter, this link below will get you started. Education tweeps work to compile it, and it covers the chat, a possible description, and the time it takes place. Check it out and get involved!