PLN

I really started developing a personal learning network (PLN) for the first time in this class. Before, I just sort of arbitrarily gathered information. As a result, my information was often disorganized and I was unable to find certain things. I ended up having to start from square one quite often.

Although creating a website is maybe one of the easier things to do through a site like Weebly or Google, it's one of the things that I'm most excited about. I had tried to make a website two years ago for my class, but I found it really difficult. I was using Dreamweaver, which was nice because I didn't need to know any type of coding. However, it was still a pain because whenever I would edit the site, I would have to save it and sent it to my librarian. Then, she would have to publish the new site. It just got to be too much. I've already started making my new website through Weebly (www.MrsSnydersVirtualClassroom.weebly.com) . I only have the basics down because I want to ask my students what they'd like from a class webpage. It's so easy that I'll be able to update things almost daily if I want.

Related to website creation, I look forward to using blogs more. I think that writing a blog strictly for school (parents and students) would really open up communication with parents. I often wish there were ways for me to keep in touch with more parents about all the cool things we're doing in class. It's been frustrating in the past that I only get to really talk about my classroom happenings at parent-teacher conferences. Additionally, I think there is a lot of room to incorporate student blogs into my classes. I plan on starting by implementing my unit technology plan that requires students to create blogs for their independent reading novels. Later, I think I could use blogs in a lot of different ways.

I think that wikis definitely have possibilities for the classroom. However, I really need to spend more time looking at the wiki and figuring out how it could be used effectively in my classes.

I'm also excited about using Diigo for my students' research papers next year. I think that using the social bookmarks with highlighting features will be a really nice way to incorporate technology, have students collaborate in a meaningful way, and still work on the reading skills (like summarizing) that I really value.

I'm also going to work on using Del.icio.us more. After learning about social bookmarking (which, like so many other things in this class, I had never heard of), making a "favorites" list on an personal computer seems cumbersome and archaic.

Before entering this class I though Twitter was a waste of time. To be perfectly honest, I still don't like it. I can only see it being helpful for emergency situations or quick reminders to students about upcoming tests and assignments. Overall, I still believe that Twitter is a waste of time for me. Because tweets have to be so short, I think that it's impossible for anything over Twitter to be personal. Additionally, I think a lot of tweets that I've looked at are egocentric. I guess I can't really see the difference between Twitter and status updates on Facebook. Furthermore, I don't like the design of Twitter. I don't like logging-in and just seeing this myriad of people's thoughts. (The only tweets I liked reading were actually from a magazine called "Simple." I did like getting helpful little hints about organization. Conversely, news tweets wasted my time. Why log-in to Twitter to read a news tweet only to have to click on a link to read the actual article? Why not just go to the news source first like I usually do?)

I also don't really understand the point of the virtual reality type sites online. I tried really hard to think of how I would use it in class, but I couldn't come up with anything. They felt like games to pique student interest, but when all's said and done, I think they just take more time away from student learning.

del.icio.us

I think that del.icio.us has a lot of potential uses that I didn’t fully tap into yet.

As I get more into the tool, I’ll probably go back and add some more tags to some of my links. I found myself often using the tags recommended. Additionally, I often used really broad tags, like “education.” I’m not sure yet if broader tags are better than narrower ones. I can see the advantages of both. By searching for a broad tag, I’m able to get a lot of results and find some really unique things. But, by doing so, I end up having to sort through a lot of results. Conversely, narrower tags would help me find something precise, but I ran into problems with this. I ended up not getting many results and having to start a search over. I keep using “education” as a tag. I think, though, that the tag needs to be more specific to help other users out.

I tried to add some annotations to my links. Rather than summarizing the site, I often tried to tell a viewer what s/he could expect. For example, I might say something like, “This is a great resource for teaching literature. There are multiple sample activities and lessons for hundreds of different texts.”

I can see myself using Diigo, rather than del.icio.us, with students. I really like all of the extra tools that Diigo has. I plan on using/teaching the highlighting and summarizing tools with students. Additionally, they’ll need help with tagging articles that they find for their individual lists. (I’m thinking of using Diigo for a research assignment so students can share sources.) I think the best way to teach students how to tag (better than I’ve been doing!) is to get them to think of broad categories and then narrow categories for their tags. For example, if a student tags an article about using solar power to power a vehicle, we could talk about a hierarchy of categories to describe the subject. Example: Science, climate change, alternative energy sources, and solar power would all be appropriate tags- starting out broad, and then narrowing in.

As I’m still on maternity leave, I haven’t been as active with this tool as I think I’ll eventually become. For one, I really like the idea of being able to utilize my “favorites” from multiple computers. Second, I think that sharing bookmarks will come in handy when I’m teaching my history classes. I’m always digging through things to find really great, interesting websites for the students. Ideally, I’ll be able to find other American history teachers on del.icio.us and we can share our resources.