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.