ABCDEFG... PLNs for You and Me!

Yes, I was a cheerleader.

Education, like many other professions, has a multitude of acronyms that are specific to the field. Teachers spout off letters like IEP, SPED, GE, OT & PT, SLP, ESOL, and ASD. But perhaps one of the most important is the PLN or Personal Learning Network. This is the one acronym to understand them all.

The following video will explain what a PLN is, and why you should have one:

This week, I explored a few PLNs. Some were brand new to me, and others I was already using but hadn't looked at them as PLNs yet. 

Diigo:

Prior to this week, I had never heard of Diigo, but I can tell you that it is nothing short of amazing. Diigo is a social bookmarking tool. What this means, is that you can bookmark articles, websites, videos and pictures within Diigo, and then you can share them to groups, other people can bookmark them directly from your library, and then... poof! - You have expanded your PLN. Here are some of the things Diigo can do:

Click on this image for more information about Diigo

As an educator, if you sign up with your school email, you can have access to even more features of this great tool. I highly encourage you to check this out.

Twitter:
This one is my favorite PLN because it is quick and easy! I already had a professional Twitter account, so getting started using this as a PLN was simple. If you don't have a professional Twitter account, I would advise that you set one up. It's good to keep your professional and personal Twitter separate. No one is going to take an educator seriously when they follow the Kardashians and Real Housewives on Twitter. You can find my Twitter feed over on the right-hand side of this blog. Feel free to follow me! Now, if you're not all that familiar with Twitter, you may not understand why this makes a great PLN. Well, along with following some other awesome educators, you can take part in Twitter chats about education. This is how they work:

Here is the Official Education Twitter Chat Calendar. I personally like #4thChat for obvious reasons!

There are plenty more PLNs for you to try out. Here are a few that I like:

EduTopia (Education-focused links to articles, videos, blogs, etc.)

GoodReads (For finding and discussing books as a teacher or as a class - can set up book clubs)

ProTeacher (Very organized and easy to find what you are looking for - like a giant teacher's lounge)

Pinterest (Can create boards for specific topics and subjects, share and follow other educators)

Instagram (Follow educators and Edu blogs for quick links to articles)

The most important thing is to find a Personal Learning Network that interests you and that you think you'll be able to have the most interaction with. The point is not just to get information, but to share, as well! Happy learning!

New Class, New Tools

I am currently taking another online tech class and already learning about some helpful tools that I can use in the classroom. I love when I can learn about a tool and immediately apply it!

So, I'll be honest here, I don't tend to follow a lot of blogs. Teaching full time, working on my masters, and raising four kiddos doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to peruse the web at my leisure. There has to be an answer for all of us busy people who would really benefit from keeping up with blogs about how to stay organized, right? There is!

Feedly:
This is the one-stop-shop for all of your blog following needs. Feedly compiles all of the latest blog posts from your favorite blogs in one place so that you don't have to spend your time visiting each blog individually. Here's an example of what it looks like.

I have mine in "cards view" because I'm a visual person, but there are two other view options, as well. The "title only" view looks more like an email inbox. You can click on the post directly in Feedly, and a preview of the post comes up. Within the preview, you can click to open up the whole post from the poster's blog site, or you can save or share directly from the preview window.

So what if you don't know what blogs to follow? You can search by topics or blog titles directly in Feedly. This is a huge time saver! Give Feedly a shot. You can sign up using your Google account (another thing I love as a busy teacher/mom -  Who can remember 17,893 passwords, anyway?!).

If this is not the RSS reader that you are looking for, this site has reviews for a few more, and you can pick what works best for you.

Any way you slice it, an RSS reader can help a teacher stay up-to-date with what's going on in education through educational blogs. Here are a few that I follow:

The Thinking Stick
Classroom Freebies
Organized Classroom
The Curriculum Corner 456 (They divide their blog between primary and intermediate grades)
Growing a STEM Classroom
The Nerdy Teacher

Adobe Spark:
Do you ever wonder how people get those cool, Pinterest-worthy images at the top of their blogs? Well, it's possible that they are using Adobe Spark!

As you can see from the video, there are many uses. I am going to use this in my classroom for the visual storytelling feature through video. Here's an example of what it can do:

The Three Little Pigs

The image at the top of this blog post and my blog title were created as "posts" on Adobe Spark, as well. Students could each design a post to share a concept, and then add it to a class Google Slide presentation. This would be useful a the beginning of the year so that students can introduce themselves to each other in a fun, artistic way. In my online class, we each created a post with an inspirational quote.

I'll leave you with mine.