Talk Time with Miss Toft: How to Maximize Your Personal Learning Network in 10 Ways!

Arthur Aufderheide once said “All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections.” During my semester at UNI, I decided to extend my Professional Learning Network. By growing your Professional Learning Network, it’s important to take advantage of building relationships with professionals, connecting with other educators, and learning new ideas to incorporate in the classroom. I found that making these different connections will help further my success personally and professionally. The picture below marks the start of my PLN (yes, I know it’s a little sad). However, now that I have started to branch out my Professional Learning Network has grown tremendously.

Pinterest ~ Since I already had a Pinterest account, I created a Pinterest board over the use of technology in the classroom. There are a lot of resources for strategies and tips about everything and anything! Pinterest has a lot of ideas from technology in the classroom to how to integrate an ocean theme into the common core curriculum. I have learned a lot just by researching new apps sites for my students to learn through and articles and blogs expressing the benefits of technology, as well as how to use technology. A bonus feature Pinterest provides, that educators will fall in love with, is the multiple boards to keep your ideas organized.

Twitter ~ I started building my PLN by creating a professional Twitter account. Twitter is a great way to reach out and connect with other teachers and professionals. I found following other educators benefits my future as a teacher. I started to search for different professional accounts to follow to collaborate ideas and exchange advise. In the future, I will continue to develop my professional Twitter network so that I will be able to keep up with the constant change in the educational world.

Facebook Page ~ I started to follow Facebook pages regarding other educators and professionals. I found a page called Education to the Core. This professional expresses different ways to become successful in the classroom. This website can be a place for future teachers to grow and develop their teaching style using the content and resources provided. I believe this resource stresses the importance of including interests of the teacher into their teaching style. I thought this resource is a great opportunity to better my ways of teaching. I will benefit from this resource in my future teaching because it provides wonderful ideas for lessons, activities, games, and much more that I can incorporate into my classroom someday.

The Brown Bag Teacher Blog ~ While connecting to other educators and professionals on Twitter, I came across an account that caught my eye. The account is called The Brown Bag Teacher. I was intrigued so I continued to follow it until I arrived at the website, which included different blog posts. I read so many interesting articles. This blog contained lesson plans for different subjects and articles of technology used in the classroom. This website provides fun and creative ideas for future lesson plans.

Podcast: Short Orange ~ I came across this resource by searching podcasts for future educators. I believe podcasts provide great insight based on past experiences and the challenges that come with being a teacher. There is so much inspiration from their ideas, such as what worked well and what did not work well. Listening to a wide variety of podcasts will enhance my teaching.

New Apps: Seesaw ~ While researching creative and useful apps for the classroom, I found an app called Seesaw. The app, Seesaw, is basically an online portfolio for students to post their achievements for teachers and parents to see. Once the students upload their work to Seesaw, the teacher reviews and grades the work. After the teacher looks over the assignment, the parents can get a notification to view and keep up to par on their child's work. I think this app could be a benefit in the future because it helps keep the students work organized, which makes my life easier.

Lynda ~ Lynda is a great tool to use. This website consist of tutorials to complete and receive a certificate. There are many video courses of various skills. Within this resource, I could pick what skill to work towards and excel at. Learning how to navigate google drive effectively will help immensely throughout the rest of my schooling, as well as in the future classroom. After watching the google drive video, my goal is to help my future students understand and use google drive to the best of their ability.

LinkedIn ~ I found this resource to be great way to expand my PLN and connect with people around the world. LinkedIn is an social networking service that provides many great job opportunities. It allows you to search for people, jobs, companies, and much more. As a future educator, I will benefit from this resource because it can help me find a job by allowing me to develop a high quality profile for future employers to find me.

Symbaloo ~ I have always been that person to keep multiple tabs open at a time, so I decided I needed something to help bookmark all the important sites, especially in the future as a teacher. Symbaloo is a website that allows you to bookmark different resources so you can efficiently return to them when they are needed. I signed up for Symbaloo to keep all my sites handy and in one place. I think students would love this because it's using technology and they are able to engage and interact with the lessons and websites. This is a great new way for students to learn!

Zoom ~ Since technology is evolving, the standard teaching method is slowly fading away to accommodate the change. Students, in the 21s century, are more in touch with technology. As a future teacher, I believe incorporating opportunities using technology into lesson plans and activities in the classroom will help engage the students. Zoom is a great tool to use technology and expand it nationally and internationally. Zoom gives us the advantage to live chat with anywhere. Students and educators will have access to new ideas and opportunities.