Personal Learning Networks and Social Networking

I "grew up" as part of the Facebook generation.  I remember when it first started, and was limited to college students ONLY and it took time to even add all of the colleges across the country.  We used Facebook as a way to connect with long lost friends, and keep in touch with new ones.  That being said, you would think that I would have more experience with social networking.  As we work through the MET program I am discovering that there is so much more to social networking than I ever imagined.  When I started as a first year teacher I relied on the veteran teachers for resources and ideas. As time went on, I discovered that there were educators all over the country who wanted to share their ideas and collaborate with other teachers.  So often I have an idea in mind that I want to do or make for my students that I have never done before.  Now thanks to all of the personal learning networks out there, I have learned not to re-create the wheel and go searching online before I set out to create on my own.

One of my all time favorite components to my PLN is Pinterest.  One day I was on Pinterest looking for some new ideas to use with the Daily 5 in my classroom.  It was still a new resource we were using at our school and I needed some help and ideas.  I did a quick search on Pinterest and found all of these great ideas that people had posted on their blogs.  Those blogs linked me to other blogs that had great ideas.  Before long I had 15 blogs on google that I followed with Google Reader.  I checked it anxiously each day with excitement for what these master teachers were sharing with us (yes, I know I'm a little bit of a nerd).  If anyone needs some great elementary blogs to follow let me know!

I decided to try out edWeb this week.  I was pleasantly surprised at how user friendly it is.  Once you answer a few questions you are logged in and ready to go.  With a  quick search I found groups that were of interest to me.  The two I have become a member of for now are, iPads in the Classroom and Tech Tools for the Classroom.  I am always looking for new apps and programs to try out.  I like that each group is a little different.  The tech tools group contains more webinars you can join whereas the iPad group has blogs, discussion boards, and resources.  No matter what you are interested in, there was something for everyone!

The Networked Classroom

I would love to have a fully networked classroom.  In order to be competitive in the world our students need to be able to use technology.  If we start at a young age, our students will stay current on the newest technology and will be able to compete in a tough job market.  I feel like my school is making great strides towards us having networked classrooms but we still have a long way to go.  I think that one of the biggest advantages of having a networked classroom is the accessibility.  We would be able to connect to other students in our building, district, state, and all over the world.  Alternatively, our parents would have more access to what is going on in our room.  Which also brings me to a disadvantage.  Our school has  a HUGE variety of families from all socio-economic backgrounds.  Unfortunately more than 40% of our students are on free and reduced lunch.  We have a lot of families who don't even have an internet connection.  We would be limited as to what could be done outside of school.

I like to think that I am in the process of transitioning to a networked classroom.  This is my first year as an eMINTS for all classroom.  As the year has progressed, I am trying to take projects that we do every year and think about how I could incorporate more technology into them.  We are so fortunate to have an amazing technology facilitator in our building who can help me take my crazy ideas, and make them interactive and appropriate for my kids.  I hope one day that my classroom will be like those mentioned in the our book.

Networked classrooms are a fantastic way to meet the diverse needs of our learners.  We can use technology to modify assignments for students with special needs.  We can also use it to challenge our gifted students. 

Twitter

Please post about your first reflections of learning about and using Twitter.

@JWintergalen

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was pretty excited to start learning about Twitter to establish my PLN.  After this week, I am still excited, but also a little overwhelmed.  The link to Twitter4Teachers was a huge help in getting things up and running.  I have tried to search for teachers on Twitter before and not been very successful.  This made it so easy to find people with similar interests.  I'm not going to lie, I had to go to the Twitter for Dummies page (http://www.blogtips.org/twitter-for-dummies-part-4-the-geeky-art-to-nerdy-tweets/) to get help with the #'s and @'s.  It was a great site for explaining the basics.    I am amazed at all of the resources that people posted.  I almost felt like Twitter was reading my mind.  Once Tweets started showing up for people I follow, I was thinking, "Perfect!  I was just looking for this!"  

I signed up for HootSuite to help me manage my Twitter account.  I can tell that I am going to need to spend some more time with this site.  I don't entirely get the point of it.  The only feature that I can see that I immediately like is that it organizes the Tweets that I mark as my favorite.  

Does anyone use Twitter with elementary students or have a suggestions on how to use it with them?

Blog Entry 1

For your blog post this week, I want you to reflect on the reading from the Introduction and Chapters 1 & 2 in the Personal Learning Network book.

The Introduction and Chapter 1 focus on how technology's role in education is constantly changing and what we can do to keep up with it.  I have been in the educational field for less than 10 years but in that short time I have seen tremendous changes.  Richardson and Mancabelli summed it up best when they said, "At this moment, the average educator between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-five was born into a world with no world wide web, no cell phones, no smartphones and few (if any) portable personal computers.  As recently as 2000, most schools were still places where the term technology meant the glow of the overhead projector or the teacher's desktop computer…"  When I started teaching I had an overhead projector and 2 classroom computers.  When I created documents for my students or parents, I thought I was pretty cool when I added a picture border to my document. Now, I find myself in a room with a SMARTboard, 6 laptops, a teacher laptop, and a document camera, with access to much much more.  I feel like I got my teaching degree at a crucial time when all of these changes were getting ready to happen, so we really weren't prepared for them while in college.  

I found myself thinking today about reform vs. transformation and realize that much of what we are still doing is reform.  We are trying to figure out how to make the technology fit into what we have always done.  Taking baby steps towards transformation.  In working with one of our 5th grade teachers who is in a full eMINTS classroom (in 3rd grade we are eMINTS for all), I have seen the great things they are doing to get the students to show their knowledge with the use of technology.  I would love to take some of these things head on, but as our book pointed out, there isn't always quality PD offered on these topics at our schools.  Too much of the talk now is the switch to Common Core and new MAP testing.  Sadly technology has taken a back seat to these topics.  

I'm a little ashamed to admit it but my favorite part of Chapter 2 was explaining how to use Twitter as part of a PLN.  I get using it for communication, and keeping in touch, but people kept talking about collaborating with it, and using it for PD and I just didn't understand how you can do that in 140 characters or less.  I do have a twitter account but mostly follow pop culture and news sources and use it when I am bored.  I am excited to now start to start building a professional community within this resource.  

Infographic Assignment

Here is a link to my Infographic Assignment.  I kept mine very simple, as it is something I would use with my 3rd graders.  I have found that too much content for them can be overwhelming, and they don't see everything you want them to!

http://jenn6462.edu.glogster.com/branches-of-government/

Week 5

As we have worked through the digital story telling process, I have found it to be exactly like the writing process.  When we teach our students to write, we teach them to brainstorm.  In third grade we typically give them some kind of organizer to use, although we do teach them how to make webs, much like the one I used to gather my thoughts about my digital story.  They always do a rough draft.  Many of our students will tell you that their story is perfect, but as they learn, we all have to revise and edit our writing.  I personally, do not like writing, so I revise a ton.   My biggest struggle in creating digital stories, is figuring how to make everything work together between the talking, visual, and any music.  In my mind that is a lot of things to coordinate. When we do digital stories at school the kids are able to coordinate all three, so I figure if they can do it, so can I :-)  

Week 4

Many teachers have a classroom website with varying levels of success.  How have you made your classroom website more useful to students, families, and other educators?  What gaps still remain?

Our school requires us to each have a classroom website.  We have made many changes to our websites over the years, but it wasn't until recently that I have found a way to make it work.  In my opinion, our school websites are very lacking.  They are hard to edit, you can't do much with animations, or making them visually appealing, and it is hard to put documents on for the parents to download.  The worst part is that you have to be at school to update your website.  As we all know, finding time during the school day to do something like this is difficult.  Our district has tried several other alternatives along the way, but nothing has stuck.  

My solution to this last year was I started a blogger site.  There is a link on my school website to take parents to my blogger site.  This was by far the best decision I ever made.  I love that I can update it from my phone or ipad wherever I am.  I am able to upload documents that are useful to the parents and students more easily.  It is so much more user friendly.  In order to make my site more useful for parents, I would like to incorporate google calendar and create separate sections for the parents and students with pertinent information.   I still have links on my regular school website that the kids access every day, and ultimately I would like to get all of them moved into my blogger site.