Journal 7: Professional Learning Network

Summary/Reflection:

This quarter we have spent time in class and at home discussing and participating in professional learning networks. For me personally I didn't get many ideas or learn anything new from the affinity groups that I had joined. The one nice thing about the affinity groups I joined is that they would send me e-mails with new posts that pertained to interests of mine for the classroom. The posts were on topics that I would like to learn more from, but none of the posts were related to my classroom grade level.

I might not have been successful with the affinity groups joined, but the Digg Reader and my twitter account have helped me as a professional to stay up to date on new technology trends in the classroom as well as to get fresh ideas for the classroom. With Digg Reader, I love that it's not just blog posts that I can see since I joined Digg Reader, but I can also see blog posts from before that date. This was great for me because I found a great idea from the blog Teaching in Room 6 that had posted on September 23rd an article called Real World Problem Solving Using the Book Order Form. Unfortunately I won't be able to use the idea this year, but I am ready to start with it next year after I have taught my students how to add and subtract decimals. In this real-world situation students are given scholastic book order forms and are asked to clip-out the books that they would like their parents to buy for them. Students do some research and see how much the same book would cost at the local bookstore. The overall goal is for students to show their parents how much money they would save ordering the books through Scholastic rather than go to the bookstore.

In regards to twitter as a professional learning network, it definitely is! I check my twitter feed about once a week. I check it constantly when I am at a technology conference or know of one that day that I wasn't able to attend and can see what others are tweeting about so that I can check-out some of these new ideas that they are learning. I recently (during October) went to the local San Gabriel Valley CUE Conference and tweeted about what I was learning. It was so neat to see my tweets being retweeted, so I knew that others were learning from what I was able to share from the conference. The nice thing about twitter is that it acts like my affinity groups do and sends me e-mails once a week with tweets that I might not have seen, but that pertain to what my followers and/or those that I am following are interested in this week. The e-mails help me to learn new strategies for my classroom through others' tweets and also tells me that hey I should start following them, I like their ideas.

These tools are definitely a must for teachers who want to keep growing professionally. They are free tools available and we all know that we teachers love the word FREE!!! I'm hoping to set-up a time before winter break to share with my school how to join a Digg Reader and add blogs to their reader. I know a lot of the primary grade levels love to look for new ideas on blogs. The Digg Reader can help them to stay organized and save them time in searching their favorite blogs for fresh ideas.