My PLN

Today, ladies and gentlemen, we will be talking about my Personal Learning Network (PLN).  Before my Digital and Social Media class, I had never really thought about my PLN, how big it was/was not, or how to expand it even more. As I began this project, I didn't really know where or how to start, or how I wanted it to look.  After looking at a few examples from The Big List of PLE Diagrams, I found a few that I liked, and created my own using some ideas from those examples.  As I started to create mine, more and more ideas of resources that I use kept popping into my head! Before I knew it, I had a huge diagram! It was cool to see how many resources I actually use in order to create lessons, gain new ideas, and just network with other teachers! Below is the link to my PLN map.

Melinda's PLN created on spiderscribe.net

As you can see, my PLN became pretty large with a lot of nodes branching out.  The way I did my PLN also just includes resources. If I would have included individual people within some of these resources, it would have been even larger! However, there is still more branching out and growing to do!

One way that I plan on expanding my PLN is to get involved with some more Tweetchats. I participated in the #iaedchat a few weeks ago, but have unfortunately not been able to join in on the conversation since then. I would like to keep up with that, plus find one or two specifically for math that I could join and get some ideas for my math classes through there.  I also really enjoy scrolling through my feed to find what other teachers who I follow have posted. I have gotten some really great ideas from them and have retweeted some things too, so that I can reference them again later.  As I get more involved in the Tweetchats, there will be more people who I can follow, gain ideas from, and have conversations with.

Another way that I plan on growing my PLN is to keep blogging! Like I said in my first post, I created a blog for an undergrad class, but I only did the minimum number of posts, and I never kept it up after that. I did create this blog for my Digital and Social Media class, but I am actually liking the experience this time, and want to keep it up after this class is done.  It is another way for me to share information with other teachers. I plan on sharing my blog posts on Facebook and Twitter so that more people can see them, and maybe I'll get some more followers and commenters on my blog! I get a lot of ideas from other peoples' blogs, so maybe someone could get an idea from me!

Outside of the technology world, I would also like to be more active when I go to teaching conferences.  I am a pretty shy person when I don't know people, so I tend to stay to myself or stick with the people who I went to the conference with.  In order to grow my personal learning network, I need to be more willing to ask questions and talk to other teachers at these conferences to gain new ideas and perspectives. We could also exchange contact information, or follow each other on Twitter so we can share some of those ideas quicker and easier.

Have I inspired you to create your own map of your PLN? Give it a try!