A PLN means a professional learning network. It is a way to communicate with others in your field and share ideas. I feel that in a way this course and the blogs we are reading and writing are in itself a PLN. I have really gotten a lot out of this course and want to share what I have learned with my colleagues. I am going to try some of the PLN suggested in Ann's utube video that we watched. I really want to find a way to return to blogs I have read or ideas posted by certain individuals. I am hopeful that the next essential will tell more about this. I have come across quite a few utube videos and blogs written by other professionals that I want a quick and easy way to follow them. Quick is the key word here. I know I am just learning but it seems like I have to go thru many steps to re find something I read that I want to return to.This will be especially useful when I find lessons on line that I like. I can return to that person's blog or site to see if he/she has more ideas that I can find useful.
I am so glad that you are enjoying the course, learning new things, expanding your PLN, and more importantly sharing with others!!!! Great work!!
ReplyDeleteI also like the photo you embedded in this blog post...photos always add to the visual appeal of the blog.
As far as following blogs, the social bookmarking essential will introduce you to Delicious where you can bookmark web pages...you can also add to your Network and follow the web pages that others have bookmarked. When you get there, have some names of people's blogs you want to follow and them find them in Delicious and add them to your network.
One other application that I use to follow blogs is Pageflakes (www.pageflakes.com) You can add RSS feeds for blogs you want to keep updated on. We did not include RSS aggregators in the course because we had to make some choices on which tools to present...otherwise it would be the 100 essentials...but you might want to check that one out...or Google Reader. Both are RSS aggregators, where you paste in the RSS feed and then can follow the blogs...if you want me to walk you through, just send me an email (ctinney@livoniapublicschools.org) or Skype me!
Carol Tinney