My Personal Learning Network/ Environment
I was very overwhelmed as I started thinking about my personal learning network. I feel like I have a large learning network, but there are still times I feel isolated in my own engineering curriculum-being in a mix of everything but not always defined! I started to think of what resources and tools I run to when I need support.
The first thing I thought of wasn't technology or my go-to tools online, instead it was my "tribe". My "learning tribe" consists of the people who can give me a little support when my own pep-talks aren't enough anymore. Tribes and their unique impact are described in The Element. "When tribes gather in the same place, the opportunities for mutual inspiration can become intense." The people who give me the most intense inspiration in my immediate environment made by my students and other staff members in my building. However, I also have other connections in my professional communities like my support from Eastern Illinois University, Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Project Lead the Way, and National Science Teacher Association all give me energy to continue the daily work.
I also thought about the way I get information and communicate my information with others. I thought of gmail, talk, aim, Skype, my blog, twitter, scoop.it, and zite. I have direct emailing, interactive communication IMs, and curation sites.
I feel that I use software in my everyday learning and teaching like Autodesk Inventor, Evernote, Dropbox, iTunes, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, One Note, Word, Powerpoint, and Kindle readers. I create many of my lessons and notes for students in power points and word documents. The software portion of my network is not providing information back to me, however I still find it amazingly valuable in my network of learning.
The section that I felt had the most information and really could have expanded more on was my internet based resources. These are the tools and apps that use the internet. I have so many, but they are not all related to the way I am learning…more the tools I use in the classroom to enhance learning. For this reason, I limited the number of internet-based items I used to RSS feeds, email, youtube, google, ask, digg, delicious, vimeo, teacher pal (app), moodle, flicker, google earth, dropbox, blogger, and edmodo.
In most cases, I have arrows both leaving me and pointing back at me because I contribute and gain information from these sources.
The diagram I most related to was Katherine Pisana because her network was organized and easy to understand, she included common tools, internet resources and her own learning areas. I feel like she was able to give a unique glimpse into all of her learning styles not just internet based.
I believe I would add more to my PLN if it was able to be organized. I would have webs or continuations from my learning tribes including the internet-based tools I use with them or from them, I would have communications connecting to learning tribes and internet-based applications and more than just the basic software on my list. However, I didn't want to overwhelm everyone so I concentrated on the topics that were most important to me currently.
I believe my PLN is a hybrid of sorts because I do have technology based connections but I also include my personal connections outside of the Internet. I think I have a combination of curation tools, information gathering tools, publishing tools, and other software that would cover not only tool oriented learning, but also people oriented and use oriented resources.
Resources
Deleket (poster). 3d cartoon icons pack [icons set]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=86 on November 1, 2011.
Eastern Illinois Univerity (2011). Panther logo [picture]. Retrieved from htpp://www.eiu.edu on May 2009.
Effectivefive (poster). Social media icons set [icon sets]. Retrieved from http://www.freeiconsweb.com/Free-Downloads.asp?id=1582 on October 31, 2011.
ICTM (2011). [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.ictm.org on November 1, 2011.
NCTM(2011).[picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nctm.org/ on November 1, 2011.
NSTA (2011). NSTA logo [picture]. Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/ on November 1, 2011.
Pizana, K. My ple [wiki post]. Retrieved from http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams on November 1, 2011.
Robinson, K. & Aronica, L. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Viking Adult
*ipad app icons came from screen shots.
