Blog Post 7: Professional Learning Network

The Educator's PLN

I only just posted my first question to the collective wisdom on "Educator's PLN" today asking if there were any known websites for elementary school students regarding primary sources.

There was not as much activity through this network as there was on Twitter.  Going feature by feature, "My page" was very quiet as I did not contribute much content other than the question I asked on the blog, but I wanted to read through posts and see what topics were fleshed out from these professionals.  Wading through the posts from the "Groups" in the "Forum" section, I discovered "Best practices and differentiated instruction" with over 100 members.  Not to say I limited myself to this particular group.  I did check out groups with less members such as "STEM Education" and "Resources for EFL Teachers."  I checked out larger memberships such as "Project-Based learning" and one that I joined "EdTech."

I'll focus on EdTech:  http://edupln.ning.com/group/edtech  (not sure if login required, but I can provide links to the web from the listserv emails I received).  I received consolidated emails sporadically that would group various topics together and provide links to various sites.  One email I received on 10/29/15 had an eye-catching subject heading "Should school administrators use Snapchat?"

I learned early on that these emails with the subject does not necessarily mean the entire email with consolidated links will all discuss what is in the subject; only one of the links will.  The first article was the subject of the email:  "Should school administrators use Snapchat?"
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/28/snapchat-and-disappearing-message-apps-vex-schools.html"
The source:  Education Week (reviewed)

In the same email, another link provided the title "Is Minecraft useful in school?"
https://theconversation.com/how-minecraft-could-help-teach-chemistrys-building-blocks-of-life-49449
The source:  "The Conversation" (not reviewed that I could determine, but content populated by
editors and academics in collaboration).
Another link in the same email:  "New Study reveals the most challenging common core standards."  (.com (commercial) site)
Another link:  "Service provides copyright-free digital tools" which led to this link:  http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/digital-media-videoblocks-718/

The titles led to sites with different information types.  For example, the commercial website:  http://www.curriculumassociates.com/products/ready-most-challenging-common-core-standards-overview.aspx?utm_source=Smartbrief&utm_medium=eNewsletter_InlineTextImg&utm_content=NewStudyReveals_SeeTheMost&utm_campaign=LeadGen_FW2015_CCS-1401#.Vk5JvHarTq4
Although a commercial website requiring information, downloads for sample instructional workbooks were free.
The Conversation provided an interesting point of view where academics collaborated with editors to produce news.  Being in the field of higher education, professors have a preference for peer-reviewed or scholarly sources, however, there are blogs and news sites in which peer-reviewed authors have created content.  It was beneficial to obtain news from a variety of sources, enabling me (the researcher) to further investigate if I felt the article was brief or the writing style made me raise more questions about the topic.  These feeds also introduced me to new and emerging trends that forecast what this field will be facing with changes in the technological landscape.

Returning to the Educator's PLN, I did not receive any responses regarding my post; it was pretty much a ghost town in the blog forum.  I received timely suggestions via Twitter, so I thought the use of social media for collaboration was a nice tool to use in this instance.

These feeds by email, tweets by social media and postings to a member-community forum can help me develop as a student and within the profession.  The PLN and Twitter are networking opportunities that can cultivate collaborations with educational professionals who use this technology.  The feeds are a more efficient way for me to do less web crawling and more reading.  Although I have a few searching tricks up my sleeve (Librarian and skilled researcher in the house :) ), I prefer the feeds directly sent to me to save time.  Snapchat is uncharted territory for me and having raising questions from school administrators about whether or not Snapchat is a useful tool in the classroom, will help me better understand the conversations in various classrooms that are occurring about this social media tool.

I especially like the contrast of peer-reviewed information and information that is opinionated and biased all in one group.  The reason being is that while I am constantly exposed to peer-reviewed information and scholarly sources and an advocate of those information types, I find it important to digest information that has not been peer-reviewed and tailored to higher education.  When I am doing research for general purposes, sometimes the peer-reviewed and scholarly sources are too scholarly and too focused for the type of research I am performing.
There is always room for more sources and the one source I seek to improve or find more time to manage is my personal blog.  I found myself only blogging for the assignments in this class. The time constraints limit me from blogging to a certain frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.)  Blogging can be a rewarding experience, particularly the one thing I wanted to add to my final project but found it would be too advanced is to have comments incorporated with the content I blog.  Comments from my peers in our class were very helpful and I would welcome any constructive criticism about the design of my website, my writings or anything else that becomes a conversation-starter with the experience I have had using the PLN, the Tweets, the feeds, etc.