Journal 6: Grow Your Personal Learning Network (NETS-T I, III-V)

Warlick, D. (2009). Grow your personal learning network. Learning and Leading with Technology, 36(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-march-april-2009.aspx

In dealing with PLN’s as technology advances It is important for teachers to add more PLN’s to their ways of teaching. In ways it means being aware of what is out there. It is no longer just television and twitter, but now there are blogs, facebook, and so much more that can help revolutionize the way a teacher teaches inside the classroom.  New PLN’s and having knowledge open the doors to the ways we see our classrooms. I found that the more technology we feel comfortable with the more resources and references we can go to.  In applying new resources it improves communication and adds more input from others because maybe not one person has the answer, but another expert with the same area of interest can have the answer that someone else doesn’t have. The resources continue to expand and improve and that leads to ore resources and that is the main purpose of a PLN to help extract the answers we need to the questions we have. These recourses are not that hard they are recommended to the individual and they that individual can check it out, or always come back to it if they ever have use for the resource. In my personal experience there is so much more to just answering my personal questions about teaching but rather engaging myself in conversations with educators from other places, but have the same passion for teaching such as myself.

Q1: Is there a certain number of PLN's a teacher should have to refer to?

A1: I beleive that there shoudn't be any limit to how much a teacher has when it comes to PLN's. Although after reading this article it is always a good idea to keep up with the technology, but always have old resources because you never know whehn  chance might come up when an old PLN resource will come in handy.

Q2: What should be an important quality for a teacher to have when it comes to working with PLN's? Why?

A2: One important quality when using PLN's is commitment. I think this is an important quality of a teacher because with commitment when using these PLN and its resources a teacher must also commit to responding to other educators because educators want to hear from everybody. PLN's are not made to just help when an educator needs help it is for all educators to add their input solve problems and add more to the PLN's.