Professional Development : Building your PLN

This year I was  engaged as a teacher online and followed an interesting course  about blogging with students.
The course was part of a series of development  courses for educators which was offerred by  Edublogs.
Yesterday I got an e-mail from Kathleen Morris who had run the course and informed me about  some new  professional development challenges and I thought that I shoud start one right now.

I chose the one about  Building my  PLN, which is  a topic I am  familiar with and which I think is worth reflecting  on as teachers are life-long learners and need to rely on  a network of educators who can support them and  help them solve problems and  learn more.
If you need more information about the courses you can  get  access to them by following this link online  Free courses on Blogging and EdTech .

What is a  PLN?

If you search online you will find a lot of websites and hashtags that deal with this issue
http://www.shellyterrell.com/pln.html

http://teacherrebootcamp.com/resources/survivaltips/pln/

Sometimes when you work as an educator you need to rely on a network of  experts and communities online can be supportive and provide you with many  tips. This is true for educators who are new to the profession but also for the ones who have been teaching for years.

PLN  means  choosing what you are interested in and it implies that you are developing as a learner.
Educators in the  XXI century cannot but choose this path: you need to learn with the other and to share ideas.

Personally I found great people to follow online and this experience online helped me learn more and to deal with changes in the schools where I was teaching.  We wanted some innovations in teaching but most of us were reluctant to  try and find new  pathways into teaching.  I  started searching online and found people  like  Peggy George, Shelly Terrell and  Dr. Nellie Deutsch who really helped me learn more. I did some Moocs online, I started following some webinars online and I realized that I was not alone.

Among the many educators who are involved in communities online  I have  appreciated these webpages  by  Cybraryman who is  always  active online on Twitter : here you can find some important  links for your  professional  development.

https://cybraryman.com/pln.html

https://cybraryman.com/plnstars.html


Some blogs and websites are a source of information as they inform me on events, conferences and courses online :

http://nellie-deutsch.com/

Nellie Deutsch has been online and supporting  teachers who need to work in new virtual worlds and love learning . Her platforms on the Moodle are  offering a lot of  courses online for free

https://www.integrating-technology.org/


I have learnt a lot and I have been a learner in some EVO Sessions in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

In order to be active online you need to work online and be part of some learning communities:
I am a member of some  Google+ communities and  on Facebook too. Right now I am starting to use Google Classroom and I am experiment together with some other educators who will work with me online in 2019.

Since there are a lot of communities online  I have bookmarked them by using  Pinterest and also Symbaloo.
To be tech-savvy is important and people share what they feel is good for your  PLN: here is  the livebinder by an educator who has focussed on the Tools you need to rely on to build your  PLN:


Tools Click here to open this binder in a new window.



Click here to open this binder in a new window.



Here you can find my Symbaloo with some interesting links for some events or educators I love to follow:
https://www.symbaloo.com/mix/cpd2

I feel that there is not a good answer to describe PLN: it is related to the educator's interests and to the way he/she works in different learning communities. Most of us started by chance and now  we are working on many projects online. If you have your PLN you are a connected educator and a person who will try to establish connections with other educators and learn together. Your classes will benefit from these experiences.

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