Final Reflections

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As I near the end of my search for my personal learning network I am happy to report that I have created a powerful, dynamic, supportive network that will carry me forward.

Below I am attaching a video animation I created using Web 2.0 tool goanimate. The fun, four minute animation demonstrates the diverse Web 2.0 tools available to support your PLN and enable: creating, collaborating, communicating, and sharing in the networked age. I hope you enjoy it.

How’s your PLN? by shylock33 on GoAnimate

Finally, I am also including my reflective essay. Together, these two assignments represent the culmination of my learning over the past 13 weeks. I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Vogt and my faculty advisor Diane Janes who made this journey possible.

I hope you all will take the time to explore and create your own personal learning networks as well. If you do, be sure to find me on twitter at: myers4alted

 

Delicious vs Favourites…

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Hi everyone,

This will be my final post on PLN tools, and I would be amiss if I didn’t mention social bookmarking tools. I personally use delicious, but there are other good ones out there as well. Many of my MET colleagues use diigo or scrible. I haven’t used either of the them, though checking them out are on my list of things to do when I finish the MET Program. So, while I cannot speak to diigo’s functionality I can say that delicious is an incredible tool to keep all of your resources accessible from anywhere at any time.  Check out my screencast below which shows just how easy delicious can be to organize your websites.

While the screencast documents the obvious benefits of using a social bookmarking tool like delicious from an organizational perspective, what it doesn’t talk about is the “social” aspect. Not only can you save all of your “go-to” websites in delicious, but you can share them with others as well.

For instance, let’s assume you go to a Pro-D conference on a Friday and run into a friend. She asks if you know any great story making web 2.0 tools. If you rely on favourites saved to your computer your answer to her would be this, “Yes, I do! I will email you the names of them when I get back to work on Monday.” What if the teacher wanted to prepare a lesson for Monday morning? She’s out of luck, and so are her students.

With delicious, not only can you pull up your saved websites right to your phone, tablet, or laptop (which I am sure you would have at a conference), but you could suggest to your colleague to create a delicious account as well and then all of her favourites that are sitting in isolation on her computer could be put in her delicious account and you could benefit from her great finds as well. Win! Win!

One thing I do like about some of the newer bookmarking tools like scrible is their ability to add sticky notes or highlight sections of websites. (Check out the link above to see scrible in action). This can come in handy when your or your students are researching a topic. No more printing off reams of paper, instead, you go to a website, save it to your scrible account, highlight the important sections, add a sticky note or two, and no matter what computer you access that website from (as long as you are accessing it through your scrible account) your highlights and sticky notes will be available. Now THAT is handy!

Podcasts & webinars

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Podcasts  are an easy way to stay current on educational activities around the globe.  The best part? You can listen to them in the car, on the bus, while going for a run, or even as you drift off to sleep. (Personally, I wouldn’t recommend the last one. I tried listening before bed but I always ended up getting inspired by something someone has said and I often found myself hopping out of bed to make notes or check out a website, etc. So, be forewarned, podcasts and bedtime may not mix.

Another really useful means of connecting with educators both locally and internationally, is by participating in webinars.

What’s the difference between a podcast and a webinar? Usually podcasts are on-going, in other words, they are usually part of a series. For instance, iTunes Univeristy offers a  number of educational podcasts that release a new podcast every week or so.  This website will give you an idea of just how many educational podcasts are available on iTunes U.   Even if you do not have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad you can still access iTunes U!  You can also set it up so that new podcasts download to your computer automatically. If you do have an iPod or other mobile device you can then listen on the go.  I download the podcasts to my iPod and listen while I am on my way to work. Webinars are often live events that you can particpate in (almost like going to a seminar, but it happens online and you can participate from the comfort of your home).

A couple go-to podcasts that I follow are: The Teachers’ Podcast, which covers all things teaching – pedagogy, lessons, insights, and reflections.  You can also access this podcast outside of iTunes U at www.teacherspodcast.org;K-12 Greatest Hits offers podcasts from 14 different educational organizations. This one is great for parents as well as educators!  Here is the link their site http://www.bamradionetwork.com/. I’m also inspired by the Whole Child Podcast, which can be found here http://www.wholechildeducation.org/podcast and Teachers Teaching Teachers is also very good, it can be found here: http://www.teachersteachingteachers.org/.  Be sure to check out the iTunes U link above as there are so many podcasts to choose from – podcasts on AP math to podcasts on learning French, to podcasts on how to be an effective principal.

If you are game for participating in a webinar, a couple of good sites are I would recommend are the Education Week site or the ASCD website is also great for those things 21st century teaching and learning. If you are looking for webinars on educational technology I highly recommend the Edtechteacher website.   Most of the time webinars are recorded so that those who were unable to partiipate live are still able to benefit from the discussion of others. There are numerous webinars always taking place, simply type “eduational-webinar” into your search engine and you will have a wealth of webinars to choose from.

 

 

A bit about Nings…

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The power is on again at my parents’ and the internet is connected, after several hours this morning involving shopping for a router and trouble shooting the wireless. So, let’s take a few minutes to talk about Nings.

I thought a ning was like a blog, or a wiki, etc. But, in reality, ning is an online service that lets people create their own social networks and join/participate in other networks. Ning is specific to the company – www.ning.com

Anyone can sign up and start a ning. Membership is free (with ads) and you can also upgrade your ning membership to eliminate the ads. Once you set up your profile, you can create a ning. You simply give it a name and a url, decide if it is public or private, and a description of the ning and you are ready to get started. Creating a new ning is seems pretty intuitive

So far the only ning I have joined is the ubc met ning at ubcmet.ning.com. This will allow me to connect with other MET students but also to offer some advice for those new to the MET program which is great. Remember, part of PLNing is paying it forward.

As far as joining existing nings…it’s can feel a bit like crashing a private party…but remember the creator of nings have done so because they WANT to network with other people who share their interests. For example, I went to the englishcompanion.ning.com and selected
SIGN UP. My email address was my login, I created a password, and answered a couple of questions about why I was interested in joining the ning. Then I got a response

HERE’S WHAT YOU WILL SEE WHEN YOU SIGN UP.
“Your membership to English Companion Ning is pending approval.
Hello, Stephanie Myers.  Your profile details must be approved by the Administrator before you can become a member of English Companion Ning. You will receive an email once your profile is approved. (Withdraw Request)”

While you wait you are able to browse the sit.

Here are a couple of useful links to help you get started in finding, joining, and participating in nings.

The 12 Best Ning groups for teachers to join

7 things you should know about…ning 

One last thing, don’t forget YOU can always initiate a Ning too!

G+ Circles

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Sorry for the delayed follow up since my last post. I decided to fly home to visit my family but the day before I arrived Chatham was in the eye of a storm and my parents power has been out ever since. “Welcome home!”  Should be back up tomorrow so I will follow up on Nings then.

For today I am sitting in a Tim Horton’s to update you on G+ Circles. I have to confess that Google Circles could very well be the resolve to my previously mentioned issue with using Facebook as part of my PLN. Essentially, with G+ Circles I can add people to a circle, much like you add friends in Facebook, but instead of having a mass collection of “friends” you can group people. I can have a G+ Circle for work colleagues, alt. educators, friends from MET, etc. My actual “friends” stay in Facebook and my professional friends and colleagues stay in G+ Circles. It has potential. Unfortunately it still means being even more dependent on Google but that may be a non-issue for most. (It’s the whole issue of all of your eggs in one basket – lots of people love this, others wonder what could happen if Google decides to put a price on their services). Something to think about I suppose.

Here is a great video to explain how Google Circles works and how it can resolve the Facebook issue.

So, now that we understand what Google Circles are, I have to confess  I like it! It is another way to connect and collaborate with people – that I know, and those that I don’t know – but who share similar interests.  (It would also be a useful tool to get students working together in groups).

I am including a link to Edwin Watson’s video that explains how to get started with Google+ and set up and use Google Circles. There are also a number of Google Circles already in progress on a variety of educational topics for you to join. Here is the best site I have found for breaking down a large handful of G+ Circles for Educators.  Check it out.

The biggest thing to keep in mind when creating your PLN is that it is just that – PERSONAL – the choices you make are yours. There is no one, cookie-cutter version of a PLN. Take your time, think about what you want to do? Why you want to do it? And how the tools that are out there can make it easier for you to achieve your goals.  (-:

Nings, G+ circles and G+ hangouts

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A couple of weeks back I posted the following question to my classmates in my ETEC 590 course: “What tech tools do you use to support your PLN?”  Twitter seemed to be the number one response, everyone who responded acknowledged that they were on Twitter. Others mentioned twitter aggregators and RSS managers. But three other interesting responses that I had not really considered came up and I wanted to take a moment over the next couple of days to give you a little bit more insights into these tools – Nings (thanks Joy) and Google+ Circles and Hangouts (thanks Kenton).

I thought I would keep it simple to start and focus on G+ hangouts. I had never heard of these before, I must confess and wasn’t sure I would be interested since “hanging out” isn’t something I really do professionally.

Turns out G+ hangouts (G+ means Google plus) is an alternative to Skype.

Early on in my weblog I posted a mind map outlining the current state of my PLN. I did note my use of Skype at that time. What I am gathering is Google Hangouts is a ramped up version of Skype.  Personally, I like Skype. What I don’t like is that I have to pay if I want to video chat with more than one person at a time. (Apparently something that is free in G+.) So, for group work in Skype,  if no one in the group has updated their account, you are limited to audio, and text only.  Really, this hasn’t been a problem for me thus far. To be honest, if I am chatting with colleagues or fellow classmates from the comfort of my living room (at the end of a long day) I kind of prefer the “no video” option! (-:

Here is a good summary breaking down the differences between Google Hangouts and Skype, although it is a blatantly bias comparison.  I am gathering that the poster is a digital native (essentially someone who had grown up with technology). The reason I make this assumption is digital natives are much more comfortable with, and often demand, tools that facilitate multitasking.  In this case, the author is pleased with the ability to play a game and chat with friends at the same time. I tried to find a counter argument as well, just to keep it as fair as possible.

Whichever way you choose to go really doesn’t matter. For me, I will stick with Skype simply because it has worked for me thus far and as I have mentioned before, I really don’t like all of my eggs in one digital basket (in this case Google). So for me, I am sticking with Skype. But, if you haven’t set yourself up with a conferencing tool I HIGHLY recommend you do so. Chances are, you will need/want to network with colleagues – whether they be in your district, or across the world. A conferencing tool is a must have in the PLN toolkit.

I would be negligent here if  I did not mention Facetime as another conferencing options for those of you with apple products.
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Creating a wiki of your own

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I thought it would be worthwhile to compile a list of alternative wiki hosts beyond wikispaces  which admittedly is my go-to tool.

In speaking with some colleagues in the MET program I have been given some other suggestions on possible wiki alternatives that they have used as well:

1. PBWorks. This link provides some details about how you can use wikis in educational settings (case studies) and provides some sample sites as well.

2. Wikidot. According to information on their education page “The Educational sites are absolutely free for educational / research purposes. Please create your site, enter Site Manager and look for Educational upgrade.” Good to know!

Others said they had used wetpaint in the past, which I do remember hearing about, but when I did some digging it looks like the Seatle-based owners of this company have moved away from wikis to focus on social publishing…so, not so useful; unless you want to keep up on Hollywood gossip. Not necessarily part of your PLN.

There are others out there but they are not as well known and stable as the two I have provided. These three offer viable options and one should suite your needs.

The great thing about these sites is the potential for free hosting as an educator, and more importantly, none have ads.

My suggestion would be to spend some time looking at design options, layout options, embedding options, linking options, etc.

Remember, you can always post questions below!

 

 

Wikis make great connections

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Over the past three years in the MET program at UBC I have become very comfortable working in wikis. Most courses require group design assignments and wikis tend to be the perfect tool for the task. For those who don’t know what a wiki is. Here is a great video – Wikis in plain English.

Two years ago at a district alternative teacher meeting there was a universal complaint across the group that we didn’t know each other – where each of us worked, what each of us taught, or anything else for that matter.  There was also frustration with lack of resources, outdated resources, and the exorbitant amount of time it was taking to modify and adapt curriculum for each of our alternative school students due to learning designations and gaps in learning. I piped up at that meeting, “What we need is a wiki! An online place to share this information!”  There were a lot of blank stares.

And then the BCTF went into negotiations with the government and strike-action ensued. We didn’t see each other for an entire year. It sucked. Not that we saw each other much before that, but it was starting to get better. What I managed to do in that time was to create a wiki where we could each introduce ourselves, and our schools, AND share resources. (The image on the right is an outline of the pages contained on the wiki).

The problem I was up against was that many of the teachers didn’t use email (I’m not kidding), and had huge apprehensions about using technologies of any kind.  Alternative teachers are a unique breed for many reasons. But more than any other teachers, alternative teachers are accustomed to being invisible, to operating in isolation. It is quite sad, and it seems most have resigned themselves to it. NOT ME!

So this past school year I tried again. And again. And again! Finally, teachers are coming on board and I have agreed to go into each school and provide mini hands-on workshops to get teachers feeling comfortable using the wiki. I am really excited about this piece of my PLN! After having the opportunity to learn and share and collaborate with so many great people through the MET Program at UBC. I am finally going to be able to give back to my community and hopefully help them make connections.

Note: I chose to create the wiki using wikispaces. I did not want the wiki tied to a district website. I did not want it to be filtered or controlled by administration. I wanted it to be teacher-directed.  That was important for ongoing PD. I also wanted teachers who leave the school district to have the opportunity to stay connected toif they wish. And who knows, if this takes off we could network with other teachers across the province and it could become a much bigger collaborative tool than I imagined. That would be awesome!

Below is a screenshot of the site’s home page.  As you can see in the shot above, each school has their own page where they can introduce their school – size, demographics, hours, offerings, etc. There is also room for each staff member to post a photo and a brief blurb about: subjects they teach, what their passions are, and anything else they would like to share.  In addition, as noted to the right, there is a page dedicated to TOC’s – it’s hard to find great TOCs in alt. ed so when you find them, we ask that you share!  There is also a page for each subject area where teachers can share resources – anything from a great math website to a novel study unit. It’s just getting started but the potential is there for greatness! 

Finding teachers to follow

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I know I left you last day with the task of selecting an RSS reader that suites your tastes and in addition I provided a single link to an extensive A-Z list of education-related blogs, but I thought I would share a few more useful sites I have found to help you connect with teachers that you may want to add to your RSS.

Richardson recommends using Google Blog Search. This will allow you to search the world of blogs using Google’s extensive search capabilities.

Teacher Lingo has a great search function http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/teachers.aspx

Edublogs has a great list of ed tech blogs http://edublogs.org/blog-directory/directoryteched/

Scholastic has a list of top 20 teacher blogs for K-12 http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/top-20-teacher-blogs

Just remember not to overwhelm yourself. I started my twitter account a couple weeks back and committed to a small handful of sites as you recall and it continues to grow. The biggest thing is ensure it stays manageable for you. It should’t be hard to keep up.

Lots of people recommend adding news websites to your RSS feeder. I would not do this. News stations tend to post multiple times a day. They are run as “group blogs” which means multiple people have access and post throughout the day. It gets to be too much to keep up on. Remember, this is about enhancing what you already do.  I get my news every day as I drive/skytrain to work via CBC radio. That works for me! But, if you are not getting a daily dose of valid news then go for it.

One last point – once you’ve gotten yourself settled in, and you are following some of your favourite bloggers. Be sure to reply to people’s posts. Acknowledge that you have read their post, bookmarked their suggested links, or even ask them a question. No one wants to feel as though they are talking (typing) out into space with no one listening. So, if you get some good information from someone, make sure you let them know. It will motivate them to keep posting!

 

RSS readers

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I have been dipping my feet into the blogging waters the last couple of weeks, looking for meaningful blogs to follow that relate to my areas of interest in education, and also considering how and why blogs fit into my PLN.

Since researching my commentary topic, online learning communities and PD, I have come to clarify even further just how important twitter, blogs, and wikis are in my quest for a PLN. All will continue to support my professional growth long after my days in the MET program are over.

Will Richardson is a huge advocate of blogs and wikis to enhance connection and collaboration.  His book on Wikis, blogs, and podcasts is a very interesting read; I highly recommend it.

Another interesting read is an article by Bill Ferriter,  in Educational Leadership called “Learning with blogs and wikis”.  In the article Ferriter delves into the issues that teachers face in a changing technological classroom climate and the power that blogs and wikis can have in supporting teachers in their own learning.

There is no denying that educators around the globe see a value in writing and following blogs. According to information on the  Edublogs website, there are more than 1 million teachers blogging on their site alone. If you check out this extensive A-Z list of blogs relating to education you will see for yourself the ever-growing spectrum of blogs that are out there.

No one says you have to start a blog, in fact most, including Richardson and Ferriter suggest following blogs for a time using an RSS feeder.  Ferriter suggests pageflakes or Google Reader but his article was written in 2009 and things have changed. As I mentioned in a previous post Google Reader no longer exists – as of July 1st, 2013.

So, instead you will have to find an alternative. Here are a handful of great videos looking at some of the viable readers I have found: Feedly, Feedspot, Newsblur, The Old Reader, Newsvibe.

Feedly seems to be the front-runner by people looking to replace their GR accounts.  But if you have never used a RSS feeder before you won’t be as tied to choosing one that looks and feels like GR did.

In the end, I  opted to go with Feedspot. And then after a week I switched to Feedly.  Why? Feedspot has only been around for a year and it seems like there are lots of bugs to be sorted out. It got frustrating when it wouldn’t accurately count what feeds had been read and which had not.  What I was looking for was a simple, easy, text-based reading experience. That’s why I opted for Feedspot in the first place (that and it appeared to be completely free – which turned out not to be true).

The thing I didn’t like about Feedly was that everyone else was doing it. I didn’t want to be part of the herd. It also presents itself as a more “magazine”style viewing experience. But  with one simple click you can view feeds in a more traditional text-based format.  I’d like to say I want something flashy, but truth is I just find it distracting.  I am after all an English major and as much as I would  like to say I’m drawn first to the visual, in reality, I still choose words over images. So, for me,  a reader that lets me quickly read what people are talking about is best.

There are lots of great videos out there that offer “guided tours” of the various RSS feeders so I encourage you to look around and make an informed choice based on your personal preferences. Some are very magazine like (Flipboard , Pulse, and News360), others offer a more text-based, simpler reading experience (Newsblur, Newsvibe, the Old Reader). The choice is yours.