PLN

Developing a personal learning network can be extremely beneficial for an educator.  Networking can allow you to easily connect with colleagues and share ideas.  You can also learn from people from different disciplines and discover new things or ideas that have never occurred to you or thought of before.   A PLN also allows you to make contributions to your profession by providing your input and sharing your knowledge.  Your students will also benefit from your effort to network since you are staying current in the field and looking for new ideas to incorporate in the classroom.

The NBEAConnect Webinar where we got the opportunity to share Active Learning Strategies was a fantastic experience.  I learned how to use webinar tools and how to present in a webinar.  The experience will benefit me in the future since I will likely be participating in more webinars as I continue to expand my PLN and take graduate classes.  I now feel very comfortable using a webinar to learn or present.  Everyone’s learning strategies that were presented can be directly applied and incorporated into the classroom.

Commenting on classmates blogs over the course of the semester was another unique way to learn from one- another.  I especially liked being able to photos of everyone’s learning centers and reading about how they worked in the classroom.  Additionally, we easily shared and commented on each other’s perspectives regarding our activities in clinical studies and other issues in education.  Blogging is a quick and easy way to share thoughts and information.  As a teacher, you can easily seek out new ideas to use in the classroom to keep things fresh and interesting.  It is also a great tool for students to use in the classroom.

The #hashtag conversation was also an interesting way to share information.  I was not familiar with this method before.  Now, I am comfortable navigating Twitter and using TweetDeck.  Instantaneous communication is a very powerful tool.  Even if you are half-way around the world, you are still able to participate and learn from something through the internet.  I plan to explore Twitter even more when I have more free time.  The things you learn through online conversation can be shared and used in the classroom.

Listening to the Be Social recorded webinar from NBEA was also a good way to gain more information.  I originally thought I would be unable to participate in the webinar since I was unavailable at the time it was being held live.  It was interesting to be able to go back and review it after it had taken place.  The information from the webinar contained more information about how to stay connected to the NBEA convention through the use of Twitter, Facebook and the NBEA website.  Learning from a recording can be implemented in the classroom.  If recordings of webinars are available after you participate in a live webinar, it can be shared with your students directly in the classroom.

I attended a session through the educator social networking site called Classroom 2.0.  Since I am a member, I am always receiving emails for links to attend webinars. I purposely chose something I was unfamiliar with since I wanted to learn something completely new.  The webinar was presented using the Elluminate Live application.  It looks very similar to type we used in class- it has a chat box, emoticons, list of attendees, etc.  During the webinar the author Barry Schwartz discussed two books that he wrote:  The Paradox of Choice and Practical Wisdom.  The Paradox of Choice discussed how having too many choices can become paralyzing.  He related this statement to education and curriculum and marketing.  Practical Wisdom discussed how the world relies on rules and incentives to govern professionals (specifically teachers).  He spoke about how society does not rely on teachers to make good judgments regarding how their students should be taught.  Schwartz believes that every student and every class cannot be treated the same due to personality differences, varying needs, etc.  Things such as standardized testing restrict teachers’ ability to differentiate their instruction.  I learned a lot from this webinar.  It was interesting to hear his views on choice and the concept of practical wisdom.  This webinar made me reflect on how I make choices both in and out of the classroom.  It also was beneficial to hear is perspective on standardized education.  Teachers need to given more opportunities to decide what is best for their students.  Ideas from this webinar can be incorporated into a marketing class.  Schwartz discussed in detail how people choose products and how they relate to effective marketing strategies.  Here is the link to the recording:  https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2011-04-21.1531.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350

I also enjoyed participating in a conversation about a topic presented at the conference in New Orleans.  It was interesting to see the different topics presented at the conference.  I felt like I could still learn from all of them even though I did not physically attend the presentations.  I commented on a presentation about how to incorporate reality TV into classroom learning.  I chose this topic since I love the idea of using videos in the classroom to engage students.  Although I have already used some reality TV clips in my law class, the presenter had other good ideas.  She used clips from Shark Tank and The Apprentice in her classes.  Clips from these shows can be used in almost any business related class.  I will definitely incorporate both of these shows into my future classes.