Currently, I use PLN's such as Facebook for socializing, not professional development other than class. PLN's are new to me on a professional learning aspect. I think they are a great resource for finding current news, issues, techniques and resources that other users have shared. Using PLN's through my graduate studies will help me understand what is going on in the education field, find resourses for my own papers and projects and prepare me better for when I am in the field as a teacher.
I am still learning the PLN's and where to find them, and which ones may be better than others. Organizing my PLN's is also going to be important once I have many that are established for access. Researching and trying out the PLN's is my involvement so far. As I move forward I know they will be a useful tool and appreciate that we have such a tool to share with others.
On one last thought about PLN's, I do think there should be a separation between social networks and professional networks. If someone setup a network for sharing professional ideas and resources then the posting should be professionallly relevant while sharing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I totally agree about keeping professional and personal networks separate. You also make a good point about organizing your PLN, right now I feel like my PLN is in 20 different places at once and I don't know how to handle it!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Liz...personal and proffessional are definately best kept separate. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion of PLNs about how personal should be separate from professional. I desire to learn a lot about how I can become a better educator, but I certainly would like to keep my facebook and possibly a personal twitter account separate from my professional life. I wouldn't want either of them to cross. On a professional level, I'd like to use them to learn about how I can become a better educator to my students and what opportunities I can provide to them. And so the search continues...
ReplyDeleteyou could not have said it any better charissa! it is pretty challenging to balance the personal and professional and to know where to draw the line in situations especially when just beginning the journey towards becoming an educator.
ReplyDeleteHi Charissa ...
ReplyDeleteI think that keeping personal and professional networks seperate is where I am being held up. I just don't feel like I can manage another network at this time in my life. I substitute at the local middle school a lot during the school year and I will admit that I have a ton of the teachers from there on my Facebook - which I do not just use to post professional information. It's a fine line ...
I also agree with you about keeping the profession PLN's apart from personal PLN's. There are certain things that you don't want people to see from your professional realm! Like Michelle said, it is a fine line, but as teachers we need to know where that line is.
ReplyDeleteI agree that professional and personal networks should be separate. I think a lot of the crossover that you see in this class is because people used existing accounts for their Twitter or blogging projects. I know that, personally, I have two blogs on Blogger—one for this class and one that I’ve had up for a long time. Because I can’t create two separate profiles, my “about me” section comes off as unprofessional. However, in a “real” setting (i.e. not just for a class project), I would create totally separate accounts, with different log-in names. Just wanted to point out one of the reasons you are probably seeing non-professional posts from classmates.
ReplyDeleteI think there should definitely be a separation between social and professional networks. Everyone has a side of them that they might not want to share with colleagues. I do think establishing and following our PLN's will get easier as time goes on, especially once we are all in the classroom.
ReplyDelete