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Posts tagged ‘PLN’

24
Sep

Summer Project 2013 Final Report: Developing My Personal Learning Nework (PLN)

PLN2My project involved establishing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) for myself and faculty on our campus. It involved establishing an online presence and building a community on various social media sites for myself and our CTLE. I researched blogs, organizations and professionals to include in this community, as well as produced content for our blog covering the best pedagogical practices in online teaching. The goal of the PLN was to get faculty to connect, collaborate and contribute so that we can become aware, connected, empowered, and confident learners. I spent time researching and learning about creating a successful PLN and how to get others involved. I attended a national conference, researched and read to help me produce PLN content and connections.

A description of your experience and the achievement of expected learning outcomes of the project.

I now have a better understanding of the effective uses of discussion in online courses, strategies for preparing students for effective and productive discussion, ground rules that help make students feel sufficiently safe to participate in discussion, and how to structure discussion to help achieve learning goals after attending a pre-conference workshop at the Teaching Professor conference in May. After I returned from the conference, I was able to immediately improve my online summer course to include better student to student interactions as prescribed by the best practices presented at the workshop. I picked up lots of best practices, not just in the pre-conference workshop, but in many of the sessions as well. Students in my summer online class expressed appreciation for the new, small group led discussions.

For the PLN part of my project, I was able to create a list of possible content for our blog, which is the hub of our PLN and the mechanism for sharing with other faculty within the network for these best practices for teaching online. I was able to research and find free Twitter curation tools to enhance the PLN. I also learned more about hashtags and how to get more out of your PLN using Twitter and hashtags. I wasn’t able to work closely with our CTLE, but the completion of the project resulted in some good professional development activities, not just for me, but for all faculty on our campus. I created content for workshops on building online lessons with numerous online lesson creation tools. I’ve presented on that twice so far this fall. And I’m putting the final touches on a workshop on How to Get More Out of Your PLN. So I was able to improve our workshop offerings for faculty to include information learned at the conference, as well as during the development of the PLN.

Describe your professional growth. Read moreRead more

24
Aug

CTLEAZ Diigo Group is Newest Edition to Our PLN

diigo PLNFor my summer project this summer, my goal was to develop a Personal Learning Network (PLN) for our campus. We already had social media on our campus: Twitter, Google+ and a WordPress blog; however, these tools were not being used effectively, not in the manner I knew they could be. So I worked on connecting some elements and creating new ways to connect and share. This Diigo group is part of my project.

So, what’s a Diigo group? First, Diigo is a social bookmarking site. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like Facebook or Twitter. Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. It’s just like what most of us do everyday when we come across an interesting article or helpful instructions on the web. We bookmark it in our browser and save it for later. The difference with social bookmarking is that when you save something, you save it on the web, and you can then access it from anywhere and share it with others. You can also highlight, tag, comment and reshare it. I do a lot of reading on the internet. I read blogs on teaching and learning and teaching with technology; I read tweets on Twitter, posts on Google+. There is a plethora of useful information out there. Most of it I feel is relevant for other teachers like me, so I save it to Diigo, comment on it, and share it with my friends.

So I created a group on Diigo, one of the most popular social bookmarking sites, to start sharing resources with you. However, social bookmarking works much better if we have a community of readers and bookmarkers. Med Kharbach, author of Educational Technology and Mobile Learning said, “Social bookmarkers depend on the power of their community members to elaborate and expand on what they have bookmarked through commenting, tagging, highlighting, and sharing. It is a reciprocal process in which you share bookmarks with your colleagues and they interact with what you have bookmarked by, for instance adding comments…” (Social Bookmarking Explained for Teachers). If you’re intrigued, click the link (CTLEAZ Diigo Group) and take a look. If you see something interesting, read the article and make a comment. If you find the information valuable, join the group and let the bookmarks come to you. And don’t forget to reciprocate and share some great stuff with us.

Read: 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking

11
Mar

Summer Project Proposal – Establishing a Personal Learning Network (PLN)

plntoolMy project involves establishing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) for myself and faculty on our campus. It involves establishing an online presence and building a community on various social media sites for myself and our CTLE. I will research blogs, organizations and professionals to include in this community, as well as produce content for our blog covering the best pedagogical practices in online teaching. The goal of the PLN is to get faculty “to connect, collaborate and contribute so that we can become aware, connected, empowered, and confident learners.” I will spend time researching and learning about creating a successful PLN and how to get others involved. Attending a national conference, researching and reading will help me produce PLN content and connections.

As an online instructor and eCourses Faculty Lead for my college, the general purpose of my project is to increase my knowledge and the knowledge of our ecourses faculty of the best pedagogical practices in online teaching by establishing a Personal Learning Network (PLN). “Personal Learning Networks are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning.” It’s a system of lifelong learning and provides support for learners to manage their learning and to communicate with others in the process of learning. This PLN will be used for professional development and will help myself and other faculty learn from content-area specialists and each other. In order to create this network, I need to improve my skills and knowledge in the process and learn about best practices for creating such networks, as well as learn how to help and motivate others to join the network. The true value of this project is that the learning doesn’t end after the final report is submitted.

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