Next week begins the summer solstice. What does that mean for teachers? Time to kick back and relax, and time to extend your professional learning network. The Educators' PLN, The Personal Learning Network for Educators, is a wonderful community to join in the summer. With over 8,000 members, where else can you find so many educators willing to share? There are 89 special interest groups, daily blogging, forums to join, videos to catch, and more. The Educatiors' PLN,is open to all educators. Sign up today, and avail yourself of the many resources. Remember it is free to join. As an educator, you have nothing to lose, and tons to gain.
3 comments:
You just have to love summer. This is the perfect time to do some planning for the next year about using technology in the classroom. Being able to participate in an online communities like the ones described in this article is a great way to get ready over the summer. Because let's be honest, who has time to participate in all these blogs during the school year? You may be able to hit a few and get some suggestions, but the summer is a really great time to go into depth and make curriculum connections with new technology. My advice to anyone who reads this wuld be to jump right in! Teachers really only have the luxury of time 2 months a year (July and August) so we have to make the most of them. One summer I spent re-creating our school website with some teachers. If it wasn't for that extra time and resources like this article, it would have never been finished!
I think the Personal Learning Network is great way to connect educators. With over 8000 members, people are starting to get the idea that this network is filled with great information. From blogging and sharing ideas or even watching a video, a quick 5 minute visit to the website will turn into a couple hours!
We need to take advantage of the multitude of information all located in one spot. There are so many teachers and we are all looking for similar things in our classroom, so it makes sense to connect with each other. Having a NING network or Twitter network, creates a community for you that is always growing and providing new information to you. All you have to do is take the time to explore! Summer, like Ryan said, is July and August, so we need to take advantage of that time!
I think that tools like this are great for educators. Blogging is a great tool for sharing ideas, and getting different lesson plan ideas from other teachers. After spending time in class I see the usefulness of blogging.
The summer is a great time to tell other teachers what worked and what didn't work during the school year. It is a great reflection tool giving other teachers the opportunity to bounce other ideas off of other teachers.
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