Personal Learning Networks

As part of a class I have been taking, I have been learning about personal learning networks.  To be honest, although I already had a blog, a Facebook Account and a Twitter account, I never thought of them being professional tools. There are a couple parents of students I communicate with through Facebook, but still thought of Facebook as being more of a social outlet, than a professional tool.

After seeing the benefit of having a PLN I decided to create a new blog, one specifically for my classroom.  I have decided this is a great way to keep parents and other interested people up to date on current events in our classroom.  I hope some of my parents will utilize this tool.

I also see that Twitter could be used to update parents on issues during the day, when I do not have time to make a long blog.  However, this cannot be utilized at this time, as Twitter and Facebook are blocked by our school system.  I could use my cell phone to make a short update, but cannot use the school computer.  I think that schools are shooting themselves in the foot by blocking these tools.  So many people do use these tools now, it may be the easiest way to keep parents involved.I cannot do much about the sites the school system chooses to block, but when I find tools that are not blocked, I will utilize them.

I am touching on two of the three questions put forth in the class, even though I was only required to comment on one of them.  My PLN had certainly grown and I plan to continue to use the class blog for informing parents of goings on and for posting pictures of our events. I will explore some of the other things we learned about in class, but I see blogging as perhaps the best tool for me to use at this time.  I can not only use the class blog, but can follow blogs related to exceptional education and issues I find important. 

The questions I am addressing are:

1. Reflect on how your personal learning network has changed and grown during the course of this workshop. Discuss your plans for how you plan to continue to grow your learning network and how you hope to contribute to the professional learning of your administrative colleagues.
2. Reflect on the current policies in place regarding social networking in your school or district. How has this workshop shaped your opinions about the potential of these tools to facilitate learning and collaboration? What are the challenges you face regarding incorporating these tools and allowing teachers and students to network virtually? Describe how you plan to address these challenges in the coming school year.