My Personal Learning Network (PLN)-Past, Present, and Future

So, if I am being honest, at the beginning of this class, I would not have known what PLN stood for. However, the concept of a Personal Learning Network made immediate sense to me, and seems like something that most teachers naturally have through their university classmates, advisors, mentoring teachers, coworkers, administration, and others that they meet, whether it be online, or in person. Taking that network, and expanding the same idea via web 2.0 tools seems like a natural progression in this age of technology. As it becomes harder and harder to function in a work or personal environment without internet access and technological know-how, it seems only logical that we should put the World Wide Web to use, and bring resources, tools, connections, ideas, colleagues, and experts that we never could have reached before into our Personal Learning Network.

Also at the very beginning of class, I was rather dreading the fact that we were going to have to sign up for many new accounts on many different web 2.0 tools. I was not looking forward to all the different places that I was going to have to check in with, so that I could find out the latest updates. However, with the ability to follow others on Blogger, subscribe via RSS feed, and get Tweets right in my browser using a client for Twitter, it is possible to condense some of these web 2.0 tools into fewer central locations to make it easier. And there are many tools that allow for email notifications, so that you only have to go check them out when you are told of a change, instead of taking the effort to login and look, when nothing has happened.

As I stated in my last post, one thing that I noticed about my PLN was that as I expanded it outward by exploring different web 2.0 tools, the more I found it folding back in on itself. Blogs can link to wikis and Twitter feeds. Twitter accounts can link to blogs and wikis and other resources. Delicious is centered on sharing links, and can help you connect with people of similar interests. Once you decide what you want to focus on, the way that the web 2.0 tools interconnect becomes an extremely beneficial portion of the development of a PLN. The bigger it gets, the more resources you find, and the easier it is to narrow it down to the ones that are truly useful, making your PLN meaningful to you, and inclusive of links, networks, resources, connections, and tools that you will really use. My own students work on a graduation portfolio, and for the last few years, I have been telling them to add as much as they can, as often as they can. In the end, it will be so much easier as a senior to narrow down what they include in the final product if they have a lot to choose from, instead of having to go hunting for good examples. I think that they same is true of a PLN. Adding new things often and as they strike my interest is the first step. Checking and following them for a while to determine if they are useful, and then making the decision to keep them or delete them is the second step.

Another thing I was unsure about as I began to form my PLN was what the focus would be. So often in college, I remember out texts, professors and TAs giving examples for all the core classes, and not really being sure how to include the foreign language group. I was a little apprehensive that we would be focusing entirely on the generic and core aspects of a PLN, and content specific areas might be left to the side. However, we really did get to work on our PERSONAL learning networks. The whole point and aim was for us to find things that interested us, and that we felt would benefit us in our professional growth. While core subject areas do seem to have more emphasis that "electives," even online, I have been finding more and more blogs, wikis, links, and twitter feeds to follow that I find helpful. I am the only foreign language teacher in my district at the high school level, and being able to find and connect with other language teachers is a great benefit to me. Having people that I can bounce ideas off of, ask for resources, share and get lesson plans from, and network with is something that I am looking forward to.

At this moment, I feel that I am still very much in the exploring, developing, and organizing stages of my PLN. I have a lot of new tools and accounts that I can utilize as I continue to develop this set of resources. The major benefit of the PLN is that it can take any direction and any focus that I want, and it can change over time. I still feel like I am early in my teaching career, and finding resources, colleagues, links, ideas, and lessons to supplement and spark ideas in my teaching may be my focus. However, as soon as I can, I would also like to be able to contribute ideas and share links and lessons, etc. A PLN using web 2.0 tools is invaluable because, just by its very nature, it will constantly be evolving, both in content and in the tools themselves. We want to teach our students how to stay current, and doing so ourselves is one of the best ways to ensure that we can help them do so.

I am on a communications committee at school, and I think that the idea of a PLN may be something that we should discuss and try to work on at school. That, or, we have a committee of teachers called the DISC committee, with representatives from each building level in the district. These teachers are part of the decision-making group for our early release professional development topics. Bringing the idea of web 2.0 and PLNs up to them might help to get some early release sessions on these ideas for teachers in the district. On a smaller level, I can see mentioning some of these tools to teachers that I talk with frequently, or referencing a particular tool that seems useful in a situation when a teacher asks for help or ideas. It may be easiest to start slowly, and once someone gains familiarity with one tool, interest in others will follow.

Web 2.0 tools that I found of particular interest and can see being included in my classroom are GoogleDocs, blogs, wikis, Delicious, and Voice Thread. I was very impressed with GoogleDocs during our first activity with it, and have since used it to post a link to a document on my school website, collaboratively edit a document with a colleague, and work on my Unit Plan project form home and school, and share it with Dr. Schroeder during our Elluminate session. I often do a review activity at the end of the semester where students work together to create review sheets and handouts, and this would be an excellent way for them to continue working after class time has run out, and to have it available to everyone, no matter where they are. The wiki and blogs are tools that I outlined a specific use for in my Unit Plan, and can also see playing roles in activities such as that end of term review--wiki pages created on each topic by each group--and journaling/written dialogue activities--blogs. Delicious is a great way to share resources, whether it be for a research project, or just to compile a list of links that students can visit for extra practice in the foreign language. And Voice Thread is something that I really want to look at for next year. I often think of having students do pronunciation practice by reading aloud or responding to visual prompts. The downside to this is that it takes class time for me to listen to them, or is difficult to schedule times for them to come in outside of class. Voice Thread would be a way around this. they could use a computer at school or at home, and record when they had time.

For my own personal use, blogs provide a great way to network and follow specific people that I find of interest, and share my own thoughts. Wikis are a great way to collaborate, find, and share information with others in a community with similar interests. While I am interested in finding more wikis, I have thus far not been very successful finding wikis that are CURRENTLY active....so that is my goal over the summer. I also hope to continue looking for links, and refining my tags and included bundles, networking, and links on Delicious. I know how to use it now, I just have to get better at using it efficiently.

Twitter is a tool that the jury is still out on for me. In my personal life, I like it, yet, with both my personal and professional accounts, I find that if you don't check in often, it can sometimes be hard to scroll back through countless tweets to find the ones that really interest you. Also, so often what is shared is a link, and then you have to go to that site to find out if you really want that information. I have subscribed to a lot of news sites, and there is good information coming through, and I don't have to go look for it separately. But, 140 words can be restrictive. Also, I am unsure how supportive my school would be of this technology. But, again, I am on a communications committee, and Twitter is an excellent for of fast, concise communicating. I may just have to bring it up, and see if my fellow committee members think it might be worth suggesting a school twitter feed to the district.

Finally, in terms of tools that I do not really expect myself to use, I think that Elluminate, YouTube, Flickr, and social networking sites like FaceBook are pretty much out. Elluminate was very interesting and easy to use, and seemed like it had a lot of great features. I just do not feel like our school is currently equipped with the space, time, hardware, and bandwith to deal with it. Streaming video is not currently allowed, which puts Elluminate and YouTube out of the running as options for frequent inclusion in class. Flickr seems like it would be best utilized if students could use it from school, and if I had a regular and easily accessible way of projecting images and accessing them in group settings at school. However, having to check out the InFocus projector to use a larger screen than my computer monitor, and the school frowning upon uploading large files, much of the use of Flickr would have to be out of class. I have no problem encouraging or allowing students to use Flickr, but I want to try and focus on things we can do at school and get everyone access to, even if they happen to not have internet or a computer at home. Similarly, there would be security issues with what students might access on Flickr, and that would cause a problem for school access. And finally, social networking sites like Facebook.....well, to be honest, they make me extremely nervous when talking about dealing with students on them. I have a FaceBook account, which I very much enjoy. But, to be honest, I use a fake name, just to avoid students finding me. And no matter how professional the use is, the public never seems to be fond of teachers have FaceBook accounts at all, let alone being friends with students...even if it is just a "asking questions and posting homework notices" kind of page. I think that that is one I will just stay away from. That being said, while I still have my limited time, free account with Elluminate, I am going to see about "attending" a webinar to get the full experience, and I would like to continue looking for pictures and video that I can share in class. Just because I do not build units around these tools, or use them multiple times a week, does not mean I can't look for other users to connect with, and information to share with and suggest to my class.

My PLN is still young and small...I look forward to helping it grow and take shape. Hopefully, I can work on that this summer,and go into next year with some new ideas and resources.R

The Tree Becomes a Bush

You know what I have noticed as we go through this class, and work on expanding our PLNs? The more we expand out, by learning new tools, and gaining new accounts, and following new people to branch out and form the tree of our PLN.....the more it curves back in on itself and folds back into a bush. We created blogs, and fed them into an RSS aggregator. But, lots of blogs have links to Twitter accounts and Wikis on them. We went looking for Wikis to join, and some linked to Twitter accounts, and Blogs, and Delicious bookmark lists. I joined Delicious, and found users that I had already found on Wikis and Blogs. And then we joined Twitter, and there are links to Wikis, Blogs, and other sites. This is all a good thing, as all these links and references help us find more sources, and build our PLN. But it does make me laugh a bit that the more you branch out and the more you join, the more you are led back to resources in areas that you've already been.

The bigger the internet gets, the smaller the world gets, don't you think?

Reflecting on Delicious

One of the many web 2.0 tools that I have acquired a (professional) account for this semester is the social bookmarking site, Delicious. It is a site that many of my friends have been using for a while, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to check out. It didn't seem all that worth it to have another place with all my bookmarks stored, when I use my own computer most of the time, and already had them listed here. However, I think that this may be a tool I will continue to use, and work on developing a better system for using. Already I can see the benefit in not having to email myself links back and forth between school and work, as I have been known to do!

In going back over the set of links accumulated by myself and my classmates, I see many links that I will be adding to my own set of bookmarks. Specifically, I am interested in many of the "how to" links for our web 2.0 tools and the sites that are titled along the lines of "X number of ways to engage students with 'this' web 2.0" tool. So often, it's a great stepping stone to start using something new, with suggestions from others as a basis. Then, once you and the students develop some familiarity with the tool, creativity and innovation come next. And, of course, given that I have a fellow Foreign Language teacher in the class, I am interested in a lot of Trish's links. Being the only Foreign Language teacher at the high school level in my district, with a part-time colleague at the middle school that I do not see as often as I would like, any resources that I can get from, and share with, others are great!

Tags are something that I think I am still developing as we near the end of this course. I know what they are, and how to create them, and I see them as invaluable in finding sources, searching my own blog entries and links, and developing connections throughout the whole of my PLN, but I think I often tend to be either too specific, or too wordy with my tags. I have entries and links with one word on them, and others with six or seven. I'm still working on figuring out the main concepts that I will want to look for later (which seems like it should be easy, doesn't it?). I have definitely tried to be consistent with my tags, and the fact that most data entry boxes for tags have a memory for what you have previously typed is exceptionally helpful. I find myself trying to tag the big concept of the blog or link, often with something from the title, as well as using tags that are required for class, and common amongst other people tagging similar items. (The suggestions on Delicious have come in handy more than once, and have helped increase my "tag vocabulary".) I have changed my mind about the tags I'm using, either to simplify or be more specific for myself, or because I saw what others were using, and it seemed more logical. Being consistent seems the best idea to me, as does finding the main idea of what you are tagging. While more tags help something to be found in more ways, a few accurate tags seem like a better idea than multiple vague tags. This would be something that I would try and impart to students. The two important ideas in tagging are consistency and accuracy.

Tag bundles are something that I did not use very much, but I did set up a bundle titled "class" where I combined everything that I tagged with both "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" into one group. This helped me to organize the links that I had bookmarked for class. That way I knew how many links I had shared, and which categories I had bookmarked most for my web 2.0 wiki page. I see tag bundles being useful in education for projects. Not all websites related to one research project will carry the same tags, as they might be for different areas of the project. Or, perhaps, a teacher/student will realize that links they had previously marked for something else are now relevant for a new set of research. By making a new bundle, they can combine the sets of links that they think they will work with, and they can click on that bundle to get the list up, instead of having to search for each tag separately. A few minutes to set up a bundle will save time when sharing links, and when returning to the list to find additional links.

My tag cloud at this point is not very large. The class tags of "uwwlibmedia" and "web2.0" are the dominant tags, but after that I have "technology," "flickr," "video," and "youtube." It gives a visual representation that my Delicious use has thus far been dominated by work for this current class. I would like to broaden that, and start to get some content area tags showing more prominently. I'm just starting with Delicious, and it may be interesting to see where my tags, clouds, bundles, lists, subscriptions, and networks grow from here.

Annotations are a great feature on Delicious! When you get the link for a page and the title shows up in your bookmark, it only gives you a basic understanding of what is on the web page. So often, we bookmark sites because there is a specific example, link, video, or other small piece of information on the page, that we may forget about that when we go back days, weeks, or months later. Even if it was very generic, I found myself jotting a note down every time I made a link. That way, I can get into the habit, and when there is something small and hidden on a page that I want to revisit, I will remember to write about it.

Using Delicious to connect with others that have similar interests is actually quite easy. The most basic way to go about this is to do a search for links of interest and find users who have made those links, or to click on your more frequent tags and see who else is using them. One of the people that I found when searching for Foreign Language tags ended up being the person who runs the Wiki that I had joined a few weeks ago. She uses the same username on both sites, and I followed her on Delicious. She is constantly adding activities relating to both Spanish and Foreign Language teaching, and even following someone who teaches a different language can yield activities and ideas that can easily be transferred. Once I found this person, I added her to my network. I like that your network list shows up on the side of the Delicious page, so that you can see who you are following, as well as who is following you (indicated by flags next to usernames). This allows you the chance to go right to a person's feed, by clicking on their username. In addition, you can use the messenger to share links personally with another user that you think will find them of particular interest. (I also really like that the tagging/bookmarking data entry box has a box to "share" with others right away. It's easy to see a site and thing "Oh! She'll love this." And you can enter that in, and send it to them right away. It makes the site that much more social, that you can share links within it, instead of having to bookmark them and then email the person to go look.)

I think that Delicious affords a great opportunity for sharing lists of links with others, whether it be students, colleagues, or friends. Common tags will allow groups to subscribe to certain sets of links, and tag bundles can put related groups of links together. Creating these common tags and subscriptions would be an excellent way for students to collaboratively build up a set of resources for a project, and for a teacher to give the students a base set of sites to begin with. Teachers could make a subscription/tag that would allow them to share resources amongst each other in a department, building, or district. And friends can easily share links on common interests. And, as I mentioned before, using the message feature on Delicious allows you to send a link to an individual--whether it be a link to a certain content-area specific page for a colleague, or a site that pertains to a particular student's project, or a link that a friend would find really entertaining. The collaborative nature of Delicious allows people to connect, share, and work in groups, and any time that you can do one step and have multiple people see it, it helps everyone out.

(As a sidenote, I happened to be trying to use Delicious at school today (I must admit, for the first time) and I realized that I am unable to access it. When I signed up, it sent me to sign in via Yahoo, which I never thought about as I was doing it. However, being predominantly thought of for games and email, Yahoo is blocked at school. So, because I have to use that briefly to get into Delicious, I am unable to use Delicious at the moment at work. I think I will have to ask our tech guy about that, and see if he can unblock Yahoo on my computer, as I do have a specific, academic reason for the request.)

Delicious<-->Browser: Sharing your links

So, I was just reading my classmate, Trish's, blog and she said she was transferring her bookmarks from her browser to Delicious one-by-one, and she wanted to know if anyone had a faster solution. Seemed like there MUST be a faster solution, as even Deliciousitself would realize that this would be a slow and annoying process. So, I checked out the Bookmarks tab in my Firefox browser and then the Delicious page itself, and found a few options.

**I should note, I have not yet actually tried these two methods, but they look like they should be pretty easy to implement.**

1. In Firefox (which is my personal default browser), go to the Bookmarks tab on the top of your Firefox browser. Then, click on the option that says "Get Bookmarks Add-ons." If you scroll down the list of possible add-ons, about the 20th one says it's for Delicious, and will sync your bookmarks between Firefox and Delicious.

2. Go to Delicious, and click on "settings" on the top right of the screen. It will take you to another screen where the second section down is "Bookmarks" and one option is "Import/Upload Bookmarks" which says it will transfer a copy of the bookmarks in your browser.

Hope these work, and that it helps someone! :-)

Thoughts on Delicious

As I keep messing around with Delicious, I'm finding more aspects of it that I like. I believe it was Sarah E that said she was trying to use the inbox. I checked that out, and while I do wish you could send a bit of a message (if you can, I haven't figured it out), you can send bookmarks right to individual users. If the person uses Delicious, this is a great way to do things. If you send it to their email, then there are extra steps for them to get it to Delicious. If you send it right IN Delicious, they just have to add it.

However, that said, if someone does NOT have Delicious, I just noticed a "send" tab when I was tagging a link in Delicious. It offers options to email the link to someone, or post it to your Twitter account. These are nice options to have right in the Delicious program itself.

Also, in my network "friend" list, I see that it has sections and flags to denote who you are following, who is following you, and whether you are following each other. It's kind of nice to know those separations, and have a visual cue that someone is not seeing your link list, in case you specifically want them to. And, there is the option to make links private for yourself or hide them from some people, which can also be a bonus.

I may just have to make a personal account for Delicious and start transferring my long, jumbled, and untagged list of firefox bookmarks over there.

Also, for students, I see this as making things easier for them working between home and school. They can get online for a few minutes in one place, and have the sources that they found available in the other class. In addition, so often students are working on multiple projects at one time, this would be a great way for them to have one location to save links in, yet be able to tag them for the appropriate class. They don't need 4 different link locations, but can have one list and search it by "history project," "english project," etc. And if it's a group project, they can subscribe to each other's feeds, or share links between each other, which definitely helps to promote the 21st century skills of networking and collaboration.

My Delicious Account

And speaking of accounts, both personal and professional, I forgot entirely to include my Delicious username in any of my other posts. I can be found at schultzjm03.

Delicious vs. Diigo

So, this class finally got me to join up with Delicious and see what it's all about. I have friends that have been using this for a while, and talk about it all the time. I have to admit, my initial thought was "Ok, that's great, but I can put bookmarks in my own web browser, what's the big deal?" I DO very much like the buttons that have been placed in my navigation bar, but I had those before for local bookmarks in Firefox.

Well, the obvious benefit of Delicious being web-based is that I can get at my bookmarks everywhere. More and more, I'm seeing this as a bonus, because it's becoming so much easier to get access elsewhere. And more than once since we have started this online MSE-PD program, I've been in one place finding resources, and ended up having to email myself the links somewhere else to use them. Delicious would have been a perfect fix for that! I also see this as a bonus for doing any sort of research in class. I find it's best to give students a few "starter" websites when we do research, or if we are doing a web-quest, perhaps there are places they have to go. Delicious might be a way that I can set up this portion of an assignment from work or home, and then have the students access that list at each of their own computers--saving time, and paper (if I were to print them out instead).

When I first opened up Diigo, I was assuming it was going to be nearly the same as Delicious, but the introduction presented some really great tools that Delicious does not have. Being able to highlight, and having it save is great. And being able to highlight in multiple colors is even better. I may want students to separate their focus for any number of reasons, and different colors would be a real visual cue. In addition, I like the idea of the sticky notes. This would be both a way to get a students' attention, or to place a question for them right IN the reading. Or, if that website is being used as a resource, maybe a sticky note/highlighting could be used to find my/their way back to a specific quote of interest.

The part of Diigo that really struck me, was that you can take a screenshot of the website and have it saved along with your bookmark. For sites such as news, blogs, and even perhaps wikis, that can change frequently, having a picture of the specific screen that you found interesting would be really useful. Sharing news coverage of a current even with a class, or even just showing something "cool" or "fun" to friends would be made so much easier this way.

I'm looking forward to using Delicious as I have already set up my account and a few bookmarks, but I think that I may just have to try Diigo out as well. There seem to be a few additional features on Diigo that would be very worthwhile--both in personal and professional use. The fact that both offer the option to network with other users is a big plus.

I think, even if these are not tools that I could use IN school, due to technology restrictions, these would be something that I will look into as resources for students to peruse outside of school. It would certainly be easy enough to set up a link on a school webpage, or have them set up accounts if they were interested. They could check from home, and find a tagged, relevant list of web resources waiting for them.

Wikis as a way to share resources and build and find connections

In my first post about Wikis, I shared a link to a Foreign Language specific wiki, which relates to my own curricular and interest areas. After a little more searching, I found a few wikis that are essentially lists of links that can be edited by members. What's interesting about these lists is that they are specifically designed to help teacher find connections and resources, and to build their Personal Learning Networks. A quick glance makes me feel that these wikis could be exceptionally useful in leading to other sites, and I would love to add links that others can use. In addition, these wikis are also geared toward building your Delicious bookmarks, and your twitter connections, which will both come in handy during this class!

Twitter4Teachers has an alphabetical list of different interest and content areas. Once you choose an area, it gives you a list of twitter accounts that discuss those areas, so you can find one that is of personal interest.

Delicious4Teachers is also split up by content/level and is geared towards helping educators connect with others via blogs, websites, and Delicious links.

Of particular note to those of us in the online class is that both of these wikis are in PBWorks, so we already have an account to view and edit them!

I'm really looking forward to exploring some of the resources listed on these pages!

New blog to follow/Learning to use Delicious

While I was looking for my Wiki, I happened to come across the blog Vamonos. A quick glance shows that it looks promising, and as of today, is moving from being a Blogger journal, to residing at http://lisibo.co.uk/. This blog seems to be fairly active, and focused on Spanish teaching and learning, sharing resources, videos, and ideas.

Also, with the addition of the wiki and this new blog to my PLN, I am learning to use the "Tag" feature from Delicious in my Firefox toolbar, to add these links to my list on Delicious.