Prior to this course I was just getting started with social networking. I got on Facebook to keep in touch with some out of town relatives that I don't get to see very often. Then it was a good way to keep up with church stuff and our friends there.
I had never thought about using a networking for professional purposes, but hey why not. We all want to try new things in our classrooms to get and keep our students engaged. With all of the teaching professionals that there are this could be a great asset. I once had a professor that always said "Don't recreate the wheel."
This made sense then, but now through the internet you may be able to find what someone else has done and tweek it to what your classroom needs are.
I signed up for Plurk http://plurk.com/user/panedlife and and I know it takes time, but you should be able to search for friends without going through your email accounts, so for right now I am not sure about this PLN. Maybe this could be set up for Barrow County teachers and then let us pull our teacher friends, that could be a large base of teachers and resources, in its own right.
I always am willing to try something that has already been done by someone else and I just make adjustments as I need to. So I would say that there is a strong reason to join a PLN or create your own. Since I teach so many subjects and three different grade levels, I would benefit from others more than my own. But, one I might create would center around technology.
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"Maybe this could be set up for Barrow County teachers and then let us pull our teacher friends, that could be a large teacher and resource in its own right."
ReplyDeleteThat's actually a great idea!! I may consider trying to get something like that off the ground.
As for trying to find your friends via email, I've never personally used that function. Most of my Plurk friends were Twitter friends first or I've "met" them along the way via others who have joined Plurk or other networks that I participate in. One of the best ways to get "new" friends is to have someone do what's called a "shout out", which is a virtual introduction. I haven't done one for you yet, but if you'd like I can still do one for you. It's kind of like a recommendation and it helps to build a PLN. Oh, and there are definitely special ed teachers on Plurk. I'm friends with a few of them.