Final Project: Supporting Faculty and Students in Developing Personal Learning Networks

Assignment:  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.

My Personal Learning Network has developed so much throughout the course of this workshop.  From the beginning of this course, I was really unfamiliar with the term "PLN", but I knew it was  one I needed to understand and begin using in my educational practice.  I really didn't realize I even HAD a PLN until I began the assigned reading.  Now I understand that my PLN stretches to so many sources, from my colleagues and peers with whom I teach and serve on a daily basis, to former colleagues with whom I consult occasionally.  It now includes my Google Reader subscriptions and my favorite educators on Twitter, as well as the educators I have met through this course!  

My plan for the continual growth of my PLN includes staying up-to-date on the most influential educators in social networking.  I plan to follow the several blogs I added to my Google Reader account to stay current on the latest issues affecting educators, students, and other stakeholders.  I also plan to investigate other blogs, as I have time, in hopes to find contributors that specialize in my field of elementary education.  I hope to become a more active participant in these blogs, adding my experiences and insight through comments.  

Along those same lines, I want to become an ACTIVE blogger for my students, parents, and colleagues.  I hope to be a blogger that is added to someone else's PLN so as to connect to many more people, thus building my PLN even more.

In addition, I would like to really invest in the phenomenon that is Twitter.  I already feel much more educated on this tool, and I can't believe I'm finally participating!  I honestly never thought to use Twitter as part of my PLN until this course.  I've decided to use my Twitter account solely for the purposes of education and building my network.  I'm already very interested in the educators and administrators I am currently following, and I look forward to following more people who specialize in my same area.  

I hope that my participation and enthusiasm for building my own PLN will result in the professional learning of my own school administrator.  Considering I am not serving in an administrative role yet, I hope to be an influence as a classroom teacher.  I plan to begin the new school year by using many of the Web 2.0 tools I have been introduced to, and I hope this use is noticed by my administrator and adopted by her. My implementation of a classroom blog that features frequent podcasts will be a great way to share my ideas with my principal while exposing her to how it can be used in our school as a whole.  I would hope that this exposure would inspire her to create her own blog, as well as encourage other faculty members to do the same.  In addition, I hope to be able to facilitate professional development that focuses on Web 2.0 tools and Professional Learning Networks.  i already know that my principal has a plan for creating PLN's within our school building this year, so I hope to be a helpful contributor to this endeavor.  

I've learned so much throughout this course, and I hope I can share my knowledge with the faculty and administrators with whom I serve.  Thank you so much for reading!