I’ve had twitter since middle school, but I never tweeted anything with substance, rather, I would tweet happy birthday messages for my friends, retweet funny memes, and like tweets that reflected my personal beliefs. It wasn’t until ECI 201 that I actually established a professional presence on twitter with@msburke919. We had used our professional twitters a handful of times earlier in the semester, but after Melanie Farrell came, my presence on twitter become much more active.
When Melanie Farrell — WCPSS Digital Learning Coordinator — came to my class, she discussed what a PLN is and then dove right into twitter. Melanie Farrell showed our class what twitter lists were and why they are helpful. With her help, I created a list titled WCPSS elementary schools, where I have enabled it so that only tweets from elementary schools I am interested in will show up. Prior to this lesson, I had never even heard of lists, let alone know how to create one. Melanie showed us a resource Mrs. Davis had shown before: tweetdeck.twitter.com. This website will be really helpful to monitor multiple hashtags/lists at once. Afterward, she introduced twitter chats and then we did one as a class related to twitter in the classroom. Honestly, the twitter chat was really overwhelming for me; by the time I had finished typing out my tweet, the second question would already be active. It was reassuring to hear both Mrs. Davis and Melanie say that in the future, during other twitter chats, no one is going to notice if you miss a question or if you’re slightly behind.
Her discussion was followed up with a twitter scavenger hunt that required us to tweet a #PLNdiscovery, follow at least twenty new people on twitter, research a hashtag, tweet what PLN meant to me (see below), and participate in an educational twitter chat.
Overall, I really appreciated everything Melanie Farrell had to say. Having grown up in the schools where she acts as the Digital Learning Coordinator, I can say with confidence that a large part of my K-12 education used technology. I am excited to hopefully work with her in the future to further develop my presence on twitter, and enhance my students’ education with her digital learning support.
What is a PLN?
I really feel like this graphic encompasses the definition of a Professional Learning Network…
How to Establish your PLN
According to a video on commonsense.org, there are three steps to establish your PLN:
- Follow Others
- Follow those who inspire you!
- Use Hashtags
- Participate in an education Twitter chat!
- 6 Reasons for Twitter Chats according to Melanie Farrell
- Discuss a Subject That Interests You
- Interact With Experts
- Network With Other Enthusiasts
- Gain Tips From Multiple Sources
- Offer Your Expertise
- Learn About New Solutions and Resources
- 6 Reasons for Twitter Chats according to Melanie Farrell
- Participate in an education Twitter chat!
- Get Engaged and Tweet
- Great way to connect with other teachers!
Twitter in My Classroom
I really value what the teacher in the video below discusses. She’s right, the kids I will be teaching will have grown up in a period where everything is digital, so, why should the classroom be different? Why should we exclude all that technology has to offer from the classroom?
https://youtu.be/riZStaz8Rno
Even after watching videos like that, hearing from Melanie, and listening to what other teachers have to say, I am having a hard time getting on board with the idea of using twitter in the classroom. I value the idea of using twitter to establish my PLN and to connect with other teachers, I just don’t know how I feel about using it consistently in my classroom. I want to teach second-grade, when students are seven or eight — way too young for twitter! I started to look into ways to incorporate twitter in my elementary classroom and I actually ended up finding a lot, but I’m still not sure if that’s my cup of tea! This blog, in particular, did make me excited to have a “class tweeter” — a different student each day who is responsible for taking 2-3 photos during class, formulating tweets on an old iPhone, and tweeting on the class account (with the teacher’s permission, of course!). During Melanie Farrell’s presentation, she brought up the possibility of having a classroom historian who would write down tweets that the teacher would tweet at the end of the day/at lunch. I just worry that constantly tweeting/taking pictures during class time will distract students. However, I recognize that my role as an educator is different from what was expected from my elementary school teachers — and therefore cannot entirely base my approach on my own education. I also found the blog post below to be really inspirational!
Even after researching thoroughly, I haven’t found a method to implement twitter into my classroom that I absolutely love… but the good news is that I still have 3 years! I know that the more I discuss with my peers, connect with current teachers on twitter, and read more on educational blogs, the more excited I will be to incorporate it in my classroom.
What does PLN mean to me?
