Connecting, Collaborating, Continuing to Learn » PLN http://hickstro.org/cccl Exploring teacher education in digital environments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 03:18:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Personal Learning Networks http://hickstro.org/cccl/2009/12/16/personal-learning-networks/ http://hickstro.org/cccl/2009/12/16/personal-learning-networks/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:38:17 +0000 Sara Beachamp-Hicks http://hickstro.org/cccl/?p=335 Warlick, D. (2009). Grow your personal learning network: new technologies can keep you connected and help you manage information overload.    Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(6), 12-17.

Personal Learning Networks are not new.  We have been connecting with people for ages.  They ways in which we connect, however, are changing.  The internet has afforded us with communication that changes the definition of time.  The almost synchronous ability to communicate has changed how we access information.  Posting questions to Twitter or Facebook can get real results very quickly  We can tap into the knowledge of our networks and participate in conversations that can enrich our learning and teaching.

Direct Quote:
There is nothing new about personal learning networks. They are the people and information sources that help you accomplish your goals, either on the job or in your personal pursuits. They are the teachers who work in your school, your instructional supervisor, your library media specialist, the art teacher at the high school, which whom you are friends, the magazines you subscribe to, books you brought home from college, etc.
Today, however, new techniques for organizing digital networked information, have enabled us to fashion new kinds of networks that extend far beyond our immediate location and face-to-face connections, and to grow our networks based not on explicit decisions, but through the ideas of other nodes (people and resources), whose ideas intersect with ours.
Links to other blogs that discuss PLN:
]]> http://hickstro.org/cccl/2009/12/16/personal-learning-networks/feed/ 0 Visual Understanding http://hickstro.org/cccl/2009/11/05/visual-understanding/ http://hickstro.org/cccl/2009/11/05/visual-understanding/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:01:47 +0000 Sara Beachamp-Hicks http://hickstro.org/cccl/?p=212 Visualizing My Initial ThoughtsAs an assignment for CEP 930, Educational Inquiry, our professor, Dr. Mark Reckase, gave us the task of creating a concept map that outlined our initial thoughts regarding our research interest areas.  To be honest, when I first started working on this assignment, I was a bit grumpy, but as I fiddled away, engaged in conversation with my husband and gave myself the time to really think through everything, I actually grew to enjoy the process.  I wasn’t certain I would have a use for the map after it was complete, thinking that the real value in a map is the knowledge gained from the process of creating it, however I was wrong.  On two occasions I have used the map to explain my research area to professors I had arranged to interview.  It truly helped me paint a more definite picture for them as I explained my thinking.  Both Dr. Patrick Dixon and Dr. Ken Frank were kind enough to meet with me and talk about social networks, technology and the impact that it could/should/can/will have on teaching and learning.

This map was created with VUE, Visual Understanding Environment, a software from an open source project at Tufts University. I’ve just started tinkering around with it during the last few months, but like what I have learned so far.  It is a flexible tool for both mapping and presentations.  If you are interested in learning more, check out this introduction!

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