What's a PLN?

I already have my Twitter account and a Diigo account, which I learned about from a classmate in a previous technology class in this program. In fact my PLN is so big, I can't keep up with it!  It all started about two years ago, when I was asked to take over the technology integrator position at school.  I had already started learning about ways to use the iPad via my SimpleK12 membership.  It is a site where you can take webinars on educational technology uses, some for free, but if you join (for $$$) you also become part of a community where you can find shared lessons, on-demand webinars and follow others.  



Shortly after that, I started looking at Twitter.  I casually observed it for a while, but then started following people and even following Twitter chats, and soon participating in them as well (as soon as I realized I had to unprotect my tweets to be 'seen' in the chat, which means anyone can follow you).  But then I also joined Classroom 2.0 and the ISTE Ning, which has several interest groups that provide webinars and wikis.  Sometime around that time I started in this program, I felt like I was drinking from a firehose!

I also started looking at Edmodo as a classroom tool for networking and discussions, but Edmodo also has teacher communities for any subject that you can join.  After joining Twitter I began to follow some of the members' blogs, which led to many others.  In the second technology class I took at SNHU, we had to come up with a list of educational references for our wiki, which expanded over the course of the class. I also learned via my PLN about Edcamps, and after attending my first I started following people I met there and their blogs too.   

wiki

Another good source for articles I read frequently is Tech&Learning magazine. You can subscribe to their online magazine, which is delivered daily in your email.

In the third tech class (EDU641) we used Blogger to discuss weekly topics and I still follow some of my classmates' blogs from that class. I also follow a couple of Facebook pages, and I even started to use Google+ as a PLN since I took a class through that site last summer on programming with Scratch. My assistant principal told me about edweb, which is another educational webinar and learning community site (and FREE!) which I have participated in recently.  I recently had to submit all my documentation for recertification, and I had a 1" stack of certificates, which I didn't need! 

So, as I said, my PLN is huge, I am sure I forgot about some of the sites I have joined, but I don't feel like I am drinking from a fire hose anymore. Instead I read what I can, when I can.  But, in case you are looking for some references, here are some of my favorites, there are too many to mention all of them.

Name                        Twitter handle        Blog site
Vicki Davis                 @coolcatteacher     coolcatteacher.com
Andrew Marcinek       @andycinek             andrewmarcinek.com
Jen Scheffer               @jlscheffer             bhshelpdesk.com
Jerry Blumengarten     @cybraryman         cybraryman.com
Edutopia                    @edutopia               edutopia.com
Mike Marotta (AT)      @mmatp                 mmatp.com
Glen Wiebe                @glennw98            historytech.wordpress.com
Richard Byrne            @rmbyrne               freetech4teachers.com
Aditi Rao                    @teachbytes           teachbytes.com
Sylvia Martinez           @smartinez             sylviamartinez.com/blog
Michael Norkun          @mnorkun              tech-4-education.blogspot.com/

So who are your favorite people or blogs you like to follow?

I think we should have a hashtag for this class on Twitter, so when you set up your account, post a tweet with the hashtag #edu642, then you can see everyone's posts by searching for #edu642