#smartlæring

Jeg deltar i MOOC:en Smart læring, som tar utgangspunkt i boka Smart læring - hvordan IKT og sosiale medier endrer læring, skreven av Arne Krokan. Jeg håper at noen utfordringer fra det nye og litt større læringsnettverket mitt skal gjøre at jeg kommer i gang med bloggen min igjen. Jeg har tidligere skrevet flere poster om PLN (Personal Learning Networks = personlige læringsnettverk). Building my PLN er den første.


Jeg startet opp bloggen min når jeg var hjemme i permisjon. Jeg deltok da i The Edublog's Teacher Blogging Challenge. Sammenlignet med nå hadde jeg mye overskudd til å lese blogger og artikler på nett og å bruke bloggen som et refleksjonsverktøy.


Mine erfaringer fra den tiden er at bloggen ble en god måte å bygge mitt læringsnettverk, men det ble etter hvert litt for lite utbytte for meg, siden de fleste av mine kontakter da fantes i Australia eller USA. Det er jo her i Norge jeg vil være med å drive utviklingsarbeid!


Jeg har foreløpig ikke blogget sammen med elever, men det er noe jeg har lyst til å prøve. Jeg ser at elever blir mer engasjert når det de lager skal vises frem - hvem har ikke sett det? Jeg har tenkt mye på hvordan vi skulle lage en matteblogg sammen. Er det noen som har idéer? Jeg syntes at denne artikkelen om hvorfor alle studenter bør blogge var inspirerende. Jeg tror at disse seks rådene fra artikkelen også er gode råd til oss som er lærere:

Du tar kontroll over ditt eget navn i Google

Du lærer deg et publiseringssystem

Du får øvelse i å skrive og kommunisere

Du får mulighet til å utforske potensielle interesser

Du får øvelse i digital markedsføring

Du vil oppleve ting du ikke forutså

Dette knyter også an til kapittel 2 i boka Smart læring hvor Krokan siterer George Siemens: To teach is to model and demonstrate, to learn is to practice and reflect. Så gode lærere må være gode rollemodeller!


Nå har jeg ikke dekt alle ønsker fra teamet bak #smartlæring, men altfor lange blogginnlegg er det ingen som leser - det får heller bli et til litt senere.

PLN loves Blogs?!

After a few weeks of summer holidays with my kids I am back to continue doing my PD through Edublogs' PLN Challenge. By the way Edublogs host free AND, for the time being, add-free blogs for teachers, classes and students!

The fifth task for the PLN Challenge was posted at the beginning of July and is about the role of blogs in building your PLN.

To me the blog is a good place where I can communicate my reflections and ideas without being limited to the 140 signs on Twitter. My blog is/will be the place where I put my ideas about my teaching and also review and reflect upon how it all went. This is the place along with my planned class blogs where I can share everything that I do in my classroom.

I go to other blogs to look for interesting ideas and materials that I can use as it is or maybe just change a bit to make it fit my class and goals. I really think it is a good thing to share with your PLN - it is a good thing not having to invent the wheel all over again.

Making Time to Build My PLN

After a weekend with guests, a week with both kids at home and nuturing a cold myself I have really been thinking about how I will succeed in making time to build my PLN, which is the topic for the 4th PLN Challenge. Sarah Poling has given us five issues to think about for this challenge.

#1 What type of PLN do I already have?
I started out building my online PLN through the first Teacher Challenge hosted by Edublogs earlier this year. Through this challenge I connected with educators as Murcha, Theresa, Sue Wyatt and Tracey Smith. I also started to try and find Scandinavian educators, who I could follow as EvaBra and Anna Malmberg.

My "offline" PLN isn't that big at the moment, since I have been moving around a bit the last few years. I hope to start build it up again this fall as I start teaching again.

My PLN is growing fast and during the three last challenges it has grown with about 20 new followers on Twitter, which reminds me, I have to check out who I want to follow!

#2 How do I follow the things/persons I want to follow?
The blogs I find and like I usually add to my Google Reader. I follow for a while and check the blog out and then I try to weed out regularly what I want to continue reading and what isn't for me. I am trying to keep the list short, so that I don't get overwhelmed.

Blog posts that I find extra interesting I usually add to my Diigo library and I make sure I add tags or a description and put them in a list to make sure I easily find them again. Here I also try to weed out things that I in the end won't be using or reading again.

For Twitter I now-a-days use TweetDeck to make sure I get the most out of it. Right now I have 4 columns: All Friends, @-mentions, DM and #ebshare. My plan is to find more hashtags and chats that I like and add them i new columns.

#4 When and for how long?
Rigth now my goal is to check in on Twitter at  least a few times a week. In fall  when I start working I plan to make it a part of my morning and afternoon routine (15 mins each). During the summer the goal for my blog will be one post per week and in the fall I don't know yet because I am planning to use a class-blog with my English students and it will take some time and effort to set it up.

#5 My top tips for building a PLN
Building a PLN takes some time and effort. So my tips are:

1. spend some time lurking on blogs and on Twitter
2. start out slow commenting on interesting blog posts and at the same time directing people to your own blog
3. tweet new posts to your blog
4. retweet interesting tweets and write @-replys
5. write @-questions to people that you know might know
6. be active and try to check in regularly
7. contribute in your fashion when you feel comfortable to it

Good luck to everyone on building your PLN. Now I am going to check out what you guys have written about this and continue to build my PLN!

Using Twitter and Building My PLN

The third subject of the PLN Challenge is how to use Twitter to build a PLN.

I only started using Twitter about six months ago and I still feel like I am drowning in the stream sometimes. But as some has some suggested I installed Tweetdeck and I have only used it for a couple of days, but it feels a bit better.

I have gotten some tips on the way since my last post and I think I will share them with you:

• "With Twitter, I just read about what's happening at the time, and not worry about what I missed. I figure, if it's important enough, someone will retweet it." Tracy Watanabe
• "There is no way I can keep up with everyone. So, I have downloaded tweetdeck onto my computer and added columns for the topics that I am really interested in eg #edchat #globaleducation #accounting #ksyb" Murcha
• "I also follow Kathleen Morris' advice, and I only follow about 150ish people. So, I periodically go back and delete those who I don't recognize or haven't made connections with." Tracy Watanabe

 I also came across a swedish blog post about Twitter and the question of followers and if I have to follow them in return. Micke Kazarnowicz has some guide rules, when he chooses who to follow or not:

• @-mentions - dialouge is important to him
• RT of interesting stuff
• Tweets about interesting subjects
• profile picture
• profile (with link) 

makes it more probable that he will follow someone. Things that make him not wanting to follow are:

• twitteraccount from company/organisation that he doesn´t have a relationship to
• everyday tweets (about the company coffee machine for example)
• no profile picture
• hateful comments

These things make it a little bit easier for me to handle the twitter stream and I hope that these guidelines will keep my head over water in the future:

• only follow what I really am interested in
• not following to many
• when I am short on time make sure I check in once a week
• RT interesting stuff
• get the hang of tweetdeck
• get to know which hashtags I like and follow them
• make sure I try to give back when I have the opportunity

What I want to know about PLNs

One of the questions for the second part of the PLN Challenge is
 What do you hope to learn more about with respect to your PLN in the coming weeks? 

Actually I hope that I will continue building my PLN and get some help being more consistent in staying tuned in on Twitter and reading interesting blogs. I would like to make it a habit, that won't take to much time each day. I hope to get better at staying in touch and also I hope to make connections to start up some global collaboration projects for this fall semester (starting in August 2011). I will be teaching Mathematics, English, German and Science (8th-10th grade at a norwegian school) and I would love to be able to find collaboration partners.

So, my questions are:

• how do I keep up with things on Twitter without having to read everything in the main stream at the "home" page?

• how do I choose who I follow on Twitter and through Reader?
• how do I find partners in global projects?

 I hope that this challenge can help me with somethings and that I am on my way building a PLN that will help me on my way.

Building my PLN

Today I have spent some time on reading the first post on the PLN Challenge.

Watching this Voicethread that Michael Graffin started and adding to it made me think about my PLN. I am still building on my PLN and since I am still at homewith my son, I have trouble keeping up with Twitter, reading blogs and do my own posting. I hope that me starting to work will help me being more organized.

So, why is a PLN important to a teacher living in Norway?

Well, since it was some time since I did any fulltime teaching I think a PLN is useful to get on top of what is out there - resources, websites and new technology. I also think it is important to teach my students how to use social media and web tools in building their own learning and social networking. I would also like to show them how important it is to be able to express yourself in writing and speaking, not just in your own language but also in other languages.

I would also like to think that I will be saving some time not having to do everything by myself. Having help finding good resources or even having somebody to collaborate with saves time and gives more possibilities for reflection and evaluating. I am all for the sharing of ideas and plans!

At the same time we have to think about the "balancing act" we have to do not spending to much time on Reader and Twitter. I agree with Michael Graffin, who in his blog post A Connected Teacher's Balancing Act from June 17th, 2011 writes that "I already do more professional learning online in a week than most teachers do in a year, but there’s no point wearing myself out. I’m better off curling up with a book, or taking my new camera out for a spin." It worries me sometime how caught up I get in the thrill of it all, and then I realise that I also have to be in the offline world. I guess that's why it sometimes goes several weeks between my postings or me checking into Twitter. I hope that my PLN that I am trying to build will understand.

Free Tools Challenge #2

Well, I finally returned to finish the second challenge on the Free Tools Challenge. The task for this challenge was to learn how to use GoogleDocs to write a selfgrading multiple choice test. Something that I would use for checking if my students have done homework or maybe as a starter before I introduce a new theme. Mr Riley has made an excellent step-by-step video on how to do.



I wrote a short test about Sweden, that hopefully anyone can take. So please go there and try it out here, and let me know if something doesn't work!