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:
- spend some time lurking on blogs and on Twitter
- start out slow commenting on interesting blog posts and at the same time directing people to your own blog
- tweet new posts to your blog
- retweet interesting tweets and write @-replys
- write @-questions to people that you know might know
- be active and try to check in regularly
- contribute in your fashion when you feel comfortable to it
Great post, Anna! I really appreciate your goals (1 post per week on the blog, Twitter 15 min, etc.) I need to really, officially write things like that down too! My offline PLN isn't that big at the moment either but via Twitter I have connected with a few others in the Paris region. I was actually thinking about starting my own group somehow but that is a future project....I think...sometimes these things evolve naturally. I also think your idea of weeding your blogs is a great one too since it is easy to fill the reader and miss out on relevant posts. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Anna,
ReplyDeleteI have a public list on Twitter with as many of the educators doing this PLN challenge. I think you can follow it, too. It's: @tdallen5/pln. You're on my list! (:
Get your students leaving comments, we don't get a lot of active commentors from Norway.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I agree with you that "sometimes these things evolve naturally". It makes sense to do/learn things when there is a need to it, since there is always so much you "need" to do/learn.
ReplyDeleteTheresa, nice to know that I am on your list, and I have added it as a column in TweetDeck!
Melville Intermediate School: I am sorry but I can't have my students comment on anything yet, since our school year is between August and June.
Hi Anna,
ReplyDeleteI will have to try TweetDeck. The column idea sounds like a faster way to check out new Tweets.
Thanks for your comment on my blog. I have a 7th grade teacher who wants to start using Skype. Her students would be ages 12-13 which is closer to your students. I'll try to hook her up with you next year.
Tina
Hi Anna,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of weeding out blogs - I actually did that a couple of days ago because my reading list was getting just a little bit out of control.
I'm also going to try out TweetDeck
Thanks for a great post,
Stef
Hi Anna,
ReplyDeleteI found that by using Tweetdeck - twitter actually made sense for me. I started out with a few columns too and then the list began to grow. I think if you start "lurking" in some chats you will find it very informative and helpful. Here is a google doc list of chats from which to choose:
http://tinyurl.com/68snbq3
Proud of your undertaking! :)
Thanks for tweeting my latest post Anna - I must have been one of the bloggers that got weeded out when I didn't post for a while :) I had a long winter hiatus that might be called hibernating. I am pleased that your PLN is growing at that you continue to share and learn with your blogging - well done!
ReplyDelete