What is a PLN? A Professional Learning Network is a way for educators to connect with one another and share resources through the uses of different variations of technology and different resources. I have a personal PLN that you can check out in my last blog post here. I use many different forms such as Facebook, School, and Personal Relationships.
For this blog post, I was able to participate in a Twitter chat. I used a website called “Tweet Deck.” By using this website, I was able to have multiple twitter feeds open at one time and it made it easy to see what was being posted.The link to TweetDeck can be found here.The chat that I chose was the #LEARNLAP. This chat is based on a book titled “Learn Like a Pirate” written by Paul Solarz. This book is based on empowering the students in your classroom and and having a student-led classroom. A helpful infographic on the difference between a student-led classroom and a teacher-led classroom can be found here. This chat was hosted by the author of the book, Pau; Solarz. The chat was created in July of 2015. I believe that the chat is held weekly on Monday nights. The criteria that was covered on the chat was mainly on how to make the best environment for your classroom. They asked questions about what teachers have inspired us to become teachers, what qualities are good for future educators to have, and even how to take time to encourage our students and fellow faculty members. I would say that most of the people that participated in the chat were educators and people that work in the education field. A link to the twitter feed can be found here.
I think the one thing that surprised me the most was my feelings when I completed the chat. Going into this, I was not sure as to how the chat would go and I was not looking forward to it. I did not know what to expect when doing something like this. However, my feelings at the end of the chat were the complete opposite. When I was done with the chat I thought that the whole experience was so eye opening. The dialogue between the people seemed so real and personal.
Some challenges that I faced when taking part in the twitter chat was not really knowing what to expect. Since I have never done one before, I did not know if there were any specific rules or etiquette. I also did not know how quick the pace would be and how hard it would be to keep up. But since I addressed that this was my first time being in a twitter chat, I think that the people in the chat were understanding if I was not doing everything correctly.
There were a few different resources that I used to help me gain background knowledge. I used “Education Chats.” This website gave me the schedule of all the times of the specific twitter chats that you could go on to. The link to this website can be found here. I also read a couple of articles that can educate people on the use of twitter chats. The links to the articles can be found here and here. I found that the “10 Rules to be a Successful Participant in Your Twitter Chats” was very helpful because it gave a great step by step process on how to participate and helps you know what to expect and do.
I think the thing that I will benefit most from this experience is that it was an eye opening experience. One thing that I think is so cool is that since I stated that I am currently a student at UW-Platteville, someone who is alumni saw that, and then responded to me being on that chat. I never would have thought that a connection like that would have been made. I definitely enjoyed participating in a twitter chat, and would also do it again.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!!
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