Day 22: What does your PLN look like, and what does it do for your teaching?

My PLN (personal learning network) is comprised of educators (and teacher educators) I know and have worked with before, those I have met and networked with at conferences, organizations that provide educational resources for myself and my credential candidates (edutopia and Facing History & Ourselves are two of my favorites), sociologists and activists (that help keep me grounded in what’s happening in the world around me and connected to my core commitments), writers, and former students.

My PLN helps me keep updated on what’s currently going on in the world and my field of education.  As I mentioned above, having people in my PLN from the community and from academia outside my field, but in closely related fields, allows me to remember the larger social contexts in which I’m embedded.  Having connections in my field helps me to see the work of my colleagues and new innovations that are happening each day.  It also helps me gain resources to not reinvent the wheel and it helps to reinforce some of the concepts that I’m teaching in class.  Just this week, I was talking with a former students about the importance of parent communication, then an article from edutopia on the power of positive parent interaction appears via a member of my PLN in one of my news feeds and I get to share it via Twitter. This is also a point I’ll be talking about in my lectures this week on classroom management.

My PLN also helps to keep me connected to other educators.  Sometimes, I’ll be feeling a bit discouraged after a rough day (or week) and I’ll stumble upon a twitter chat.  Participating in a twitter chat NEVER FAILS to help lift my spirits as I’m reminded of my fellow educators who are working towards similar goals.  It breaks the sense of isolation that sometimes teaching (particularly university teaching at a commuter school) can sometimes bring.  My PLN also helps keep me in touch with my students outside of class.  While e-mail can be an effective tool of communication, sometimes the short interactions via Twitter can be just as effective and more timely in working with students.

I am incredibly thankful for my PLN.  They help me to grow, push me to think, and help me to be a better educator each day.  They push me outside of the box and inside a shared world of experience and adventure in a quest to improve my work each day.