To be honest, I am just starting to regularly use online PLNs this year. I feel like I need to sit down and really decide which PLN I like best between all of the different ones I have tried out. Then, I can organize all of my resources for that particular PLN.
Some PLNs that I like to use are Diigo and LearnZillion. LearnZillion is a website that I learned about last year from teachers in my building. It offers a variety of lessons over skills. A lot of the lessons are geared toward Elementary grades, and they are all aligned with Common Core. All of the lessons come with instructional videos for the teacher to use. Teachers can also create videos and add them to the website. Diigo is a bookmarking website that allows users to create lists and tags to organize resources. Users can also search the library to see what others have tagged or bookmarked.
Click on the picture of LearnZillion to go to the website.
I have also linked a guide for LearnZillion and all of its features.
http://bknab.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/learn-zillion-information.pdf
One PLN that I am very interested in but not very accustomed to is Twitter. I do not feel comfortable using Twitter yet, but I know that there are a wide variety of resources at my disposal. My goal this year is to use Twitter to follow educational and technology related users and bookmark the resources I find from them using Diigo.
As a first year teacher last year, I struggled to find resources. One website that I used on a regular basis was the SmartExchange website. It has a variety of SmartBoard files that teachers can use. I used this to search for activities for my lessons. In fact, I used one lesson that another teacher from my district shared.
Link to SmartExchange website - http://exchange.smarttech.com/#tab=0
An integral part of PLNs is be an active user who not only uses ideas from others but shares ideas for others to use. This is a weakness of mine. I am a "Stalker", and I do not share information and ideas that I find. I can solve this problem by becoming an active user of Twitter and re-tweeting interesting topics I find. It will be be something I need to work on, but I know that I will be helping others.
It's hard sometimes to realize you are only in your 2nd year of teaching! You have a real sense of how kids learn and how to engage them in the learning! I have never heard of LearnZillion - thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI created an account for LearnZillion earlier this year but have yet to really use it or figure it out. Is it something the kids can get on and view or is it more for just the teacher? My kids really seem to enjoy when I show them a learning video that goes along with the lesson. Thanks for sharing the SmartExchange website. I am going to try and use some of the resources next week in class.
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