Personal Learning Network

6/5/2022

I am stepping out of the 90’s big hair era where we professionally connected to others by ”networking”. The only piece of technology we utilized was a telephone. ‘Contacts’ were in your physical address book, then transferred to a legal pad, and called using a telephone using the innovative cordless phone. Fast forward to the 21st Century and integrating technology to construct our Personal Learning Network (PLN). PLN also means a network of resources to support any learning endeavor.

I utilized this website to help me construct my PLN Mind Map. 15+ Mind Map Examples for Team Collaboration - Venngage. Venngage is user friendly and the first handful of visual representations that are free. I chose from a myriad of designs and landed on this: My PLN I created a Family with a Master + category. Additionally, I created categories for school connections, former work experiences, social media networks, and my current work network.

One of the strengths that my PLN highlighted was how my experiences or networks are connected rather than isolated. This was an ‘aha’ moment for me, in particular as a special education teacher. In fact, I was surprised by just how many connections there are in my PLN. As so often our strengths do, it quickly highlighted an area of weakness or opportunity, urging me to step out of my comfort zone yet again.

How might I become more connected through such technological platforms to support my student sect and their families? As well, how might I share learning strategies to implement in the home setting, provide tips, answers to frequently asked questions around IEP’s and evaluations and build advocacy to support families?

Resources and Media Credit:

Devlin, C. (2022, June 5). Screenshot of Carrie Devlin's pln. [Image]. Venngage.
https://infograph.venngage.com/ps/pRwUSu0yGE/carrie-devlins-personal-learning-network

Finestselleronline. (2022). AT&T 5200 Cordless Landline Desk/Wall Vintage 1990'sTelephone NEW Collectible. [Photograph]. Ebay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/133920955531?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1JaRCEoXJTOyNUfTlTs2YYg87&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=133920955531&targetid=1599090336137&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9029196&poi=&campaignid=15275224983&mkgroupid=131097072938&rlsatarget=pla-1599090336137&abcId=9300697&merchantid=6296724&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8dTKssOX-AIVvxvUAR0E8QP8EAQYCCABEgK6CfD_BwE

Gaskin, Jennifer. (2021, May 13). 15+ ideas mind map examples to organize your team and inspire new ideas. Venngage. https://venngage.com/blog/mind-map-examples/#simple

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Start at the Beginning

Have you ever just wanted to skip over the whole process of being a novice learner? All of the mistakes, the uncertainty, cringeyness, lack of confidence, and general messiness of the learning process. A necessary place to begin.

I found this video years ago when I first started teaching. Many of my days felt like this: The Novice

One main difference between experts and novices is that the expert’s organizational knowledge enables them to readily and efficiently identify patterns in order to ‘chunk’ information (Bransford et. al 2000). This ability provides experts to view a problem from a conceptual perspective or with the intent to understand the issue.

Another difference between the expert and novice is the expert's ability to efficiently and fluently retrieve knowledge to support problem-solving in new situations or learning. In my early years of teaching, I struggled with identifying students with academic disabilities (SLD). It is like a puzzle, yet the pieces are scattered and sometimes hidden. It was challenging to analyze the data and identify their learning patterns. As my content knowledge increased so did my pedagogical knowledge. As my PCK grew, my thinking changed in regards to teaching and learning. Therefore it would stand that as we learn to understand technology integration, we grow our understanding of its connections to our pedagogical content knowledge.

Another tell-tale sign of the expert is their ability to adapt their knowledge and teaching to any classroom in any given opportunity. In fact, I would suggest that experts often look for opportunities to adapt their skills to a variety of teaching and learning settings. Experts are the artisans of their craft.

The novice must step out of their comfort zone to grasp these foundational pieces of learning in educational technology and technological integration in order to access a deeper understanding of how our PCK connects to technological knowledge.

To read more: revision2_cep_810_unit_1.pdf

Just a Thought