Blog #5

Prior to this class, I had never even heard of a Personal Learning Network (PLN). A PLN is a set of tools and people that you can turn to when in need of assistance. As teachers, we will not know everything, and we will have to call upon others for help throughout the years. If you have a PLN set up, it is very easy to get assistance. The first step in building a PLN includes finding people that you believe will be beneficial to you. Once you find someone who appeals to you, you can find even more people by seeing who he/she interacts with. Another important step in building your PLN is finding tools and resources, such as websites and blogs, that will be useful in your future endeavors.

I have found Symbaloo to be very useful, and I used this resource to begin building my very own PLN. This tool allows you to access the websites that you use most frequently all from one place. You create "tiles" for the websites that you visit most often and arrange them however you would like. Now Twitter, USA Online, and other websites that I visit on a daily basis are all available at once source. I have also thought about people who would be beneficial to include in my PLN. I think that my teachers, past and present, would be great to include in my network. Education instructors such as Dr. Strange would be good to include because he has an abundance of resources and knowledge about being an educator, and my elementary and middle school teachers would be good to include because they have spent many years working with the age range that I hope to work with one day. I am very glad that we have learned about this concept, and I cannot wait to use my PLN in the future. I know that it will only continue to grow in the future.