PLN: Mine vs. Theirs

It is interesting to look at the change in my use for the internet in the last few years.  When I was in my undergrad or even way back when I was in high school, the internet was used for socializing with friends.  When I was in high school I would IM people using messanger till the wee hours of the morning.  My parents would get angry because no one could call when I was on line.  Then came MySpace and from that Facebook emerged.  This was basically my extent of socializing on line before I entered Education.
I am not naive to think that high school students of today are only as connected on line as I was when I was in my undergrad but I still believe they use the internet primarily to connect with people they know personally outside of the internet.  The only interactions they may go out of their way to create is random comments on you tube videos or messing with information on a wikipedia entry.  To me a connected student would have a PLN like this:

  Mine, on the other hand, connects me with people I don't know.  I use the internet to gather and export information to/from fellow educators around the globe.  My PLN looks more like this:

Connecting with people is an awesome experience and has many positive implications.  For me it provides support when creating lesson plans.  It helps me gather perspectives on issues and helps keep me current on the changes happening in education.
The internet is a great place to gather information and connect with friends but the more you connect with people on line you realize it is so much more.  This is something our students haven't learned yet and something we can teach them so they can be ahead of their peers when they enter the work force and/or higher education.

The bad side of the internet

This week we had a wonderful presenter in my Internet for Educators class named Alec Couros.  He talked about the great things the internet can provide us with but he briefly mentioned how there is also a negative side to the internet, this is going to the topic for my blog today.

We have all heard about those internet sites that dedicate their web space to the demoralizing of people (thedirty.com), where they get their users to make insensitive remarks about someone they don't know.  They often function so that if you, as a user, want your post to be viewed along side the victims picture, it has to be crude enough to make it there. These sites sound scary and we have to hope that our students or ourselves never make it on them.  They have been known to cost people their friends, jobs and even their lives.  There are plenty of stories we hear about this stuff on the news and we constantly wonder how can this happen?

How can people post these things about people they don't even know and not be prosecuted for defamation of character? Well I don' know, but I think they should.

Another scary thought is that it doesn't take sites like thedirty.com to affect someone's life via jobs, friends and their mental state.  People can post negative things on walls on Facebook or send insensitive tweets.  Aside form this, something more of us are familiar with, is those not so tasteful pictures at a party or bar that get uploaded on facebook. These photos could cost us our career if the wrong person got a hold of them.  To top it off, students have gotten this idea that sexting is an okay practice. 

So what should we do about this?

Before you start thinking, I teach elementary and this doesn't apply to me, Alec informed us that he was talking to a group of 8 and 9 year olds and they knew about facebook, twitter, instagram, flickr and a few others.  He also said that even though people under the age of 13 are not suppose to own accounts on these sites, that the age they usually start joining these websites is at age 11.  Could you imagine being 11 and thinking about how what you tweet, post, or what photos you upload could affect you a decade from now? How are these young minds suppose to understand that the person they may be talking to is not there friend and that posting "going to Disney land with my family, leaving Sunday" is an invitation for thief?

So what do we do about it? Please comment and let me know your thoughts and I'll share mine.

Share or Beware!

              We complain that education is so hard in this era but could we imagine what it would have been like back in the one room school house times.  Young, mostly girls, would travel away from their families and friends to these small towns.  Once there they would have to prepare lessons for 20-30 students, all at different ages, intelligence  and most felt they had little need for education.  They had to do all of this with little to no training. They also had no one to share with or to ask for help when they were facing difficulties.  

              I personally could not imagine this.  I am nervous about having my own classroom next year, hopefully, but if I do I will be surrounded by support. I will have my fiance at home to help me on my struggling days.  My colleges in the school to lend me their expertise.  My family and friends are only a text, phone call or skype away.  Besides this I will have the internet to research lesson plans and resources.  My blog will give me an outlet to ask for help and share my success.  Also, I will have 2 years of specific teacher education and multiple PD sessions to help me succeed

                Compared to those one room school house teachers I am exponentially better off and for this I am very grateful.  Technology is a wonderful thing.  We, as educators, need to keep learning and striving to be better.  To do this we need to share and have an online presence.  This will provide us with the means to share our experience and find support, helping us keep our sanity on those challenging years.  I always like to think that no matter what situation you are facing, someone at sometime has probably faced the same or very similar situation.  This person can be a person of support and a great aid to you.  The internet allows you a place to connect with this person even if they are in a different country.

Making Connections

This week we had John Evans come into our classroom and discuss the topics around PLN (Professional Learning Network) and sharing on the internet. This reminded me of a post I did on my previous blog.  I think you will enjoy!
Think back to your first day of high school.  If your childhood was anything like mine you remember being nervous about whether your new clothes were the right fashion and if you would have someone to sit with at lunch.  For the most part you just wanted to fit in.  By the end of the first week you had made a few new friends and by the end of the year your new friends had become the people you did everything with.  You had made new connections and ones you thought would last a lifetime.

Looking at your friends now, some may be from that group you had in grade 9, but most of them are new.  They may be people you met in University, or at a summer job.  If you are older then me they are likely people that you work with or have kids that are a similar age to yours.  Either way they are the people that surround you and support you now.  These people are important for you to be successful and happy in life.

But what about your teaching life? Who supports you here? It is obvious that your co-workers do but I want to look bigger.  I can say in my student teaching experience, the internet supports me in finding great resources and lesson ideas.  This support is not very personal, and this is why I have been on a mission to make the internet a personal support. Joining twitter and adding local educators, I have been able to share with them resources, readings, and ideas.  If I am struggling with a unit plan or lesson idea I can just reach to my phone tweet it and within minutes have a bunch of people tweeting ideas back to me.  It is awesome, you never feel alone in planning and you never should.  Many teachers before me have had the same problems that I am going to face.  Anything from classroom management issues, to what poster should I hang on the wall can be solved by collaboration with others.  Twitter also allows me to connect with organizations like MTS (Manitoba Teacher Society) who keep me up to date on PD opportunities and news stories related to education.  

Starting a blog, though it seems very one sided, is a great way to connect with people.  Once you start blogging, you start checking out other people's blogs and learn that there are a lot of people out there talking about issues that are of importance to you.  You find ideas, strategies and perspective you never would have thought of on your own.  The blogging community is very supportive and always willing to give advice.

If you are not wanting to go so world wide, starting profession learning networks(PLN) are great ways of sharing information between teachers that are teaching the same things in your division or province.  They allow teachers to collaborate and with collaboration you are able to use the creative minds of more people to create a lesson that students will love.  The whole 2 heads are better then 1 saying!! If you are looking for a PLN right now I suggest looking into www.classroom20.com . It is a great place to learn and share.

So get out there, join twitter, start a blog and develop a PLN, you will not regret it and your students will thank you for it!!
John also talked about Maple, which is a PLN he has developed for educators in Manitoba. If you are an educator in Manitoba I highly recommend you get in contact with John and get you the site!

Welcome to the Blogging World...Round 2!!

I am just about to start blogging for the second time.  Last year I started a blog called "the garlic and the frog leg."  I was not very successful.  This year is going to be different!
Recently I started a course called Internet for Educators where we are required to blog at least once a week about our experiences in education.  Particularly I will discuss aspects related to technology in education.
I think this attempt at blogging will go much better!
Look forward to the journey!
Anna