In Growing my PLN, one of my challenges was using twitter. I did not want another Social Media app. What I love about Twitter is that for me it is strictly professional. The closest thing I have had for a teaching resource is Pinterest. Pinterest is great when I am hunting for something specific. With Twitter, those in my PLN post amazing ideas that maybe I wouldn’t think of. Twitter makes me more aware of what apps, tools, lessons are out there and how they are being used. Now that it is summer, I find excitement in starting the next school year by looking for ideas and projects. I can connect directly with someone on Twitter about their tweet. I have found engaging read aloud books for may class, PD books for myself, Blogs, apps, and people to follow on twitter. Over all it has been such a positive experience. I even found my connected educator to follow on Twitter, Debra Campbell.
Recently I purchased a book by Dave Burgess, Teach Like a Pirate. This was the first time I had purchased a professional book to read that was not part of a course. I am reading it and enjoying it. I learned about this fantastic book and the author on Twitter, and began following Dave Burgess as well. He tweeted about a book called Start. Right. Now., he was planning on being part of that chat. Because I was enjoying his book, I purchased Start. Right. Now. and decided to participate in that chat. This was something I did not even know existed, and it was so exciting. I began following some of the participants on twitter because they teach the same grade level. I am looking forward to looking at their tweets and sharing mine to connect with classroom ideas. My website and blogging has helped me grow as an educator. Finding ideas to use in my class, or to help me be a better teacher is what this journey is about, being a lifelong learner. Blogging with intention is important. Knowing your audience, revising, creating something worth reading, and publishing to the website-blog, has become a favorite pastime in the evenings for me. I know publishing something on my site is a placeholder for me as well, saving the ideas and sites where great things are happening. Then as I share maybe someone will come along and say, “ Hey! I could totally use that! ”. I think I really like the potential for connecting with anyone- teacher, students, student teachers, boggers, people in education- anyone. In creating and maintaining the blogging website, I realized it was not the right platform for me. I needed more than what the New Google Sites could offer. Moving sites was tedious, but ultimately I am happier with the result of the Weebly site I created. I can now link my Twitter account to my Homepage and I can add tags-labels to posts. It was frustrating knowing that there were things I wanted to do with my site and I couldn’t, not because I didn't know how, but because those features were not there at all. New Google Site would be great for someone just starting a website that doesn’t want to add twitter or does not have a twitter account. Thank goodness for YouTube, without its how-to videos, I would be lost. YouTube taught me how to link my twitter, add tags, use Twitter, and participate in a Twitter chat with TweetDeck. In continuing to grow my PLN, I will continue to follow like minded individuals on Twitter. I look for teacher who teach 5th grade, and those who teach ELA and Social Studies. When I find a 5th grade teacher with likes to get techy and share their ideas, I just love it. I will continue to follow great Blogs, and add to my site. In doing that I will ensure that I am continuously inspired to learn new things. Inspiration is contagious and I love to inspire my students to write about their ideas, appropriately blog with their classmates, fearlessly try new apps and create on new sites. One of my favorite blogs to follow right now is Cult of Pedagogy, this site has amazing ideas I plan on using her idea about Student Made e-books, I love turning pencil-paper projects into something online that is creative and different that meets the standards I am teaching.
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While looking at other 5th grade teachers' blogs, I came across Draw a Stickman. I clicked on the picture link, and the site asked me to draw a stickman. It was kind of perfect.. my drawing abilities are limited. Then the program animates my little stick man. It has me draw to help the little story along. I defeat a dragon, escape hungry sharks, and retrieve the prize box from a floating balloon with my thunder cloud that i also draw. It was easy and so fun! The process took about 20 min. Debbie Campbell is a connected educator I interviewed on May 29th. She is the author of The Curious Educator-Blog. She is serving as the Communications Director and Instructional Technologist at a comprehensive high school in Texas. We had a great time connecting and discussing how she became a connected educator, and her advice for educators looking to be more connected. Wow! That was so much fun! What a great learning experience! I watched several YouTube videos on how to be part of a chat successfully. I chose a book chat for Start. Right. Now. by Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul, Jimmy Casas. They also wrote What Connected Educators Do Differently. Promptly at 5:00 I logged onto TweetDeck - #startrightnow. I was so nervous, I was sure I was not going to remember all the tips from the YouTube videos. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I answered every question, and I remembered to paste in #startrightnow at the end of every tweet. I even retweeted others exceptional tweets with positive note. To have a few of my thoughts validated with a like or a retweet was exciting. When Jeff Zoul replied to a tweet of mine, I was like, WOW! I ran with my computer to my husband and tried to explain how exciting this was. I will most definitely be part of a chat again. LOVE!
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AuthorI am a 5th grade teacher for Visalia Unified School District. I teach at Oak Grove, we are a k-8 school site. Archives
November 2017
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