Journal 2: "Join the Flock" NETS- III, IV, V

Ferguson, H. & McClintock Miller, Shannon. (2010, June/July). Join the flock!. Enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Join_the_Flock.aspx 

Summary

            Twitter is a place where a PLN can come together. A PLN is a group of people who use their connections to each other to grow and learn. A PLN can focus on any subject. Educators can benefit from joining a PLN that focuses on their subject area. You create your own PLN by selecting which twitter members you would like to follow. Members make lists of other members who have a common focus.  You can find members with your same interest by tapping into lists. Once you have found educators and specialists that you are interested in, then you can choose to follow them. This means you will begin to receive his or her tweets. Tweets are pieces of information members share with their followers. They can receive updates about a method that was particularly useful in someone’s classroom, or a link to an informative website. You can choose how little or how much you want to interact with you PLN. You can simply observe the tweets or you can re-tweet, which is leaving your feedback for another member’s tweet. If you have a question, you can turn to your PLN and wait for their feedback.

Q1. When is a good time to join twitter?

A1. It is never too soon to join twitter. Even if we have over a year left of school, we can still benefit from the information that is being shared among educators. Reading the teachers’ posts will help us to know what to expect when we have classes of our own.  

Q2. What if we have nothing important to contribute to our PLN?

A2. Everyone has SOMETHING to contribute. Even if you think you don’t.  But, if you are not comfortable with sharing your thoughts with other educators, you will still benefit from using twitter. The beauty of twitter is that you can learn from observing other people’s tweets, even if you don’t want to leave any of your own.