Fergueson, H. (2012). Join the flock. ISTE Learning and Leading, 39(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/issues/june-july-2010/join-the-flock!
Miller, S. M. (2010). Enhance your Twitter Experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), 14-17. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-february-2013
Summary:
Ms. Fergueson's article introduces a concept called PLN's which is associated with Twitter in which she gives steps on how to make it most helpful for you and the others in your network. It is a very interesting concept to gain and trade information within your interests and spread more technology awareness. Miller's article piggy backs off of Fergueson's article with defined terms and more in-depth explanations of how to enhance the twitter experience that Fergueson refers to in her article. These two articles paired together are a great asset for introducing Twitter for an academic use in addition they meet the criteria for NETS-T 3 and 5.
Question One: What exactly is a PLN?
Answer One: It seems like Twitter on its own using hash tags and tweet deck is sufficient enough for attaining information as shown in a previous class meeting. I also feel that Diigo is a great source for attaining information within your realm of interests, which I use on a daily basis to expand my resources for my future history classroom and to help me through the credential program. However this does sound like an interesting concept and one that we will most likely be exploring in this class. I hope to attain more information from a hands on experience. It seems as though students could benefit from the use of a PLN perhaps in the form of a research based project in connecting them with students from across the globe. I do like that PLN opens up a variety of new teaching sources that I may have never found in my own research and allows a communication of teaching strategies that could be beneficial to a teacher at any point in their career.
Question Two: How can students benefit from a PLN?
Answer Two:This talks mainly about how teachers benefit from acquiring new teaching sources for lesson plans and different ideas of teaching and sources. This indirectly benefits students in the sense that the teacher is prepared with resources but how can students use a PLN to their advantage in a math class or in a history class? Perhaps if a student had a semester long project this would be helpful but I cannot see a way to incorporate this into a classroom directly for students.
