PLN for Teachers

What does your Twitter bio say about you? Don't think in terms of cold, hard facts - what does it really reveal about you to others? As we've recently discussed on Mashable, your bio is one of the major factors that people take into consideration when deciding whether or not to follow you on Twitter, but it's even more important than that.

Mt. Blue English teacher Dan Ryder joins teachers across the U.S. who are using Twitter to network and exchange teaching insights. By KAITLIN SCHROEDER Morning Sentinel FARMINGTON - A Mt. Blue High School teacher is among an emerging group of educators using the social media network Twitter to reach beyond gossipy chats to exchanging new ideas about teaching students.

With no pond outside the R.J. Bailey School in Greenburgh, holding a rubber ducky race needed some creative thinking. School librarian Melissa Iomonico turned on her computer and clicked onto Pinterest, the social website that acts as an Internet bulletin board. There it was.

Personal learning networks are a great way for educators to get connected with learning opportunities, access professional development resources, and to build camaraderie with other education professionals. Although PLNs have been around for years, in recent years social media has made it possible for these networks to grow exponentially.

Pinterest together with Twitter are my top social networking websites for this year. You can tell from the multitude of posts I devoted to them here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. I mainly use Twitter for professional development purposes and I must say that I have learned a lot from it.

I still remember how reluctant we were to embrace Google Plus. Google did all its best to push it forward and "force" us to use it. Many people did not see in it any good addition to the already teeming world of social media.

Let's assume, just for a moment, that you're relatively normal - in your digital habits at least (no, not those ones, they're weird). The chances are, therefore, that you have two routes to the things that interest you - either you seek them out (probably on Google) or they find you, usually through social media.

Because we subscribe to ActiveHistory, we get active updates from site publisher and history teacher, Russel Tarr (@activehistory). A little while back, Russel shared his list of professional Historians on Twitter. The caused me to think about PLN building in an expanded way.