Blog Post #5

What are PLNs? PLN's or Personal Learning Networks, are networks that include people and tools such as educational websites that teachers set up for themselves in order to learn and become more effective teachers for themselves and their students.
 How can they help you as a teacher? PLN's can greatly expand your knowledge and create a support group for you to ask members of your PLN questions that will arise in your career.
 How are they formed? They are formed by using websites such as Symbaloo, Netvibes, or even social media sites such as Twitter, and Facebook.
 How can you create your own PLN? I chose to create my own PLN by using netvibes, which is a great tool to build my PLN. I can add useful websites in order to get updates, add to-do lists, link to facebook, twitter, and my e-mail. Netvibes is a great consolidation tool that will enable me to access feeds simultaneously from sites I will use in my educational career.

Who will be the first additions to your PLN? The first additions to my PLN will be my friends who have already begun their careers as teachers, as well as classmates. I also intend to add websites such as National Geographic and PBS, both of which provide articles relevant to my field of study that I could use to hopefully spark an interest in my students.

Being new to this sort of technology PLN's seemed a bit daunting. After signing up for and browsing Netvibes however, I don't think it will take me that long to get the hang of using PLN's.