PLN Experience

I have had a personal twitter account for years now. I can't even tell you how long. I was very active on it when I first opened it sometime in college. Since then my twitter activity has decreased to the point where I mostly just use it to read news. I will occasionally retweet something I really liked.

I have just recently learned about PLNs or Professional Learning Communities. Basically a PLN is a community of fellow educators that have come together to reflect on teaching, share experience and ideas in the world of education, and help each other with professional topics. In order to dive into the world of PLNs I opened up a professional twitter account. After weighing many different twitter handles I landed on @TeacherMsVan. It's simple, professional, and easily identifies who I am.

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Initially I was worried that I would have a hard time finding people to follow and joining into a PLN. I was incorrect, because after creating my handle I instantly found a few other users that I wanted to follow. As I followed more and more people, companies, and educators I found that my feed was becoming full of so many inspiring posts, great teaching ideas, and tools.

Resource 

One resource that I discovered through Twitter was the Mystery Science page. I have been using Mystery Science for about a year now, and I feel like I am just discovering what it has to offer. By finding their twitter (hosted by the program) I was able to see more Mystery Science in action.  It's great to have a reference for what some of the activities are supposed to look like, and see how other teachers have incorporated them into their classes. From their page I discovered the Next Generation Science Standards page. This again is a great resource for teaching science. I can't wait to dive deeper into these pages, as well as others, to really see what they have to offer. 

#TwitterChat

After I got more and more comfortable with my new professional twitter, I decided it was time to participate in a #twitterchat. I took a look at a list of possible education chats and instantly felt overwhelmed. There were so many. How was I going to choose which one to participate in. I noticed that an account I had already followed, @TeachWriteEDU, had a twitter chat on Monday nights called #teachwrite. I decided I would try out this chat since teaching writing is something I am trying to work on in my own classroom. This seemed like the perfect place to start. 

Hosts and hashtag for the Twitter Chat (Image Source) 

I jumped right in when I saw that the chat was beginning. At first I was nervous because it seemed like most of the chatters already had a professional relationship going between themselves. They were quickly responding to each other and answering question. I was really pleasantly surprised once I did tweet. I quickly received likes, retweets, and comments on my thoughts. Below are a few screen shots of my participation in the chat.

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This was my original tweet which was in response to one of the first questions posted on the chat. 

Responses to my tweet (Image Source)

After my first tweet got such a wonderful response, I continued to participate in the Twitter chat. 

My second tweet in the #Teachwrite Chat (Image Source) 

Reflection 

Overall, I found that participating in PLNs through the use of Twitter was a very rewarding experience. During my Twitter chat I felt that I got great and uplifting responses from some fellow educators. I found that participating was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, and that people were very receptive to what I had to say. 

Going forward I would like to continue to grow my PLN through Twitter. I would like to continue to participate in Twitter Chats. There are so many amazing resources and educators out there. The PLN is such a great tool to use when you are looking to learn something new, or get help with something you are struggling with. 

If you haven't already, go follow my professional twitter @TeacherMsVan.