Final Reflection

As online educators we too can be isolated.  Unlike the brick and mortar schools, online educators work from a distance.  So developing a personal learning network through social collaboration tools is vital.  In the Personal Learning Environment, educators can share tools, tips, and support one another.  As I continue to move from novice to expert in the field of online education, professional development will be a key to growth.  Technology changes occur constantly so having a solid PLE will be critical to remaining current. On this page I noticed in the feedback that Dr. Kay had almost missed my second page embedded with the graphic.  That page was the text that explained the graphic representation of my PLE.  I revised this page to include the text on the webpage, rather than as part of the uploaded file.  It is less work for the reader that way. I also changed the font in the graphic in an attempt to make it readable on the page. 

Module 3:  Personal Learning Environment

This course is about communities:  communities of learners, peers, experts.  Our Personal Learning Network or PLN.  The addition of collaborative online tools creates what is termed Personal Learning Environment or PLE.  Our assignment this week was to do a self-inventory of the people and tools that currently make up our PLN and add that to our PLE.  What relationships do we have, what do we need, -- to help us see who and what we need to seek out as we continue to grow as online educators.  Here is a graphic representation of my PLN.  
The base of the pyramid depicts a number of tools that I am using.  These provide the ability to share information with other online educators as well as students. I have one Webquest published  on the site and have the opportunity to access Webquests published by others teaching in the same field.   Symbaloo is a reference sharing site.  I am able to share my resources with others by sending a link.  My e-portfolio includes a blog page, although inactive at this time.  I have used Jing and Screencast to provide visual tip sheets to faculty members and have create You Tube channels that notify me of new additions in areas that interest me.  People that I network with are mostly my classmates and work mates.  I recently joined the ASCD organization and receive emails and a print journal from them. 

The second level of the pyramid represents areas I am exploring.   Online collaboration tools are an area I will concentrate my learning.  I can see the value in them but just haven't taken the time to learn enough about them to be useful. I share files using Dropbox and have push notification of new postings of interest at Scoop.it.  Finally, I've set up a Faculty discussion forum for our curriculum redesign that is underway at CSON.

The top level of the pyramid lists tool and people I'd like to utilize in the future.  I believe that Twitter can be a useful tool for collaboration but know nothing about it.  Google for Education offers a learning platform that is FERPA compliant (so I'm told) and it would be useful to have available for student to build e-portfolios.  There are a number of collaborative tools at Google for Education.  When I begin to teach online, I'll be looking for my colleagues.   Not sure how you locate them since there are no brick and mortar offices.

I used a pyramid graphic to depict the development of my PLN.  The largest group that I'm already working with occupies the broad base of the pyramid.  In the middle are those I'm working with to learn to implement in teaching and finally the smallest portion of the pyramid includes tools and human resources I would like to pursue.