Amanda's Blog 338

I chose to look into r/elementaryteachers for my PLN. This is something that is very interesting to me as I am going to become an elementary school teacher. I have been able to learn about many different teachers experiences through the reddit page. There are many different experiences that are shared on this reddit page. There are also some teachers that share different lesson plans and teaching resources. These are things that are incredibly useful for my learning. I hope to be able to contribute to these as I become a teacher and have successful lessons to share with others.

I have found that reddit has been the most useful social media platform for finding different PLNs as there is such a wide variety of reddit pages. It is also incredibly easy to contribute to the Reddit page, as well as interact with other members of the Reddit page. This allows the most interaction within a PLN that I have been able to get involved with. I have also found that there are many Facebook groups, however, they are not always as easy to get involved with as they can often be private groups.

I have not yet contributed to my PLN because I do not have lesson plans that I am comfortable sharing with other teachers, as I am still a student teacher. I have not been able to see which lessons that I have curated are successful in a classroom. I am still learning how to create a comprehension lesson that ties into a unit plan. This is why I have yet to contribute teaching resources into my PLN. I plan on contributing to this PLN once I have completed my BEd program and have more experiences in classroom as a teacher.

One thing that I may be able to achieve through this PLN is building connections. I have been planning on potentially going internationally on a teaching VISA after graduating with a teaching degree. This could allow me to make some connections with other teachers in places where I may be interested in teaching in the future. This is something that I could see being possible through a PLN like this one because it is an open forum that anyone can join. Being apart of a PLN that is international, it allows for connections throughout different parts of the world.

I think that there are many benefits to being apart of different diverse PLN groups. This allows you to expand your view on different aspects of your life both personally and professionally. It allows you to be exposed to multiple different points of view on certain topics. This can allow you to receive a diverse set of information. This can broaden your views of whatever PLN you are in. For example, my pod group looked at r/Teachers on Reddit as our PLN. Through this PLN, I was able to see how teachers from different areas communicated with one another. I was also able to see how teachers were able to compare different curriculums with one another. There were many instances where it was helpful to have teachers from different school districts share different approaches to certain topics. Teachers (reddit.com)

One way that you can create an inclusive PLN is to have an open community. By having a public forum that anyone can access can make it very inclusive for people to join, contribute, and learn from your PLN. However, having a fully public PLN can come with some challenges. Monitoring what is being shared on the PLN is another way to make the PLN inclusive. By not allowing people to post hateful comments that make people feel unwelcome in the PLN, it allows a larger audience to join the PLN. This is incredibly important because for a PLN to be accessible to everyone, it needs to be a respectful community.

There are certain communities that provide a better PLN experience than others, depending on what the topic of the PLN may be. Social Media platforms like Instagram or Tik Tok, may not be ideal for PLN’s that want to have high amounts of communication between members. A platform like Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter can allow for more direct communication. A platform like Facebook is harder to remain anonymous on, compared to Reddit or Twitter. Depending on the PLN, this may be more or less ideal. When people have the ability to remain anonymous it can lead to unpleasant interactions. However, some people only feel comfortable interacting with a PLN if they can remain anonymous. This can be both an advantage and disadvantage for a PLN using these platforms.

There are many different sets of advantage and disadvantages to suing an online PLN. By allowing people to remain anonymous, they may be more comfortable interacting with other members of the PLN. Whereas, it can also allow for people to share things that are disrespectful or unhelpful, as they know that they remain anonymous. Online PLN’s can extend across so many different areas of the world which can connect people that otherwise would have no way to contact one another. This can create incredible learning experiences for people who are involved in these PLN’s.

The PLN that I chose to learn about for this week was Teacher Pay Teachers. This is a community that spans across multiple different platforms. This main platform of teachers pay Teachers is a website that is designed for teachers to share different teaching resources. These can range from all ages and teaching levels, as well as different price ranges. There are also some different classroom resources included on teachers pay teachers. This website is meant for sharing teaching resources, and less about teachers interacting in conversations with one another. This is very intriguing to me as I have not seen many other PLN’s that share so many resources with one another. This really shows how much the teachers who are involved in this community care about supporting each other which is incredibly important to me. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/?msockid=2b57a2fa145b60292f4eb09f15ab61b5

Teachers pay teachers is also on many other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. This is where they promote their website. This is also where teachers can interact with each other. These platforms are where a majority of communication between teachers happen. The exchange of resources is done through the main website. I am more likely to interact with the main website, as it has more content that I am interested in. However, the Facebook group allows for many different types of interactions between teachers. I could see these platforms being useful if I ever wanted to get advice or share my experiences with teachers I was not familiar with. I would definitely want to create separate social media accounts that are not my own personal accounts if I were to comment on these platforms. This would allow me to keep my personal accounts separated from my professional life.

I plan on utilizing the main teachers pay teachers website as I begin my journey as a teacher. There are so many incredible resources that are shared on this website that can greatly impact my teaching. I also hope to contribute to the resources that are being shared on the website. I do plan on being very careful about the resources that I share, as I do not want people to be able to find out personal information about me. I would not want to share things such as my school district, or curriculum online as that can lead to people being able to find out where I work. I would also be incredibly careful about the resources I choose to utilize in my classrooms. I would not want to use a resource that is not appropriate for my students.

Digital identity is formed by what you post online. It is how people identify and perceive you based off your online image. This can be influenced by many things, such as the pictures and videos you post, as well as comments and other writing pieces you put online. I really like this Youtube video about digital identity. It gives me a very clear explanation about what digital identity is and how you can find your own digital identity. I thought it was very interesting that the video suggested googling yourself to see what your digital identity looks like. I would not have thought to do that before. When I did that, I found that I have a very small digital identity. This is likely because all of my social media accounts are private and I do not post many things online.

I personally use social media however I don’t post myself often. I keep my accounts private, as I don’t want people that I don’t know to see what I post. This is because I generally only post photos of my friends/family, and some general accomplishments. I don’t always feel the need to have strangers on the internet seeing what I am doing with my personal time.

I feel as though the things I do post online would be considered professional, if they were made public. I choose to not post things that would be considered inappropriate, or unprofessional, as they are just not something that I want to have on the internet. I personally approach my digital identity with the intention that, if someone from my professional life were to see it, that it would not be an issue. This compliments my general digital identify well, as I have always be very aware of the things that I choose to post online. I have known since I first got social media that once something is put online, it never comes off of it. This is why I have never been conflicted in my personal versus professional digital identity.

There are many platforms that continue to grow online. Many of these platforms I use, but I don’t contribute to. Things like Youtube, or Tik Tok, I enjoy watching the things that others post on these platforms, but I don’t contribute my own videos to these platforms. I plan on keeping this approach in the future as new social media platform emerge. I will watch and participate in the social media platforms I enjoy using, however I don’t always feel the need to contribute towards the platforms.

My name is Amanda, I am going into my fourth year at UVic. I am currently completing a Bachelor of Education. I am interested in teaching the primary grades. Before beginning my Bachelor of Education, I worked with children quite consistently. I was a dance teacher and tumbling coach for around 8 years. This allowed me to learn about how to work with children. I have also now completed a 3-week and 6-week practicum through my program. These were amazing experiences for me as I was able to work in a Kindergarten class and a grade 3/4 split class. This allowed me to develop my skills as a teacher.

I am very interested in social media and how it effects students. I haven’t seen firsthand how it can effect students because I have only had experiences working with younger students. I am very interested in personalized learning because of how beneficial it can be for all students. I really like how easy digital tools can make it for me to personalize students learning. I have able to use tools such as Canva, and PowerPoint during my practicum for many different things. I was able to create worksheets for students using Canva. I was also able to differentiate the worksheets so they were applicable to both grade levels in the class. I think that it is very important for students to have digital literacy because there are so many things that are done digitally now. It puts students at an advantage when they have some digital literacy. I was in a grade 3/4 class which had a very large range of abilities. It was incredibly important for me to create differentiated plans for both grades but also for the student abilities within the different grade levels. I had multiple students who needed additional scaffolding through their lessons, or students who needed to be challenged beyond the standard lessons. This was much easier when using digital tools like Canva as I was able to make changes to my worksheets and lessons very efficiently.

One experience that I have that I would consider a personalized learning network is through my Cohort. Our cohort has been together for 2 full years and we communicate online and face to face. We all learn together and we help each other learn consistently. There are many instances through our schoolyear where we are messaging one another through our group chat and we are able to help each other. We are all learning together and often work through difficult assignments or situations together. It is very refreshing to have a group of people that all have a very similar goal that we are working towards together. It also allows us to learn from each other which is incredibly beneficial.