Journal #6: Reflections on Professional Learning Networks

The Affinity group that I chose and have been monitoring is Classroom 2.0.  I have found it interesting because there are a variety of discussions on all sorts of subjects that have to do with using technology in the classroom plus anything to do with classroom teaching.  There are article on classroom furniture design as well as technology integration in preschool.  I especially enjoyed an article on three sites to help students move from the classroom to career as I’m trying to help my son start his career coming out of college.

I’m enjoying the feeds I’m receiving in DIGG.  For sports, I don’t have search through all my sites to find articles about the Red Sox or Celtics or Bruins or Patriots. More importantly, I’m finding websites that pertain to my more recent interests in technology and multimedia.  I recently read an article on O’Reilly Radar titled “A connected world is a better world. Right? By Jim Stogdill.  He compares the changes we’re going through now are similar to the industrial revolution that occurred 150 years ago.  Major changes is social interactions worldwide are occurring and that can be good or bad.

 

Professional Learning Networks are useful to better understand not only your own interests, but scan areas that you may never of thought of approaching.  It’s so easy to browse topics and exchange ideas with people in your own town as well as people across the planet with twitter.  I can easily communicate with people who may have the same interests as myself.  By focusing on very specialized Affinity groups or specific categories of RSS feeds, I can spend less time on browsing for information and get better information that will help me with my personal and professional development.