A Personal Learning Network (PLN) is a vital part of every educators career. Whether it is their fellow teachers in their building, or educators around the world, a PLN supports, shares, and educates each other.

Through my PLN, I found a great poster that explains how to use Twitter to create a PLN.

Check it out and share with others. http://milestomes.com/?p=221



Related:

Create a Personal Learning Network

Twitter for Education - a great resource

Discovery Education is an excellent resource for educators. They have great fee-based products (Streaming, Assessment, Science and more) and over 30 free resources available for educators. The Discovery Educator Network is also a great resource for educators where they can connect with other educators and share resources and information. I've been a member of the DEN for many years, am a STAR educator and am also on the Leadership Council for Connecticut. The DEN provides a community for educators where they can socialize, share resources, and learn from each other. There are online resources, videos, blogs, links, downloads, contests and prizes, and so much more. The state Leadership Councils are made up of educators who volunteer to create social events, learning events, and write the blog posts. They work hand-in-hand with Discovery Education employees (like Steve Dembo @teach42) to support educators. 


The resources and post are not all about Discovery Education products, although many are. 


I've learned a lot from being a part of the DEN and have met some great people. Here's some details from research done on the DEN. 

Discovery Education had Researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education investigate the Discovery Educator Network to determine how the DEN has affected educator’s professional development and their use of technology in their work. You can read through the highlights here, as well as find a link to the full study. For those of you that are more visual in nature though, we took a few of the key points and turned them into an infographic.
Click on the image below to view the full infographic. And don’t forget, many browsers will attempt to resize it to fit the screen. If your mouse icon is a magnifying glass, click on the image to see it full size.

The Discovery Educator Network is a great addition to any educator's Personal Learning Network.

As educators, we speak of Personal Learning Networks (PLN) for ourselves, and sometimes our students. But what about parents?

Parents need resources to help them stay connected with school and their child's education. School memos and newsletters are not enough. One phone number at the school is not enough. Even having the email and/or phone number of teachers and counselors is not enough.

Here are some things that schools and districts should do to help parents have a PLN of their own:

1. School website - constantly updated, with links, resources, news, information, and contacts for teachers and staff. Information should be easy to find and read. Website should also have built-in translation abilities or instructions for using something like Google Translate. This is very important for limited or non-English speaking parents.
School blogs and Twitter accounts can also be used to share information with parents.

2. Email addresses - for child's teachers, administrator, and counselor. And, email list for other resources, like the school nurse, social worker, ELL coordinator, etc.

3. Phone list - for everyone listed in email address above.

4. Monthly parent workshops where parents can come to the school and meet the faculty and staff and make connections. They would also learn about the different resources at the school and district and how these resources can help them and their child. These workshops could also focus on tips and resources for creating a rich learning environment in the home for their child. There could also be seminars on computers, English language, parenting, and more.

5. Parent-Teacher Association contacts and meeting times need to be well published also.

6. Online Student information system - parents should be able to access real time grades and attendance information about their child. Most SIS offer this now.

7. Schoolwork and Homework help - help parents understand how to help their children with homework, even if they don't understand the subject matter. Give them ideas on providing time and space for the student to work. Helping students get good nutrition and enough sleep. Giving parents a list of resources to pass onto the student (like websites, tutoring, and the library).

These are great resources to help parents find information and help for them and/or their child. The personal connections are most important though. As parents meet staff in person they will feel more comfortable utilizing them and coming to them with issues and concerns.

Many parents feel disconnected from schools, especially in the higher grades when there are multiple teachers and administrators to deal with. Schools must work to give parents easy access to information and resources, and make parents feel comfortable in contacting the school for help.

What are your ideas for PLN's for Parents?


UPDATE: I forgot one great source for parents in a PLN - other parents. They can make connections, talk, help each other, share babysitting, carpools, etc.

Creating a Personal Learning Network with Web 2.0 Tools is a site that helps teachers set up and create a PLN. It has information and resources from multiple teachers and includes a variety of resources for teachers to use to connect with other educators. The site was created as part of a presentation for FETC 2009.

I'm a huge proponent of PLNs and this is definitely a great site to use to create or expand your own PLN.

Related Articles:
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/p/create-personal-learning-network.html