Week 2: Getting Your Feet Wet

Getting Your Feet Wet

Admit it, almost everyone tests the water before jumping in.  However, no one wants to take a dip, unless they know how to swim.

  

Starting a Personal Learning Network (PLN) can be extremely extensive.  This week in class, we were instructed to read chapter 6, in our book, Connected Educator by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall.  Basically, a PLN becomes a significant part of your online identity, a source of collective intelligence, and a foundation to make connections off of.  One of the essential concepts in maintaining a efficient PLN is time and effort.  What you put in it, is what you'll get in return!  Another important factor that this chapter included was the idea of creating communities and building connections.  A strong community is based on a tip-top designer for learning and actively engaging.  The value is in understanding how to tap into and lift knowledge from others, and experiencing what other members know.

Community members have four key roles and responsibilities:
1. Linking: educators might be interested in joining, but only visit occasionally
2. Lurking: reluctant to share thoughts, willing to listen, but watches from the sidelines
3. Learning: participate in conversations and help shape what is being learned
4. Leading: educator committing time and energy to community

"The real power of the social web is revealed when you have a plan and a purpose for how you'll build your network, reap its benefits, and then apply the knowledge you gain," (Beach, Hall 92)

So, as a product of Professor Calderwood's effective community, our class was able to participate in a google hangout with a few of the members last week.  This was a new experience to me, but definitely an eye-opener!  Our online conversation, based on Google apps and extensions, included very knowledgable individuals; Melissa Murphy, Kate Baker, and Dave Malone. 

This google hangout was without a doubt a life saver for me.  I've owned a google chrome laptop for over a year now, and have been pretty much lost on how to use it until thursday of last week.  There were a few programs that really stood out to me, and that are incredibly useful. 

Shopping anyone?

Kate had mentioned plenty of helpful hints for docs and slides, but making a table of contents right on your google docs was my favorite.  I personally take extensive notes for my classes and google docs will automatically create a table of contents so it is easier to access different sections! One of the apps Dave showed us shortcuts for Google, almost like a bookmark. Genius! So websites you are on most often, you can just bookmark them, instead of wasting time trying to find everything separately. Melissa had mentioned a copious amount of apps/extensions for google that would make life easier for anyone.  One of the first ones, was split screen.  With this, your able to have two tabs open at the same time in one window! Perfect for taking notes in one screen and reading an article in another. The second one that stood out to me was Adblock Plus.  Do you ever get so distracted from all the ads popping up, that you can't concentrate on what you're actually trying to read? Adblock plus is the extension for you. Lastly, do we have any Pinterest lovers?  I, myself, am a little obsessed with this social networking, idea forming, website.  Kate showed us how easy it is to "pin" from any site we are on!

All of these extensions and applications can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Store as long as you have Google Chrome on your computer.