Growing your PLN (Professional Learning Network) is nothing near of easy and fast. It takes time, knowing the resources, and problem-solving as you go. I have reflected on the beginning stages of my personal learning with growing my PLN, and hope they would help you as well. What my overall experience using Twitter, blogging, following blogs, and other social media tools are. My overall experience with Twitter is that it is an AMAZING tool to connect with people and organizations all over the world. At first, I was hesitant to join Twitter and creating an account, @ashraegreen, because I thought it would turn into another thing to update, stay on top of, and participate in with my already busy schedule. My husband @TylerGreen_ actually convinced me to make a Twitter before I even knew what to do with it. In fact, I didn't do much with it until I started building my PLN. Now that I have been building my PLN and using Twitter for about a month, I really enjoy it. I love that I can post my own work, link a recent blog post in a Tweet, retweet (or share) another person's Tweet that I really liked. My next steps for Twitter and using it to the fullest, is to participate in Twitter Chats more often (See my blog post on Twitter Chats and how they work). I will also be using it with my students so they can participate in online interviews. Blogging and following blogs has been great! I need more practice following blogs, but my overall experience with building a blog has been wonderful. Yes, building a blog takes time, effort, and drive, but it allows you to be creative and share your knowledge and thoughts on a topic. I love that I can combine my passions for education, technology, and cooking into one blog to share with the world. Using social media tools has been fairly easy for me, and I knew most of them; however, I have begun to learn how to use the social media tools to promote my blog and grow my PLN. For example I can link my blog to a Google Plus account, then link the Google Plus items to my Pinterest account. My blog content is now on three different social media sites, not including Twitter and it only takes 1 minute to do. How I have grown as a connected educator through building a website and social media. I have grown as a connected educator by learning how to find other educators via Twitter and blogs. Through social media I have grown my PLN by finding educators through my existing followers or searching educational hashtags. When I found an educator I wanted to follow, I followed them then I learned to search through their followers to see if there was another educator I wanted to follow. My Twitter followers began to grow from their. Building my website has helped me grow as a connected educator, because I learned that I needed to promote other educators on my page, and connect viewers to other educational blogger's pages, so that I become credible as an educational blogger. There is a give and take relationship with being a connected educator and a connected blogger. You have to connect with other bloggers and share their information, so that your items and information gets noticed. What my major challenges are - and what challenges I expect moving forward. My major challenges with being a connected educator is knowing all the "how-tos": how to easily find other educators to follow, how to get my blog noticed more efficiently, how to promote my blog and content to the fullest capacity. I am slowly figuring out how to run and promote my blog content more efficiently. Moving forward, I expect my challenges to be continuing to take time out of my day or week to work on growing my connected educators website and connections on social media. Also, to take time to research different ways to connect and use curation processes to get my blog known. What specific action steps I will take to continue growing my PLN in the future. To continue growing my PLN I will continue to find new educators to follow: blog and Twitter. I will also create a habit of curating my blog posts, technology tools and resources, and recipes after I post them on my blog. I will do research to better learn how to curate efficiently and find tips on how to get my blog noticed. Lastly, I will add content to my website, YouTube channel, curating tools--Google Plus and Pinterest, Twitter, and Teachers Pay Teachers. What I have gained from my PLN. I have gained a deeper understanding of what a PLN is, what it takes to be a connected educator, how and why to use Twitter, and new ideas of how to use these same tools in my classroom with my students.
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