Dianne Krause's List: Personal Learning Network Resources

".If you are a busy teacher who does not have time to sift through Twitter to look for guys whose tweets  can trust and therefore follow then you can check the ones mentioned below. These educators  are among the most prominent in the field of educational technology and their tweets will definitely save you time and energy especially when looking for updated and fresh news, resources and tips on technology integration in education.
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Twitter chats are such a great way to stay connected and informed in your professional circle, and education is no exception. Through education chats, you can find out about new methods for teaching, tech resources, even jobs for teachers. Most chats are held weekly, and offer an opportunity to have a regularly scheduled conversation with like-minded educators.

A great list of Twitter hashtags for education .. VERY cool!

The Teacher Challenge is made up of free 30 day professional development challenges where participants are stepped through weekly tasks that increase their skills while working together as part of a global community.

The Challenge is open to anyone who wants to increase their skills – blogs will be used for reflecting your progress while learning and connecting with each other. We’ve observed success of any use of online technology is strongly related to the teacher’s abilities. The greater we support and increase a teacher’s skills, the better they are able to support their students use of web 2.0 technologies.

micromobs is a group messaging service and is the easiest way to manage and communicate with multiple groups. micromobs presents your group messages as a stream of content which means you can chose which messages to respond to and which messages to skim over or ignore. This means your group messages will no longer clutter your inbox, and you wont need to go to different websites to interact with your various social groups.

"This is a ning site dedicated to the support of a Personal Learning Network for Educators "

"Can the technology often derided as the favored tool of lowbrow cyber rogues actually be used to improve student writing? Educators are beginning to demonstrate it can."

On pages 28-33 of this magazine, Wesley Fryer outlines the pros and cons of blogging and provides some examples for how to get started.

"A Collection of PLE diagrams
As preparation for a workshop I am giving this fall I thought it would be interesting to collect together all the diagrams of PLEs I could find, as a compare and contrast sort of exercise. If you have others, I'd love to know about them."

"What is a PLN?

If I had to define what a ‘Personal Learning Network’ is, I would keep it simple and broad:

n. – the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online.

Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs, have been around forever. Originally, they were your family and friends, maybe other educators you worked with, but as the internet and web 2.0 tools have become nearly ubiquitous, PLNs can include tons of different communities – social networking sites like Facebook, blogs, Twitter, wikis, social bookmarking tools, LinkedIn, and so many more. Basically, anyone that you interact with is apart of your PLN, whether they are social contacts, professional peers, or experts in their field. Most of the ‘learning’ takes place on-line now, because it is simple to find and connect with others with similar interests from around the world."

"Teachers often ask me "how do you find these things?" or "how did you know about this?" Much of the time I don't have to find or even look for innovative new things, because the news comes to me... and not because anyone is sending it to me, but because I'm using a tool called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. Once you learn about RSS, learning about other new tools becomes much easier, which makes RS"

"Personal Learning Networks Are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids
Students drive their education with custom-made Web pages equipped with RSS feeds."

"The March/April issue of L&L is chock full of great information. Be sure to read David Warlick's article, "Grow Your Personal Learning Network," which discusses new information and communication technologies that can keep you connected and help you manage information overload."

""Educational Networking" is the use of social networking technologies for educational purposes. Because the phrase "social networking" can carry some negative connotations for educators, the phrase "educational networking" may be a way of more objectively discussing the pedagogical value of these tools. The original URL for this site (http://socialnetworksined.wikispaces.com) still works, but http://www.EducationalNetworking.com is now the main URL."

The social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education.

"Flavors.me allows anyone
to create an elegant website using personal content from around the internet

Ideal for personal homepages, lifestreaming, splash and microsites, celebrity fan pages, commercial promotion, brand marketing – and everything in between."

"What My Personal Learning Network Means to Me
Please leave a note saying where you are from and share your thoughts about PLN's. Feel free to link to a blog or other resource. Share Twitter name, too! "

"There was no shortage of prescriptions at the time for how to cure the poor performance that plagued so many American schools. Proponents of No Child Left Behind saw standardized testing as a solution. President Bush also championed a billion-dollar program to encourage schools to adopt reading curriculums with an emphasis on phonics. Others argued for smaller classes or more parental involvement or more state financing."

"Education technology has many supporters in its movement to alter traditional teaching methods. This list of the top 50 education technology blogs includes writers, technicians and social media experts…but they all are teachers. The “movers” are teachers who facilitate learning among other teachers and in the classroom, the “shakers” teach new philosophies and innovations, and the folks “on the ground” offer news, tools and methods of using those tools in the classroom.

This list is divided into those three categories, and each link within those categories is listed alphabetically. The links lead straight to the recently updated blogs, and the descriptions supply information about that blogger’s achievements, including careers and jobs."

Aligned instruction comprises the following activities:
Teaching topics that are aligned with the standards.
Ensuring the right level of challenge.
Focusing teaching based on the learning needs of each student.
Implementing instructional strategies to increase student achievement.
To view an effective instructional strategy, click on one of the videos or document titles below.

A nice collection of videos including a lot of instructional strategies