Adding Social Media Networks To My PLN

Oh Pinterest! This social media tool can be used for so much more than DIY home projects and recipes. It is a great place to find ideas for the classroom. I have just recently begun to see how much potential Pinterest has and what a great professional learning network it can truly be. There are so many resources at the click of a search button. I can find resources for my literature/language class, my social studies class, and remedial and enrichment activities for a wide range of learners. One of the things I love about Pinterest is that you can find something that meets your search and when you click on the link, it takes you into another world. I have found some great resources from following my Pinterest path. It was much more than just a picture with information. I have started following blogs and found many helpful websites by clicking on a pin. 

This week while I was exploring Pinterest, I searched ESOL/ELL activities. I found an English Language Arts activity that helped students whose language is not primarily English. It used pictures of different objects and asked students to find the main idea. The students then found the connection between the items. When I clicked on the pin, it took me to a wonderful teacher's website. The ESOL Odyssey is a great website designed and run by a ESOL specialist! There a wonderful, interactive ideas and strategies to work with students who may not be as comfortable with English as others. I could spend hours looking at the site because of all the information. I was able to add this blog to my Feedly account and get updates from this page. Through this site and other available sites, I am able to grow my professional learning network. 

While I have students who struggle with language barriers in my ELA class, I also have students in my social studies class who exceed the material in our textbook. They quickly read and comprehend the material and finish the assigned activities in just minutes. I was feeling as though they were bored and needed to be challenged. Because this is my first year teaching social studies, I was not really sure how to spice up my material to enrich these students. When I searched on Pinterest, a great pin came up explaining the ABCs of Challenging Gifted and Talented Kids. This article was mainly for parents, but as I was reading, I was able to click on another link on the site. This lead me to an even better website. 50 Resources For The Parents and Teachers of Gifted and Talented Students has even more information to help me. This is one of the reasons I love Pinterest so much! You can click on one link and in minutes, you have two more resources to use. 

The other thing I love about Pinterest is how easy it is to save my pins. Sometimes I do not have time to search for an hour, but I can pin it and come back to it later. Pinterest offers such a great way to connect to other teachers, learn about new activities, and get great, helpful resources. Because Pinterest allows you to see how pinned things, I can check out some of their other pins if they are visible. This leads me to even more professional learning possibilities!

In addition to exploring Pinterest, I also examined Google + a little bit. My school relies heavily on Google. We use many elements of Google, such as Google Docs, the shared drive, and email. Each of our students also has an account, so I was intrigued to see what Google Plus had offer. 

Google Plus offers a place to grow you PLN. I was able to join communities that fit my professional interests. I could then see post from other educators and people that had the same interests and questions as I did. It reminded me show much of Twitter. I could follow, respond, comment, and chat with the other professionals in these communities. Through some of my explorations, I was able to find some very helpful communities to join. Some of the communities I found were very helpful in helping me find information on working with diverse learners. The communities included links blog posts, articles, and web resources. In a quick search, I was able to find a great communities and people by searching differenitating instruction. The list of resources available for my search seemed endless. I was even able to find an article "Differentiating with Technology". This combined my need to help diverse learners and my desire to use technology to help. I had no idea that Google Plus has so many followers or resources. For people that like Twitter, Google Plus is a great resource to use to build your PLN. 

Finally thoughts.....I loved when our text from this week said, "Humans are social creatures, and educators as well as students want to communicate with others" (p. 81). I thought the line was so accurate! Students are not the only ones who find social media useful. Teachers want to communicate and learn from each other! These two social media platforms are just a few ways we can do that. I look forward to discovering more!