Watching my PLN Grow

This post is a reflective piece to wrap up my online summer course through Fresno Pacific University. It contains a shout-out to my teacher, my growth as a connected educator, major challenges I've faced and ones I expect to face as I move forward, action steps I've taken this week, and my next steps for growth.

Shout-out to Ed!
Today marks the end of my six weeks of being in ET 735: Creating on the Web, taught by Ed Warkentin. His six-week module for this course was cleverly designed to implement everything in steps, week by week. This class was most pivotal for me professionally and personally, as it served as an impetus for me to start this blog, to bring life to my Twitter account, and mostly to start making connections in my PLN. Thanks, Ed, for making our class meetings meaningful and responding so quickly when I needed help.

 

My Growth as a Connected Educator (here and embedded throughout this post)
I initially thought I would just go through the motions to get through this class, then leave my online accounts fallow, which I have no problem doing whatsoever (and no judgment on anyone else who chooses this route). But, I'm feeling so much promising and positive energy from my PLN that I feel it's a good fit for me and prudent to continue expanding. I continue to outline my growth in the following action steps and next steps.

Action Step #1: Add underrepresented members to my PLN (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
The point of chapter 6 was to not fear diversity and dissent within the PLN, but to actually invite both into my PLN, but I realized that my PLN started out being too diverse. I had been so overwhelmed and scattered when I first started that I was following and connecting with anyone in education whose ideas simply wow'ed me, mostly innovators. I wasn't connecting with my second grade tribe who could more likely ground me in my practice. So, I looked at #2ndchat and found and followed at least a dozen teachers in grades one through three. I looked at their Twitter feeds to make sure I could immediately gain some insight before following them. Several of them have already followed me back, which I find to be nice. I can't wait to meet them in a Tweet chat. I'd like to connect with people who can inspire me, as well as people who can use my ideas. I'll be reevaluating who I follow periodically so I can curate who I have in my PLN.

Action Step #2: Take the Trustworthiness Test (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
This was very eye-opening! I thought I'd do well, but I scored average. I confused honesty and trustworthiness, which are not the same. But, you do have to be completely honest when answering the questions about how people perceive you. I liked reading my test results and with a positive growth mindset, I can take the advice and run with it. The results offer ideas and links to articles on self-improvement. Here's the Trustworthiness Test. Take it and share your comments below.

Action Step #3: Retweet congratulations on someone's accomplishment (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 6)
Professor Warkentin did this today, congratulating us on our coursework. It was a very warm and thoughtful thing for him to do while busily grading our coursework. It only took a few moments, but it goes so far because every time it gets liked or retweeted, I'm notified. I decided to give kudos by thanking Ka for posting a tutorial video to help others out on Twitter. I hope she sees it. That's the downside to the Twitter stream. You might miss very nice tweets if the person tweeting forgets to add your handle or group's hashtag. I'll keep doing this action because I love when I get kudos for my accomplishments.

Action Step #4: Unplug for 3-5 minutes during the work day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
Chapter 8 is about unplugging, exercising, and finding solitude. One action step suggested at the end of the chapter is to build 3-5 minutes into the work day to walk away, stretch, move, and recharge. I'd like to add that doing this outdoors exposes us to fresh air, as well as gives us a chance to give the eyes a break by focusing on trees or houses in the distance. I love that as teachers, we have the freedom to roam outdoors a few times a day, even if it's to walk the students to and from the playground or bathroom.

Action Step #5: Read for 15 minutes a day (Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas, chapter 8)
The catch here is to read a magazine, a newspaper, or a book, real ones make of paper, not in digital form. Lucky for me, I have a number of books that I've bought but never finished. I'll gladly read 15 minutes daily from one of them. I just pulled a book out to pack for my trip next week.

Challenges
Michael Hyatt (2015) wrote, "Perfection is the mother of procrastination." That is a long-standing habit of mine that rears its ugly head far too often. One of my classmates keenly commented that my need for labels or tags in my blog would arise as I write more content. That was a very good push for me to admit it to myself that I'm not writing enough and that I'm too worried about how it appears to others. The truth is that most people don't really care or notice grammatical or typographical errors. Unfortunately for me, I do care and notice. It's both a blessing and a curse. I've worked hard to suspend judgment to the point that I let it go most of the time now. I'll continue to tackle this problem. I like that Hyatt included this and other issues in his book.

My Next Steps for Growth
After three rejections (well, actually, one rejection and two who didn't respond), I will continue to search for a connected educator to do an interview that I can post onto my blog. I've already practiced using Google + Hangouts on Air a few times, so I'll just need to refresh myself once I secure an interview.

I'll continue to read tweets daily for a few minutes every morning, schedule in a Twitter chat once a month. I say this knowing that my PLN is fluid. As Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas write, "Learning networks are fluid groups, and, over time, we welcome new educators to our network while others drop out." I've already observed my number of followers increase, then decrease, and I know that perhaps some members simply didn't feel I could offer them much, just as much as when I decide the same for some of my Twitter followers. It's just the nature of Twitter and PLN growth.

Because of Twitter's 24/7 streamlike abundance of ideas, I can easily find resources from my PLN to inspire blog topics. I'll continue to use Blogger since I'm already familiar with it, but if I find in the future that it doesn't serve my needs well, then I'll switch over to Wordpress or another blog site. I love that I can save blog post drafts. As I'm reading through my tweets and emails, looking at people's blogs and videos, or trying out different tools, I draft some notes on different topics, then copy and paste them into separate posts as needed.

I like Michael Hyatt's advice from chapter 26 in Platform: How to Get Noticed in a Noisy World, which is to read a blog post through twice, read it aloud once, save it as a draft, then read it again before publishing it. The goal is to publish it quickly to get it out there. He discourages using a proofreader because that can delay the post from getting published in a timely manner, and besides, loyal blog followers can help find errors, which can be fixed easily (see Twitter image below). If I manage my time carefully, I can manage it. Just a few minutes each morning on my laptop, jot ideas in a blog post, then during my personal writing time (I'll have to plan in 30-60 minutes a week), I can continue to research or explore, then finish the post. Ideas that I don't want to write into a full blog post can be tweeted if it's clever.

Some areas of development for my blog would be the resources tabs, an email signup, and opening up my blog to more interaction. The teacher, parent, and student resources are each static pages, but as I add more content, I'd like to organize them so that readers don't have to scroll down forever to get to the bottom. They should be able to find the content they need at the top of the page, either using pull-down menus or a search box or both. I would like to add an email sign-up linked with comments so that people are notified of new posts. I'll add a sticky note to my message wall to write more casually and to invite interaction onto the blog.

References:
Hyatt, M.  (2012).  Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World: A Step-by-Step Guide for Anyone with Something to Say or Sell.  Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson.

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What Connected Educators Do Differently. New York, NY: Routledge.


Finally, funny, but good advice.

Image: Twitter