Project 1

Project 1:  Building Your Professional Learning Network and Twitter

Essential Question: How can my professional learning network support my teaching and technology integration?

Course goals met for this project:

1. Empowered Learner

2. Digital Citizen

3. Creative Communicator

Description: The goal of this project is for you to start building your digital professional learning network-PLN.  Your professional learning network can be a rich source for your teaching superpowers. There are many different ways to stay connected and be a part of ongoing professional development efforts that help you integrate technology into your curriculum. Some of these opportunities can come from your professional organizations. To complete the project I’d like you to explore and if possible join a professional educational organization. You may know of others, but here’s a list to start.

International Society for Technology in Education

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

National Council for Teaching Math

National Council for Teaching Writing

International Literacy Association

National Council for Teaching Social Studies

National Council for Science Education

Health and Physical Education

Edutopia

These organizations have specific digital resources, blogs, lesson plans, and learning groups to support your teaching. They all have social media accounts to follow as well. My intention is for you to explore your professional organizations and any other digital resources you find to support your teaching and to learn and think about new possibilities.

For this project you will have two tasks:

Task 1: Create a page on your Teacher Google Site. 

Description: The working title can be something like “My Professional Learning Network”, you can title it what you want, perhaps a theme will emerge. The page is intended for you to describe and share the resources and discoveries you’ve made.

Your page might be an answer to one or more of the following questions.

  1. What valuable resources, communities, apps, or ideas have I found to support my teaching. Include hyperlinks to the pages or resources in your post and other media like videos if you like?
  2. What are other teachers saying about the role of technology in their teaching and learning that I find interesting and makes me wonder?
  3. What are some cool, clever, and creative resources or new ways of thinking about technology integration in my field that I might use?
  4. What are some simple and practical resources of new ways of thinking about technology integration in my field that I might use?

Criteria for the Project :

Your work will be evaluated as exceeding, meeting, or not meeting the criteria.

  1. Your page answers some or all of the question prompts completely and thoughtfully in a minimum of 300 words.
  2. Your writing is grammatically correct and your voice and style reflect you as a teacher.
  3. Your page contains a minimum of three hyperlinks to specific resources you explored on the web, and detailed explanations of the resources. You can add videos of any other media to your page.
  4. Select one or more social media apps you will follow from the organization: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Describe the content in the feed and how you might find it useful for your professional development. Use the hashtag #pacificutech to share with our network on all those platforms.

Task 2: Create a Twitter Account 

Description: For this task I’d like you to create a Twitter that will be your professional teaching account. You will use this account to follow professional organizations and people who will become a part of your professional learning network. You can download the Twitter App on your mobile device or log in from your computer.

Steps:

  1. Go to Twitter.com and sign up for an account.
  2. You should select name that reflects your professional position as a teacher. I’m @mark_szymanski on Twitter. Follow me so I can see your work.
  3. Follow a minimum of five people or organizations. They will become a part of your PLN.
  4. Make a minimum of five tweets or retweets. I tend to retweet more since the way I use Twitter is to share resources with my network. add #pacificutech to your tweets. This way, we will be able to see each other’s resources.

Submission: Due February 14th. Please share your Google Site url with me at szym0933@pacificu.edu

If you have any questions about the project please leave it below in the comment box and I’ll answer it.