Learning Networks

I spent the first three years of my career as the only chemistry teacher at my school. I felt so alone and the only assistance I received was a list of all the topics I needed to cover. This time period was so stressful as I floundered to figure out how to create lessons, worksheets, labs, and exams. I was on my own personal journey to become a great teacher. I struggled. I know I could have used the help of a learning network, but I was completely unaware of them. Finally, I came to a school that had teams and supported each other. I stopped being an island and was incorporated into a team. During my master’s course in the Concepts of Educational Technology, I was introduced to learning networks. I know over the last ten years, I have used these systems; however, I had not fully embraced them. After learning, researching, and joining a few learning networks, I realized that I had limited my ability to grow as an educator. I see the passion for creating engaging lessons, the innovation, and people willing to share. I hope that I will have the opportunity to share my work and get useful feedback on the lessons so I can maximize my students’ success.

I especially like all the technology related information. I understand technology and can code, but I love being introduced to new platforms and look forward to using them. I am familiar with many of the products and some I even use frequently. Overall, it is wonderful to see it laid out and explained in a resource I can digest at my own pace. I hate when we are subjected to a crash course professional development day where every half hour or so we are learning about something completely new, leaving me no time to process or retain much of the information.

One group I joined was AAEEBL, Association for Authentic, Experiential, & Evidence-Based Learning. They have a bunch of resources but my favorite so far is the “Field Guide to Eportfolio”. This is a very in-depth guide to all the benefits and how to implement the concept. This may be a possible source of valuable information to explain to the faculty why we need e-portfolios.

I also joined edWeb. This is a massive site that has webinars and community forums. So far, I have only looked at the material and did not make any comments or posts.  I have also looked into KQED, which is a fantastic resource for digital media resources. Finally, I joined more Twitter PLN’s. I was already a part of NASA and a few astronomy related ones. I just cannot believe how many PLN’s for educators there are. I have spent the majority of my time reading their timeline, but I feel confident I will share information on some of them very soon.