Friday, August 10, 2012

Back to School PLN

It's funny how as an educator my year revolves around the "school year."  I was talking with my wife and I said something to the effect of "this upcoming year . . .", and she asked, "are you talking about 2013?".  Any way, another year (2012-2013 school year) is getting ready to begin and I can't wait for all of the students and faculty to be back in our building.  I'm excited about where we have been and the direction we are going.  Yesterday, we had our annual back to school department chair meeting and I attended our marching band preview.  Things are definitely picking up steam and as they do, my mind is beginning to swirl with a myriad of "to do" items/ideas and also thinking about finding that right balance of time with work and home.  While, I do not want to go into all of my professional and personal goals for the year.  I am wrestling with what I want to get out of my on-line PLN (Professional Learning Network).  I have read some great blogs and tweets with informative links this past summer, but I also want to be a contributor as well, which I have tried with my limited number of tweets and blog entries.  I often times come back to the question of why am I taking the time to do this on-line PLN thing?  What am I adding to the equation (my inner math geek is showing)?

First, this past winter I actively joined Twitter and started following educators after attending a conference and seeing the ability to have a conversation during a keynote as well as recognizing the amazing amount of information and PD that various educational leaders are sharing.  Second, I started a blog because I wanted to learn another valuable, educational web 2.0 tool and hopefully contribute to the blogosphere conversation.  After about six months, I am averaging about 10 tweets a month and 1 blog post a month, hardly significant.  I want to produce original content or at least add a new/different perspective to an idea or article, which brings me back to my two questions above.  So, I plan on writing a blog entry a week and doubling my tweets to 20 a month.  Will spending more time actively engaging in producing content help me see why I am doing this and what I am adding to the equation?  Time will tell.  For those blogger and twitter sages out there, what advice/encouragement do you have for me to meet my goal and answer my questions.

In the meantime, I wish all of you educators out there a great start to your school year.

Cheers,

Aaron

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