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Many teachers go to school each day, teach their students and leave. If they're struggling with how to teach a lesson that will engage their students, they might ask for advice from the teacher down the hall, but a lot of times, they struggle alone.  That's not the case for educators who have built a network of people who share resources, advice and techniques, whether they call it a personal learning network or something else. Here's why educators should start a personal learning network, or PLN.

Twiducate is a free platform for creating your own micro social network in a Twitter-like format. Twiducate allows you to create a private network for posting assignments and messages to your students or other people you invite into your network.

There exist boundless opportunities for educators who harness the potential of social media and social networking in the classroom, from issuing homework reminders to following experts in a field of study and from collaborating within your classroom to connecting with students across the globe.  Bring the power of social media and networking into your classroom with these leaders in social media and networking and education:

Found this one in Slashdot...by a Google Social Networking Expert...excellent, all 216 slides (once you click into a few slides, you'll be hooked). http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2

"5 Reasons Why Educators Should Network"

MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have taken over, both on the internet and in our real lives, but what if you missed the first wave? Don't worry, this quick lesson will help you understand the role of social networking. Get a primer on the biggest sites, some insight into how to be safe and keep your kids safe while networking and how to use sites for both business and pleasure. As this is an on-demand class, all lessons are available when the class enrolls.

While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled-from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.

"Our organization offers its members a network of individuals, institutions, and corporations united by the common goal of quantitative literacy for all citizens. Through national meetings, faculty workshops, research initiatives, and information sharing, the National Numeracy Network aims to strengthen the capacity of our country in the quantitative areas of business, industry, education, and research across all disciplines"

Mike's site at WSUV for blended and networked learning resources

n his Edge feature "Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus", Clay Shirky noted that after WWII we were faced with something new: "free time. Lots and lots of free time. The amount of unstructured time among the educated population ballooned, accounting for billions of hours a year. And what did we do with that time? Mostly, we watched TV." In "The End of Universal Rationality", Yochai Benkler explored the social implications of the Internet and network societies since the early 90s. Benkler has been looking at the social implications of the Internet and network societies since the early 90s. He saw the end of an era: For those of us like me who have been working on the Internet for years, it was very clear you couldn't encounter free software and you couldn't encounter Wikipedia and you couldn't encounter all of the wealth of cultural materials that people create and exchange, and the valuable actual software that people create, without an understanding that something much more complex is happening than the dominant ideology of the last 40 years or so. But you could if you weren't looking there, because we were used in the industrial system to think in these terms.

KSC Faculty at Institute on Global Learning This summer, a team of Keene State faculty members from all three academic schools will participate in "Shared Futures: General Education for a Global Century," an institute sponsored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities to help faculty integrate global perspectives across the curriculum. The institute will be held in Ellicott City, Md., from July 31 to August 5, and will draw faculty from 32 colleges and universities. During the fall 2011 semester, the core Keene State team will draw in faculty and staff from across campus to implement the goals and strategies developed at the institute. By building a network of educators dedicated to this integrative work, Shared Futures facilitates curricular change and faculty development on campuses nationwide. Through an online social network, the initiative hopes to create new connections between educators and new opportunities for partnership and learning. Keene State faculty members attending the institute include professors Charles Weed (political science), Margaret Henning (health sciences), Patricia Pedroza (women's and gender studies), and Rich Blatchly (chemistry). For more information, contact Prof. Weed at cweed@keene.edu or visit the Shared Futures page.

from news and events

"he tips provided below are based on expert teacher experiences using the social network twitter. These activities are designed to encourage students in making connections beyond a basic understanding of concepts using this online education technology."

The Social Web is transforming the way students interact with others, and is challenging traditional pedagogies, values and practices. An analysis of students' uses of social networking tools (e.g. Facebook, Myspace) and video/photo sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Flickr) reveals the emergence of collective digital literacies. These include filtering content, new textual and visual literacies, managing multiple digital identities, representing self in cyberspace and engaging in new modes of interaction.

 his is fast becoming one of my favorite uses of Twitter. Combined with Google collaborative docs, Twitter becomes a powerful tool. Start your project in Google docs, spreadsheet or presentation and then Tweet a request to your followers for help

Consumer Reports, a longtime trusted name in product ratings and reviews, has today released its annual "State of the Net" report, which finds that over half (52%) of social network users post risky information online. Among the transgressions: using weak passwords, listing full birth dates, ignoring privacy settings and making mention of when you're away from home, to name a few.

We have an opportunity in course design, to bring all of the stake-holders to the table. Course design should not just be up to a dept. or a single teacher. Course development can be an opportunity to bring in a librarian, someone from student advising, disabled student services and programs, and developmental education. A course design process can show an instructor how to connect their classroom with other students, instructors, and experts in the field. It can be an opportunity to connect students with professional networks as well as other colleges and schools.  What I have been finding is that when you bring everyone to the table to talk about a course, you can discover many different ways to connect your course to the community than you would have ever thought of yourself.

a social network site for teachers using vodcasting in the classroom

"The paper argues that although social networking media increase the potential range and scope for emergent learning exponentially, considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint.  It is possible to manage the relationship between prescriptive and emergent learning, both of which need to be part of an integrated learning ecology."

The Oral History in the Digital Age website connects interested persons and organizations to a range of resources related to crafting a meaningful and dynamic oral history project. Crafted by people at Michigan State University with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the site contains critical essays, How-To guides, and an elaborate wiki. The Getting Started area is a good place to begin, as it features helpful playlists about oral history projects. The Essays tab leads to another highly informative section of the site. The short pieces in this section are divided into three topics: Collecting, Curating, and Disseminating. The individual essays include "Enhancing Discovery: Connecting Users to Y our Oral History Collections Online" and "Oral History and Social Networks: From Promotion to Relationship Building." Finally, the Ask Doug option features expert responses to key questions on oral history projects from noted oral historian Doug Boyd

Implicit learning of words via context versus explicit- learning a list of words and definitions. each creates different paths in the brain. "Readers identified as "excellent" did not demonstrate notable differences in brain function between the implicit and explicit approaches, but readers considered "average" showed significantly less efficient neural networks when the pseudowords were learned by the implicit method."