Reflections on My Personal Learning Network

Hi classmates,

I apologize for not participating for the last couple of weeks. I am having some medical problems involving pain and pain medications that interfered with my being able to get much done other than lie in bed in pain or lie in bed asleep. But I hope I am back enough now to keep up with the rest of you.

As I read through the discussion posts in class, I wondered about how detailed we were supposed to be. For example, I keep a "Favorites" list with numerous categories. It is a dynamic list, one I update every time I am on the web. It is also one I use every time I need to be on the web.  Each of your blog websites is in that list. Each of the more valuable web sites we told each other about during week 2 is also in that list. Other web sites I found since then have been added to that list.  So My Favorites List from IE should be a prominent feature of my mind map.

There are also the people I know or am introduced to, either in person or via the phone or Internet. These people can be a wealth of informative learning experiences for me. For instance, I was trying to find a friend of mine and her husband who moved to San Francisco a couple of years ago for some social networking jobs. I found that she was going to be in town at a free conference CENPHOCAMP - Central Phoenix Camp. The purpose of the "camp" was to provide central Phoenix business owners, workers, and residents a chance to get together and either develop more of a sense of community, or to discuss ways to do so.  Social networking was scheduled to be facilitated by my old friend Kathy. Since I wanted to reconnect with her and find out about how social networking helped build communities and business opportunities, I signed up. (It was free, thank goodness.) I met and networked with several people from downtown Phoenix, students at ASU, one of the anchors/reporters for ABC 15 who is really into Twitter, Facebook, etc. Most of the reporters and anchors on their morning news show all have iPads that they are using throughout the broadcast. Amazing! I now get about 6 tweets a day from him, with interesting and relevant news items for me to know about.

Which brings me to an article I read about a teacher using Twitter to keep her students and their parents informed on a daily basis about what is going on in the class, what the homework is for that night, and easy access to her for either a student or a parent, etc? I never thought of using Twitter to create a community and quick communication for a class. It reminded me of a parent who told me in front of her son and the class to call her as her work number (as she handed it to me) if I had any problems with her son's behavior in my class. He was only a problem once after that -- after all, he was a teenager and HAD to test the boundary. But Tweeting a parent is much more immediate - the class and you are not waiting for someone to answer the phone; the whole class is not listening to your conversation with someone else's parents, etc. It reminds me of when I was growing up in a small town. If I did something an adult disapproved of, my mom knew about it before I arrived home. The "small town grapevine" had ensured she was apprised of the situation. These days, she would have received several tweets instead of phone calls. We have another part of the Personal Learning Network - Twitter.

You may have noticed a blog posting for Dr. Judith Willis' webinar on "Strategies for Maximizing Students' Memory". It was a great learning experience which reinforced some things we have already learned via this class, as well as new information that connected well with this "prior knowledge". The slides she used for this webinar are now posted on her web site if you are interested (http://bit.ly/aBZPBS . Her web site is available here: http://www.radteach.com/  RAD stands for

• Reach (Reticular Activating System,)
• Attitude (Amygdala )
• Develop (Dopamine)

I really encourage you to check that site out. I fits right in with our brain-based learning unit.

So far, I have

• information made available in my class,
• information and thoughts from my classmates and instructor (class materials, emails, blogs, and discussion groups),
• face-2-face seminars,
• online webinars,
• iTunes U,
• all the various websites on the internet worldwide,
• information from friends via phone, texts, tweets, and personal conversations,
• My Favorites list on Internet Explorer,
• Google Reader's list of blogs I am following updates on,
• Twitter updates pointing me to where to get breaking news,
• emails from more sources than I have the ambition to count right now,
• Television with numerous channels with actual, real learning to be obtained (Discovery, History, BBC for America, the Learning Channel, PBS, etc.),
• books - both printed and eBooks,
• Libraries - both online and brick-and-mortar local versions,
• bookstores (again, both online and brick-and-mortar),
• past colleagues and friends I connect with via
• Facebook.com,
• Classmates.com,
• Alumni.com,
• LinkedIn.com,
• MyLife.com.

There are also useless information sources that don't really have anything to do with this class. For instance, I just found the link to the wondrous Microsoft WorldWide Telescope that is circling around Mars right now and I can see what they are finding on the ground with those little robot rovers. Or I can find very useful information not really connected to this class: I can use my cell phone to navigate me intersection-by-intersection to where ever I need to go. (I used to get lost and/or take double the usual time to get anywhere.) I can also use that same cell phone to find information on the internet if necessary.

To be honest with you, there are so many directions information is coming and going, that I sometimes feel like I am overwhelmed with information. I remember back when cuddling up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate was the highlight of my day. Now I read my books online, go to school online, shop online, email instead of snail mail, check the weather online, etc.

So, what does my mind map look like when drawn? It looks like a spider web with no overall, symmetrical design. Have I told you how much I can't handle asymmetry?