This week’s
class, we discuss Professional Learning Networks or PLNs and what we use to
interact with them. PLNs are a learning
network that is informal and consists of the people who interact by sharing
knowledge from a personal learning environment.
This can be a community of people sharing their ideas and opinions with
one another by joining a group in person or online by using social media
outlets. Most PLNs are not just done by
individuals interacting physically. They
are done on the internet as well. This
week I decide to create a Pinterest account for my PLNs. In the article, PLN
Social Benefits - YouTube, PLN Affective Benefits, there are four ways that
educators can grow and gain knowledge through their PLNs. The four social benefits of PLNs are affective, social, cognitive and identity. The PLNs that I can relate to when it comes
to interacting with Pinterest are social and cognitive. Yes, I feel that I can relate to two of these benefits.
Being social allowed me to connect with
teachers that I do not see every day in the building online because I am in the
library all day. The only time that I
would get to see some teachers is when they physically bring their classes down
to visit the library. Their library
visits occurs every two weeks or when the really need to use the library. Being cognitive allowed me to think about
what I should be doing in the library based on teacher’s comments. Teachers’ comments and ideas make me think
outside the box to expand their ideas. Pinterest allowed me to search and look
at other people’s boards to see how I can improve my school’s collection in
terms of what titles that I can expose my students to during my book talks. There were also some images that allowed me
to get ideas on how I can present my book talks. Some of these books have
Pinterest pages filled with images and activities based on certain books.
The educational vision board that I created is called, Multicultural Book Collection. I never used
this type of social media before that allowed you to “show but not tell” what a
multicultural book collection is supposed to look like. I just didn’t add books by African American
authors to make my collection diverse.
Most collections that I have seen only focus on one ethic group because
the school’s or town’s population is most filled with that one ethic group. Some people that I talked to when they visited
my library think that I have just books by black and white authors. That is not true because having black and
white authors’ does not make your school’s library collection diverse. I added other authors that represented or
wrote about different ethnic backgrounds and books from other languages that
students speak in my building. Most of
my students speak Spanish. I found out
that my mother has a Pinterest account which was shocking to me because she
does not like social media at all. I
told her that Pinterest was not just for sharing ideas but also being sociable
about them as well. She did not know
that at all. All my mother does is create vision boards of her ideas for
special projects.
I quickly learned how to use Pinterest and made me
two types of vision boards. I was also
able to connect other people’s ideas on my subject matter and follow other
public library’s Pinterest pages. I was
also able to be sociable online and discuss with another librarian on how I can
improve my library’s collection. I held a discussion with a librarian that I
met at a couple of ALA conferences. Her
name is Ms. Palmer and she has been a school/public librarian and English
teacher for years. Ms. Palmer always
gave me some great advice while building my overall collection throughout my
librarianship. Ms. Palmer is really not a fan when it comes to social media but
her godchildren got her connected for the first time with Pinterest. I told her that I was on there and I made a
board based on multicultural books. Some
of the books shown are in my school’s library collection and others are books
that I plan on adding into the collection.
I even added board suggestions on the topic to my board as well.
Ms. Palmer
wanted to make sure that my collection of books was diverse in terms of having
Spanish books. She also wanted to make
sure that I added old and new upcoming authors from all types of ethnic
backgrounds. I told her that all ideas
that she requested were always a part of my collection development and shared
with her a website that I view to create my collection. There is a website called, We Need Diverse Books (https://diversebooks.org/), that
I use to build my collection. This site
introduces individuals to a group of new authors or books that are diverse. I also found out this website has a Pinterest
page as well. I also communicate with
other educators within my school district about my vision board. I think that they "live" on Pinterest because their love for the social site. Learning through social networks by utilizing
PLNs is the future. According to the
article, Why Learning Through Social Networks Is The Future, by Paul Moss,
networking, socializing, managing and sharing ideas this way is not a
trend. PLNs are going to be the way we
communicate in our professional and educational careers. Down below this blog
post are snap shots of my conversation with Ms. Palmer and other educators, We Need Diverse Book Pinterest page and my vision board on
multicultural book collection. I also
started another vision board as well because I am planning on updating my bathroom.
Follow Me on Pinterest: Kaleena Woodard (ktw122381)
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| Image property of Kaleena Woodard and Pinterest |
Ms. Palmer and I
Conversation about the Vision Board
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| Image property of Kaleena Woodard and Pinterest |
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| Image property of Kaleena Woodard and Pinterest |
Other Conversations On Pinterest
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| Image property of Kaleena T. Woodard and Pinterest |
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| Image property of Kaleena T. Woodard and Pinterest |
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| Image property of We Need Diverse Books and Pinterest |
References
Moss, Paul.(2016) Why Learning Through Social Networks Is The
Future. Teacher Thought. Retrieved on January 18, 2019 from https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/learning-through-networks-is-the-future/.
Trust, Torrey. PLN Social Benefits - YouTube, PLN Affective
Benefits. Thinglink. Retrieved on January 18, 2019 from https://www.thinglink.com/scene/906278740244299778.
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