1. Harrelson 1
Meagan Harrelson
Secondary English Language Arts Education
http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/socialmedia173
Tweet 1:
MeaganHarrelson @harrelsonme1 May 25
I'm fairly new to RSS feeds. What's a good one for Ed tech? #FRIT7234
Tweet 2:
MeaganHarrelson @harrelsonme1 29m29 minutes ago
I never knew the game of soccer didn't have time-outs! The classroom metaphor is profound.
#frit7234
To close your reflection, share the URL and a brief description of one resource you’ve learned
about through your PLN, and why that resource is useful to you.
My personal learning network (PLN) began as a weak attempt at extra organization
during the Fall of 2015. I was taking a course which required me to use Symbaloo for a certain
project, and at that time I had never heard of Symbaloo at all before. However, once I became
familiar with it and became fluent with its uses, I found that it could be so helpful in keeping my
favorite websites for education and Web 2.0 tools all in one place. Before long, I was even
assisting my administrators in creating a Symbaloo for themselves. Little did I know that I was
slowly constructing a personal learning network.
The link I shared above for my PLN goes to one particular webmix in my Symbaloo;
however, I have created many webmixes, or tabs, as I call them, within my account in order to
organize my websites and Web 2.0 tools more effectively.
As I gain more resources, I am slowly adding them to my PLN. I am starting to see a
trend in the types of resources that interest me the most. I have found that I’m largely interesting
in educational technology and research. However, so far the articles in this course are drawing
me more and more to the ideas associated with inquiry learning. In the future, the ability to read
and be updated on the latest related to inquiry learning I believe will lead be to be a school leader
in helping my fellow teachers implement these ideas and strategies more in their classrooms.
One of my colleagues recently spotted my Symbaloo opened on my desktop computer
and asked me, “What is that? What are you doing there?” I happened to have open the
particular webmix that I shared here, where I have several RSS feeds that are gathered on the one
page. I am new to what an RSS feed actually is, but I did not realize until recently that I’ve been
using them for a while now! I just didn’t know they were called RSS! I explained to my
colleague that have a PLN such as Symbaloo enables me to have all of my RSS feeds in one
place. The person who happened to be questioning me is a World Geography and civics teacher.
Every morning he navigates through several different feeds to gain the latest news to discuss
with his students. He really liked the idea of not having to click through so many different
websites, but instead having them all together.
In my classroom I am always trying to motivate my students to be proud of their work
and proud to show off the skills they have. One project I offer to students is the opportunity to
2. Harrelson 2
create a video, including music and graphics. However, before I could do this I had to learn
about some useful video production tools so that I could assist my students if needed. I used my
PLN to compile a small collection of video production tools. Some of them I had heard about
before; however, one in particular I found simply because I had a PLN and had the need to
search for items. This resource is called WeVideo. Here is the link: https://www.wevideo.com/.
WeVideo has been so helpful with teaching my students ways to show what they’ve learned as
well as to be creative with it!
