"Building Your Teaching Arsenal" presentation for Berwyn South District 100 professional development on August 1, 2012. This PD is for teachers beginning to build their professional learning network.

1. Building Up
Your Teaching
Arsenal
Discover how to connect to,
learn from, and collaborate
with teachers from around
the world by creating a
Professional Learning Network
Presenters: Sue Butler & Lynnette Johnson

2. What is a Professional Learning
Network?
And how can I use a PLN to improve
my teaching?
Click pic to link to video

3. What do you want to know
more about in this PD session?
Open your computers, open up your Internet
browser, and type in:
http://www.m.socrative.com
When it asks for a Room number, type:
9277
Type in your answer to the above question.
Click here - Symbaloo - for sites used in this presentation.

4. Creating a Digital File Cabinet
How do you keep track of all the
cool stuff you find on the
Internet?
Tool: www.diigo.com

5. Diigo: Social Bookmarking
Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that
allows you to create a digital file cabinet.
 You can “tag” (same as the tab on a paper file
folder) each site to keep you organized; you
can even give a site multiple tags.
 You can add notes to help you remember why
you bookmarked the site.
 You can highlight relevant parts of the site.
 You can add sticky notes to the site.

6. Building Your PLN Activity!
Using Diigo ( www.diigo.com ), bookmark 10
websites you already use.
 Professional organizations
 Websites you use with your students
 Websites you use to create lesson plans
 SMART Exchange, etc.
TAGGING: your tags need to be consistent,
general, and easy to remember

7. Why is it called “social”
bookmarking?
You can benefit from all user’s, a group’s, or
individual’s bookmarks by sharing them.
(Let someone else do all that pesky searching the
web for you!)
This turns your bookmarking site into a
social networking site.
a site that focuses on facilitating the building of
social networking or social relations among people
who share interests, activities, and/or backgrounds.

8. Using Diigo for Social
Networking
Click pic to link to video

9. Social
Bookmarking/Networking
using Diigo
 All User’s bookmarks:
type a keyword next to the magnifying
glass of your Diigo library and see what
other Diigo users have tagged for that
word. (not all school appropriate!)

10. Social
Bookmarking/Networking
using Diigo, cont.
 Group’s bookmarks:
go to My Groups, click “Browse other
popular groups”, click “Schools &
Education” category. Add relevant
groups to your My Groups by clicking
Join Group.
D100 has a Diigo group!

11. Social
Bookmarking/Networking
using Diigo, cont.
 Community’s bookmarks:
go to Community, click “education”
under Hot Tags.
There are sub-categories within
education to explore as well.
These are the most-bookmarked sites on
Diigo with that tag.

12. Social
Bookmarking/Networking
using Diigo, cont.
 Individual’s bookmarks:
go to My Network, click “Search Diigo
users of interest.”
Or, search for a colleague’s name, the
name of a renowned educator, or
someone you’ve been reading a lot
about on websites or blogs.

13. Building Your PLN Activity!
 Add 3 groups to My Groups.
 Add
3 new bookmarks using
Community.
 Extracredit: Find an individual to
follow to add to My Network.

14. Other Social Networking Sites
Pinterest
Facebook
We have included
articles detailing how
to use these sites in
our resources section.

15. Other Social Networking Sites
Edmodo
Can be used to network with teachers
around the globe:
 Get ideas from others
 Find new sites/blogs/people to add to your
PLN
 Collaborate with other teachers
 Give back to others by posting cool sites
you find or actual teaching materials and
lessons.

16. Other Social Networking Sites
www.edmodo.com
Click pic to link to site

17. Edmodo Communities
Next to Communities, click Browse.
 Subject-area communities
 Publisher communities
A great way to learn of
and check out
established and up-and-
coming Web 2.0 tools.
Request to join a community by clicking
“Follow this Subject”.
(You cannot post to a group or answer a post
until you have been approved as a teacher.)

18. Edmodo Communities, cont.
Communities features:
 Sub-categories
 Top content
 Posts by teachers from around the globe (find
great resources for your classroom!)
 Ability to ask colleagues around the world for
help and ideas with teaching and lesson
planning
 Learn of great Web 2.0 tools, websites & blogs
 Find other teachers with whom to collaborate

19. Building Your PLN Activity!
 Go to www.edmodo.com .
 Find 3 Communities of interest to you
(subject area and/or publisher) and
Follow. (Request to join a community by
clicking “Follow this Subject”.)

20. Compiling Digital Subscriptions
How do you keep track of all those
great bloggers and professional
websites on the Internet? Especially
when the content can change
weekly or even daily!
Tool: www.google.com/reader

21. Compiling Digital
Subscriptions, cont.
Let the new material come to you!
The Analogy—instead of going to the
store to get a newspaper or magazine, get
a subscription and have them show up at
your doorstep!
Click pic to link to video

22. Google Reader
A type of news aggregator or feed reader.
The user chooses what web-based sources
to “subscribe” to and new updates to that
source are managed by the Reader.
Click pic to link to 5 min video

23. Google Reader, cont.
Features:
 You can put your subscriptions into folders to
keep different topics organized.
 You only have to look at new items from each
subscription.
 Each new item has a “headline” to help you
decide if you are interested.
 You can click on the item to take
you to the original post/site/blog.
Click pic to link to site

24. Google Reader, cont.
How do you find blogs/websites/wikis etc.
to follow?
 Pay attention when you do web searches. Does
a certain site keep popping up? Add it to your
Reader.
 When reading posts on Edmodo, are you seeing
teachers mention certain sites or bloggers?
Check them out; add them to your Reader.
 Find out from your colleagues what they are
reading online.
 Check out the Resources page for this PD
session.

25. Building Your PLN Activity!
 Go to www.google.com/reader .
 Add 4 subscriptions to your Reader.
Click Subscribe
button, copy and
paste URL of site.

26. Final PLN Activity!
Now give back to your fellow
educators!
 Posta cool Web 2.0 site to an Edmodo
community.
 When you bookmark something in Diigo,
add it to the D100 Group.
 Have you read something helpful from
one of your favorite sites in your Reader?
Email a link to a colleague.

27. Building your Teaching Arsenal