PLN Reflection

       Exhilarating, Fantastic, Frustrating, and Incredible are a few of the adjectives I would use to describe my experience creating a PLN. I began with Feedly/Blogger, and I quickly became too overwhelmed with trying to find blogs to subscribe to because there was so much information/articles to read.
        Thus, I switched over to Google+ and found myself joining more than ten educational communities. I like how easy it is to get to Google+ via my gmail account, so whenever I'm checking my email, I can also check my Google+. Also, from my email, I can see that I have numerous emails from all the Google+ communities I joined. I also like the layout of Google+ and it was easy for me to quickly find articles that interested me. Using Google+ was pretty straight forward, user friendly, and probably, for me, the easiest of all three assignments.
        In Google+, I joined Teachers Helping Teachers, Educators on Google+, and Technology in Education. I commented on a post http://chalkspottlp.blogspot.com/2014/09/is-kindergarten-new-first-grade.html. This article, Is Kindergarten the new First grade, truly opened my eyes into the world of Elementary education in this day and age. Additionally, as a mom, I found this article to be quite helpful in preparing me to help my son get ready for Kindergarten. Here's my screenshot and the reply from the blogger! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pUVZNRVhvM29RTzQ&authuser=0. I also added 3 Google+ users and created a circle called Elementary Teachers.
       Next, I moved on to Twitter, and I truly thought that this one was going to be the hardest one for me to understand and complete the assignments. Boy, was I wrong! Although, I do admit that trying to figure out how to participate in a Twitter edchat did give me a headache for a few nights. Also, I'm embarrassed to admit that it took me a while to wrap my head around what a hashtag was supposed to be used for. That said, once I started following groups and people, the whole world (or what I know of it so far) of Twitter opened up to me. I am currently following 47 people/groups, I have 20 followers, and I have tweeted 38 times. I started off by following people and groups that I personally enjoy and find interesting, such as the First Lady, Shakira, National Geographic, and Life on Earth. Then, I retweeted a tweet by Zorbit's Math https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pZzJBTnVUdWRxajA&authuser=0 and the next thing, I know, Zorbit's Math is following me! After that, I started following educational groups, such as PBS Teachers, WeAreTeachers, Discovery Education, and Edutopia. I would find tweets that I liked from these groups and retweet them. My second retweet https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pREZCRWd4SDNJV3c&authuser=0.
          My next incredible experience with Twitter was when I retweeted and replied to someone I was following. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pZ0E1QXB1Tmp6SWc&authuser=0

They favorited my tweet! Another reply to a follower's tweet resulted in an actual reply back from that follower! That was cool! Here's my @mention https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pNGJldm1BS1EwRWs&authuser=0. I also tweeted articles that I found interesting from other sites, such as Feedly/Blogger. For example, I tweeted an article called New Evidence: Deeper Learning Improves Student's Outcomes, and the next thing I know, my tweet is being retweeted by other people and people are following me! Here are my tweets with hashtags:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_peWwteXA1TVN4LVk&authuser=0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pNW04RGF4OXJZRm8&authuser=0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pNlVvM0tMZG9sODg&authuser=0
          My second attempt at participating in a Twitter edchat was more fun and interesting than my first attempt (I was participating in one, but it was so slow that I thought I was doing something wrong). In my second attempt,  I joined in on a conversation about personalized learning on #symchat. Yes, I mostly lurked, but I did favorite some tweets, retweeted tweets, and replied to one tweet. Here are a few screenshots of it on TweetDeck: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pRFJ1dVl1bFlaVXM&authuser=0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pUlQza3dkOXFYd28&authuser=0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pVHgtWlE2bmd2SWM&authuser=0
           Overall, Twitter is by far, the one tool that I personally feel I got the most use out of, and also the tool where I feel I connected most with other professionals. I would highly recommend Twitter!
           Lastly, I went back to Feedly/Blogger, and I subscribed to Edublogger, Dangerously Irrelevant, NPR Education, Edutopia, Cool Cat Teacher blog, and Edudemic. Here are the websites and screenshots of my comments on a blog post:
1. http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/11-habits-effective-teacher
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pN2FiQnpEQk00NWs&authuser=0
2. http://www.edudemic.com/chalkboards-chat-boards-will-elearning-look-like-2075/
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pT3BjZ3JwQ1ZrZTg&authuser=0
3. http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/10/10/354881230/digital-natives-except-when-it-comes-to-textbooks
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zRa-O9Ln_pczRxeTFrQi1FNzg&authuser=0
          In Conclusion, this assignment was an incredible learning experience for me because it really did introduce me to the digital age. There is SO much information and the idea of connecting and collaborating with other professionals is quite exciting! The only downside for me about this assignment was the vast amounts of time I spent connected to the internet. Three great tips I learned from a follower on Twitter: http://ai2020.com/3-simple-strategies-to-keep-your-sanity-in-a-overscreened-overteched-world/.