Ninging in the New Year Part II

Well my baby is three weeks old and like a proud parent I'm showing her off to everyone (even my non-educator friends). My baby is my Ning that has 23 members so far and a lot of collaboration going on. I check on "her" often during the day to see what new activity has been added.

Several of the other teachers at my school were upset that it was only for fourth grade teachers. Since they seem interested in collaborating with their teaching peers, I decided to set up a Ning for every grade level in the school system. Hope to have it finished over our long MKL Birthday weekend.

I learned how to set up Google Alerts. I set up three: fourth grade, 4th grade, and elementary math. Once a day Google collects and delivers to me any articles or blog posts with those tags in them. Great way to quickly see what's going on. I also added a few more RSS feeds to my Google Reader. It's nice to have all new posts put in one convenient spot to read. Delicious is helping me get all my bookmarks organized. Now I don't have to worry about which computer I add a bookmark to, because my Delicious account keeps track of them all. I have access to my bookmarks from any computer.

It is getting late and I have spent most of today building my PLN (personal learning network). Read many posts, collaborated with others, watched videos, checked out new technology, and checked all three of my email accounts several times today. I am feeling tired but definitely better informed.

Ninging in the New Year

Happy New Year! I'm so excited about one of my New Year's resolutions. I am planning on building my PLN this year (not my initials, but my Personal Learning Network), so I spent my Christmas holiday learning about social networking.

This is what I've accomplished since New Year's Eve:

• added RSS feeds to my Google reader from other educators' blogs, so I know when they add a new post
• read countless blogs and articles about PLN's and social networking
• created a Ning for fourth grade teachers in my school system
• invited the teachers in my school system to join that Ning
• joined Ning in Education
• asked to become colleagues of several educators I found on that Ning
• wrote this post to my blog

I'm excited to see how the next couple of weeks go. I hope to hear from the other educators I've connected with over this holiday break. Also I'm hoping to participate in an online collaborative project with another teacher. If all goes well, my next step is to set up a Ning for my students so they can begin to build their PLN's.

Well, 2009 is off to a great start. Let's all Ning in the New Year!