Anyway, onto a Pinterest board that is filled with pins for gifted education: https://www.pinterest.com/ckwhitlock/gifted-educationdifferentiation/ This lady has 1022 pins on her board! While I was checking out some of the pins on this board, I came across a whole entire social networking site that is just for gifted education, Hoagies Gifted Org.
This site had EVERYTHING, in fact the page states that this is the place for all things gifted! There are communities, blogs, twitter chats, facebook chats, conferences and more. If you teach gifted children than this is a great place for social networking!
I also searched for boards about special education: https://www.pinterest.com/drchrisreeve/awesome-elementary-special-educators-ideas/ .
Now this is a serious board...4,703 pins! It is a collaborative board where people can post ideas they have found, and can search other peoples ideas. Now that is a cool way to get some professional development :)
But I did try to join another network; Ning, but when reading the FAQ's it said that it was $25.00 a month. Did anyone else see that? I did sign up for it and it said they would contact me when I was approved so I will look further into it at that time. (Update: at this time, I still haven't received the email confirming that I joined) In the meantime though I started looking at edWeb -because I liked that I could join a community, which appealed to me.The first thing I did was add it to my Twitter feed! Then I got the itch to look at other educational social networking sites. So as usual I went to Google. I clicked on the first list of the top sites as I laughed because they were so outdated, they were from 2012, which is like 20 years ago in technology time. But then something wonderful happened! I came upon a site that claimed it was just like Pinterest, only better! Could that even be possible?? How could I not know this existed? It is called Educlipper. I joined using my Google account which was easy, and I started checking out the site. Now I may be totally prejudice because I am such a pinner, but I did not like Educlipper at all! First of all instead of a beautiful picture of the clip, sometimes there was just the words PDF or Word Document. BOOO! As a visual learner I wanted MORE! Then as you scroll down the page stops after a few lines. Pinterest just keeps going into infinity (or so it feels). I had to keep clicking the more button (OMGosh how lazy does that sound?!) Here is a picture of what it looks like:
As a visual learner, it just doesn't appeal to me. And if you are wondering what all those colored circles are....they are the first letter of your name. Weird right? So...needless to say, I was not impressed.
I would also like to mention some interesting things I read in the Personal Learning Networks text. Some of them problems truly hit home like "I don't have enough time,' and "It's so overwhelming."Also, apparently I am not the only one who doesn't like to be so public. One of the paragraphs addressed the concerns I have for putting myself and everything out into space. I still have a hard time with it, even though I truly see the benefits. I have to say my favorite part of the internet is learning from others. When I first found blogs I was so intrigued! It felt so personal to read what other teachers are doing in their classrooms and I loved their honesty. They would blog about the good, and the bad...which made me feel better! When I was going to school for education, the teachers and textbooks made it seem like everything is always rosy in their classrooms. Not the case in today's world. So I realize the benefits outweigh the negatives, I guess I just need to jump into the new century!
- Personal Learning Networks,
Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli
3 comments:
First of all I love ecards. That is hilarious, yet so true. I am a visual learner too! Pinterest is really nice because you don't have to re-create the wheel for any lessons or simple materials. I have pinned every angle of Pinterest. In the past couple years I started pinning for educational purposes. I have so many pins ready to use in my "educational Pinterest toolbox"! I like to call it my "beg, borrow, steal" place.
I signed up for Ning. I have not been confirmed yet either. I don't think any of us have! Follow me on Pinterest! I'll follow you back!
You mentioned jumping into the century. This infographic made me think of you!
http://pinterest.com/pin/171840542006192663/
Michelle,
I actually used your blog post this week to help myself get started with Pinterest. You definitely seem like an expert on it! I had no idea where to start! All of your links and pins were really helpful and gave me a good starting point with getting my boards organized. Thank you!
Ashely,
Love the picture! It is amazing how far we have come, even in the past 10 years!
Michelle,
EduClipper was create by a former teacher, Adam Bellow. His Twitter name is @adambellow. I am sure he would like to hear your suggestions for improvement of EduClipper. He has been to the METC conference to speak several times and was also a keynote speaker at ISTE a couple years ago. Here is a video of his keynote in which he invites you to change the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrgieoTvDE8
Much of my teaching career was spent in isolation. I rarely got to see how other teacher taught. Social media changed that! Social media does indeed allow you discover what's happening inside other teacher's classrooms. I, too, see that as a huge benefit. It is wonderful when you are able to learn from another teacher's experience... especially their mistakes.
The $25.00 charge is for hosting your own Ning. I can remember when it used to be free. There was lots of grumbling and Ning lost lots of users when that happened. There are, however, many well establish Ning communities that you can join for no cost.
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