I was surprised at all of the ways I learned to grow my Professional Learning Network. When I initially signed up for the class, I incorrectly assumed it would be heavily focused on social media. While social media is part of growing a professional network, I was surprised at all of the other ways I can grow my network that I had not thought of. In particular, I enjoyed the modules that gave me time to explore webinars, podcasts, and certification courses. I think these modules will be very useful for me in the future.

As a result of this course, I discovered a new resource for innovative learning that incorporates real world learning opportunities. I have already participated in a webinar with the Getting Smart network outside of this course. I have found other online communities that I hope to dig into further in the future. In addition, I really enjoyed the Canva certification course. I plan to complete some additional Canva courses as well as a course in ScreenPal.

The growth of my professional learning network will ultimately benefit the teachers and students I work with. As I grow my professional learning network, I will be able to share the resources and things I learn to enhance the experiences they will have as they relate to real world learning. Growing my professional learning network is really important to help me in my first year as a career navigator.

I was surprised by the amount of resources currently available that I was using but not in the full capacity. YouTube for instance, I use it to show things to my classes, but I hadn't been following channels and getting more ideas from other educators or people in my content area.

I loved the certification for Canva. Canva is something I use daily it feels like as an educator. But there were other certifications or trainings that I want to explore and learn more about to make my teaching easier and more effective.

I think my growth in this class will impact the work with my students in so many ways. I have tried to be more present in using my Instagram page - students were excited to see that their work could be featured and they in turn take more pride in their work. Also the pages and people that I have followed have a wealth of experience that I can draw from that in turn makes me a better educator which obviously helps my students learn the content in a more fun manner as well as having the content stick with them outside of my classroom walls.

I was surprised at how many different modes there are to connect with other people. I knew some of the obvious ones, but there are so many I never thought of. Just as an example never thought of using Pinterest for education or having a professional TikTok. I really liked the idea of the certifications. I have done a ton of studying of these technology resources and still find things every time I have to do a learning on them. I was surprised about some of the features of ScreenPal that I didn't know before.

I need to carve out more space to really dig into the blogs and podcasts. There are so many out there and never enough time. And to keep up with new information on all of these platforms. Luckily I have a lot of these resources saved and can come back to them as needed.

Any time I can learning about teaching or resources to help teach my students are automatically benefitted. Specifically for this class, there are 5 things I can directly talk about right now.

1. I can use questioning right into my ScreenPal videos. I use these a lot for Online Academy.

2. I read an article on Edutopia about 7 quick formative assessment strategies to use in the classroom. I plan to incorporate a few more.

3. I want to get another certification in Canva to see how I can incorporate more creativity my math classroom.

4. Ms. Beebe has a lot of cool ideas to incorporate into the math classroom. I teach a lab class and need new ideas for those students who have already Geometry once that day.

5. Sarah Carter has a website Math=Love that contains foldables for high school math classes as well as templates for engaging activities. These will help with both our focused notes emphasis at West as well as formative assessment.

I was surprised how quickly I was able to start brainstorming on some of the resources I discovered during the class. Many of them gave me great ideas for ways to differentiate my teaching and classroom management strategies.

I want to continue to use a diversity of resources and PLN's to help me continue to grow as an educator. A goal of mine in the future is to contribute more and not just lurk in these spaces like I currently do.

I will use a combination of new teaching resources I have discovered as well as encouragement about some of the things I already do well. Specifically I want to continue to use Canva in both curricular and extra curricular ways with my students and players in the future.

I was surprised by the various types of ways I can collaborate with others. I have used some social media for those purposes as well as Schoology, Youtube, and some other platforms, but things like podcasts and webinars are not things that I would have thought of as much before this class.

I would like to dig further into the other platforms I am not as familiar with such as podcasts and webinars. I would also like to set up some professional accounts on Instagram and LinkedIn. I currently use my personal account for Facebook so I would also like to set up a professional account and move my groups I follow over to it.

The growth of my professional learning will help impact my students by providing me a wider variety of resources that I can incorprate into my classroom. By being able to connect and share ideas I will be able to create a wider variety of lessons to meet the needs of all learners.

What surprised you? I was surprised by how many tech hacks I learned while connecting with others. I was also surprised by how many different ways educators can collaborate and find resources! I didn't think about TikTok or Canva being part of a PLN before this class. I really enjoyed viewing all of these platforms from the lens of connection.

What would you like to dig into further? I would like to take more of the classes from Module 5. I think after I've finished my grad classes, that focusing on earning certifications through these educational tools will help me to stay current with my lessons and find better ways to engage my students.

How will the growth of your professional learning network impact the work you do with your students? Connecting with other educators gives me more tools to use in the classroom so that my students get better lessons and more engagement.

I was surprised by all the ways there are to grow my Professional Learning Network including ways that I'd never thought of, but seem so obvious. One example would be YouTube.

I for sure want to use Canva more now that I have some understanding of how to use it. Actually, I'd like to take a hands on Canva course.

The growth of my Professional Learning Network will impact my students because I can learn more from other professionals. Then I can bring those ideas and strategies back to my classroom and students.

Bonus: I learned a lot of other useful things like Padlet, Schoology, etc.... Thanks.

What surprised you? I was surprised that I actually found Pinterest useful and found several articles that changed my perspective on teaching.

What would you like to dig into further? I will continue to use Pinterest to find articles on the topics that relate to my area of teaching and classroom management.

How will the growth of your professional learning network impact the work you do with your students? Having more ideas that have been tested and work is never a bad idea. I have already used ideas from articles I have read. I also enjoyed learning how to use Canva and will be using it a lot more in the future.

I was surprised at the variety, breath and depth at which we could be using different tools professionally. I currently use many of the tools we learned about- but not professionally or to the depth that I could be. I learned about Schoology groups, found new Facebook groups, and learned how to create playlist and follow channels that carry grade level content.

One of my favorite modules was on Certifications. I use Canva all of the time but still learned a lot of new ideas and I love the practice modules they have to practice the new AI magic tools. I would like to dig into some of the other certifications and see what other new things I could learn.

Now that I have built my social network, I am excited to see what new topics/strategies I learn about. I am excited to see new activities or content that is related to what I teach and see how that helps me grow in my own learning and teaching.

I was most surprised at the wide range of ways we found to grow our personal learning network. Originally, I only thought about networking the old fashioned way. With technology, there are so many more avenues to network and learn.

My favorite module was learning about all of the certification opportunities. I will be digging into those. It really is impressive everything that is available.

The growth in my personal learning network will impact my students by opening my eyes to the opportunities to find new and exciting lessons to use. I have expanded on my available resources to help me meet my students needs.

I was surprised with the amount of things I can utilize in my classroom. A lot of resources I saw I would use personally, but never considered for my classroom. I guess using workbooks and manuals is what I was used to and definitely need to upgrade my teacher "toolbox".

What I would like to dig into further is getting more certifications. Be more proficient and gain confidence when using these programs to enhance my classroom.

My growth of my PLN will impact my work with my students by making it more visually appealing to my students and less paperwork. I want to be able to gain more time with my family rather than making things harder on myself when I could instead streamline it. Being more efficient. I also can connect to more teachers outside of my district and share resources.

I think one of the things that surprised me the most in my work through this course is just how much content there is being generated and access to so many different individuals, groups, companies, and eductional entities to help grow our Professional Learning Network. It was great to participate, collaborate, and interact with my colleagues in this course. I was amazed by the information shared and the connections that can be made in a PLN for educators in all types of roles and at different levels of the system.

Something I would like to dig in further with is being able to share the knowledge and content I am taking in from my PLN with the staff members I serve in LSR7. I want to find ways that are timely, efficient, and valuable for staff members to learn and grow along with me. It's hard to find time to truly connect with as many staff members I would like to on a week to week or even day to day basis. If I can work to capture and share some of this information in a way that is accessible and meaningful to them, I would like to have that space for them to be included in the things that I am learning and taking in as an ITS Team Member.

I think the growth of my Professional Learning Network can impact students in a variety of ways. While I am not working with students in classrooms every day and all day, as an ITS Team Member, it is my charge to be a servant leader and sharing best practices for technology integration with all staff members. By keeping up with my different mediums and sharing my learning and strategies with staff members, they in turn will feel more comfortable and confident in implementing these strategies and structures with their students in their classrooms. We all strive to be life-long learners and I think that's my best path to continuing my work as an ITS Team Member and making the support and instruction I can provide staff members meaningful and worthwhile in terms of impact on our students and their success.