My Reflection

Name: Donna Hannah	Date:  March 20, 2016
School/District:  Lakewood Elementary School
Role/Position: Grad Five Math Teacher
Email Address: donna.hannah@hsv-k12.org
Blog Link:

Reflect on how your personal learning network has changed and grown during the course of this workshop. Discuss your plans for how you plan to continue to grow your learning network and how you hope to contribute to the professional learning of your administrative colleagues. 

I can honestly say that my PLN has changed dramatically having taken this course.  I know that "keeping in touch" has been simplified through technology.  It is my hope that I have become more personally involved with my PLN and consequently more involved with my profession.

Currently, our school system has opened up access to social networking sites, blogs, podcasting and twitter for staff.  This is great because we have found so many positive resources that can be used to increase our involvement with technology.  It is my opinion that we should continuously update our Acceptable Use Policy and provide serious training for faculty, parents and students on Digital Citizenship.  We should not live in fear but rather utilize technology for the good that it can do as a tool for learning and professionalism.

I plan to get permission from my principal to provide training to the teachers in grades 3-6 on the web 2.0 tools that are available for use.   My first step will be to introduce the idea of a PLN to each of them and show them how importance it is to an educator.  It is my hope that this training will open up the opportunity to begin either a blog, podcast, or both among the educators at my school.

I look forward to the opportunity to develop a plan for guiding all stakeholders through the technology that is accessible.  Wish me luck because there are many minds to be changed.

I found an article about technology in education today.  I want to share a highlight. The site is:

http://theconversation.com/education-in-the-information-age-is-technology-making-us-stupid-10844

Check out this statement....Do you think we are becoming more knowledgeable or is technology making us stupid?

"The pub argument is dead. Google killed it with a little help from your smartphone. Instead of long fought debates about who’s right and who’s wrong, an answer is nearly always within easy reach.

With so-called intelligent personal assistants becoming more sophisticated, it won’t be long before we have the same kind of access to information as the characters from Star Trek: “Siri, at maximum warp how long will it take to reach the bar?”

The question is, does this make us knowledgeable experts or is the easy access to information making us stupid?"