As teachers, we all have personal and/or professional learning networks. These are networks of support with people whom we know and connect with on personal and professional levels in order to develop ourselves and as teachers. Check out my personal PLN here.

I’m pretty proud of my current PLN since I am such a newbie, and to be honest, I could have gotten a lot more extensive. For example, I could have listed more people that I know from each school; I could have listed members of my cohort and where they will be teaching; I could have listed more names from other organizations and platforms like GCTE and Twitter, respectively, who I know by proxy; etc. Yet, at the same time, I also know that my PLN can and will expand so much throughout the years as I develop as a teacher. It’s comforting to know that I have such good support systems around me — especially in my cohort and my professors at KSU — and with them, I know I will learn so much and become better than I ever could without them.

Going forward, I certainly plan on continuing to maintain and expand my PLN. The members of my cohort and I are close, and we already share ideas with each other, so I know I can go to them to bounce off ideas or if I need help tackling a teaching issue. I also hope to stay in touch with many of my professors at KSU, as their knowledge, experience, and support is invaluable. I have just started getting involved with GCTE, having attended and presented a mini-presentation at the annual conference this past February and the GCTE Writing Retreat at Amicalola Falls this past June, and I hope to continue to connect with English teachers across Georgia at future conferences, as well as digitally on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, I have mentioned to one of my professors my interest in being involved in GCTE as a volunteer, so we’ll see where that goes. There is something special about connecting locally with teachers in your own state, so I am really drawn to GCTE, but I am also interested in learning and connecting at the national level, so I am interested in NCTE as well. Additionally, I plan on continuing to maintain my relationships with all of the people whom I have worked with at various schools, and I know I will meet new people I will add to my PLN. I am also interested in learning about and potentially being part of other organizations like Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project and contributing to teacher publications like Teacher Casebook and Writers Who Care, so I’m excited for what the future holds!

To create my PLN, I used a platform called Mindomo. To be honest, I am not a fan. At first I tried to use Bubbl.us, but that was very difficult, so I chose another platform. Mindomo, was also incredibly frustrating, but I stuck with it because I figured other programs might be similar. The most annoying thing was that when I would attempt to create new sub-categories or to move boxes around, I would naturally have to click on the screen; however, whenever I did that — like, almost with every click — a free-floating box would appear that I DID NOT WANT, and I would have to go through the trouble of deleting it, which in itself wasn’t even an intuitive task (you have to click at a precise spot of the box to then click ‘delete’ on your keyboard or click the small arrow on the box and delete it from there). Doesn’t sound too bad, but when you make hundreds of clicks to make your map, having to manually delete that many boxes is time-consuming and irritating. This annoying feature made me not be as extensive as I could have been with my PLN map, and I was happy to be done with this task. It’s nice that the service provided was free (there are premium, paid versions that might be better), but I don’t see myself going back to Mindomo if I want to use it in the classroom. If you have used a different — but better — tool from Mindomo, I would love to hear what it is!

If I came across a better platform than Bubbl.us and Mindomo, I feel like I may use it in my classroom. Students could make maps of their own PLNs, or they could map the relationships between characters in texts with a large amount of characters that may be difficult to follow (for example, Lord of the Flies or Game of Thrones). What are some ways you envision using maps like this in your classroom?