Wednesday, December 12, 2007

PLN Reflections

I want you to take some time and really reflect on our use of Personal Learning Networks. Think about the following questions and compose a detailed and thoughtful response in order to guide our use of PLNs for second semester. You must incorporate #9 in with your response.

1. What do you like about PLNs?
2. What are some challenges of PLNs?
3. What do you think of the PLN presentations in class on Fridays?
4. Does it help you to get the reactions of your classmates to your presentation? Should we be reflecting, in writing, on each other’s blogs more often? Do you actually read them?
5. Are the categories of your subscriptions helpful?
6. When you don't complete an assigned PLN, why don't you?
7. Are there any suggestions or changes you think we need to make for next semester?
8. What skills do you think you acquired? What will you take away from these assignments? How will you improve and hold yourself accountable to do that?
9. What is the value of your learning? Would you see this as valuable if you weren’t receiving a grade? Is learning important to you?

13 comments:

Kira E. said...

I like a couple of things about the PLN's. I like how they are a change from what the usual homework and what other teachers make us do for homework. I also like how other people are able to see what we do for the PLN's instead of just the teacher getting to see it. There are also some challenges to it. Such as, finding an article to do the PLN on is sometimes challenging if there are either many choices or not very many choices. I like having the PLN presentations on Friday’s because it makes it not as mundane as the rest of the week and it makes the day more exciting instead of just doing something like bookwork or reading like some of the other days. I like having the reactions because it makes me think about what I need to work on for the next time and what I don't need to work on that much. I think we should be reflecting more because when we did that before, I took into account what the people said and I thought about how that would help and it made very much sense. I like all of the categories in my subscription because with one I get to read about what's going on in the world, one I get to hear about what's going on locally and the other one, I get to read about what Mr.Fisch thinks and says about the school. I usually finish the assignments but if I didn't, it would most likely be because I forgot about it until ten minutes before it was due and I couldn't finish it. For next semester, I think we should do more reflecting on each other's blogs but otherwise I think it makes sense and doesn't have many flaws, except that people don't do the homework sometimes. I have learned through doing the PLN's how to be more personal in my writing while still being professional. I also learned to be more open with my writing to let other's see it. From all the PLN assignments I will take away everything new that I have learned that I didn't know before being in this class. I will improve on everything that I learned by using it for every class that I will ever have to blog in. I will do so by re-reading everything I write before I post it and make sure that it is reflective and makes sense yet is still professional. The value of my learning is having a good life not living on the streets because I don't know how to write without sounding like a stupid person. I would see this as valuable if I wasn't receiving a grade because it is making me a better writer and helping me to do all the things that I want to keep up on with my blogging. My learning is important to me because I want to be very smart when I am older so I can have a good life and my children can have a good life.

Nick O. said...

1. I liked the part where we got to learn what people are interested in, and many new things outside of just school. Also I liked the idea of telling our own thoughts instead of just holding them in.
2. Some of the challenges I had with PLN’s was that I had to put what I thought into it. Also I couldn’t find some things to write about sometimes.
3. I think having PLN presentations on Friday is a great idea. I think this because we have more time to practice presenting and we also have more time to fix our bogs if we find something wrong with it.
4. I think the idea of both is great. Having the class tell you personally what they thought could be better for the presenter, because the presenter captures the feeling in the voice of their classmates. But less time will be used up if we were to tell our thoughts in our own time.
7. I can’t think of any changes for next semester other than not doing education blogs. I don’t think we should do education blogs because I can never find anything to write about in any education blog.
8. I think I acquired more ideas on writing a blog and what my class mates learned on the subject. I will take away how my class mates feel about a subject and new writing and speaking ideas for the future presentations. I will holed myself accountable to this because if I don’t I won’t take in perspective something that someone has tolled me that I thought different of. Also if I don’t speak or/and write better I’m going to get worse grades on things in school, and in my career.
9. The value of learning is to do well in business years that come closer and closer as the second goes by. Also its important to learn so humans can become more advanced such as finding a way not to use gas at all in cars or houses, or how to cure AIDs and cancer, or so we can teach our kids things that our parents taught us. I would definitely find learning valuable if I wasn’t receiving a grade because without learning there is nothing to do in the future. I find no point in grades exept for colleges to see how well you are doing in school. Is learning important to me, well read what I just wrote and think about it. If you cant figure it out then YES learning is very important to me.

Hannah G. said...

The thing that I like about PLN's is the background information that I get from doing them. That probably sounds really nerdy, but background information is what we use to make our own opinions on matters in the world, and being able to do that, to me, is a big deal. Something I might change about the PLN's is how we, as a class, present them to one another. I think the way we share them in class is very interactive, but I also think that its not the only way to share them. Commenting each other's blogs is also a great way in engaging in other opinions as well as our own. When we share them in class, sometimes we don't have the time that we wish we had, but online, each of us is able to state what we truly believe without having to shout it on top of a mountain. Human interaction between students is absolutely vital, and being able to get reations from my classmates is very interesting. One thing that someone might notice about me is that I am a very curious person. I'm generally interested in other people's lives and I love to hear what people have to say because it makes me think from their point of view, while creating my own. Another thing about me is that I admire people who are strong in their beliefs, but are always willing to listen to others opinions and are able to back up their beliefs with thei own background information. Like I said before, I think that reflecting on each others blogs more often will give us more room to explore each other not only as classmates, but as individual people, and the topics we choose to write about.

The categories of my subscribptions are very helpful to me because there are a couple that I probably wouldn't have chosen if I had to choose every single one of them. Being given something out of my ordinary will allow me to explore and interpret my own meanings, which is important to me because being able to relate a topic back to my life makes me more aware of what kind of life I'm living. (I could probably go on about this one question forever, so I'll just stop right there).

And as for question 6, I don't have an answer for.

From being assigned daily PLN's this past semester, I acquired many new thoughts and they have left me with a general courosity of things happening inside and outside my own backyard. One thing I've noticed about myself since I've began writing my PLN's, is that I read a lot more news articles than I ever have before. And I believe that it has been PLN's that sparked my interest in my world. I've really come to love my PLN's. As weird as this is for me to say, sometimes I actually look forward to writing PLN's. It gives me a chance to soak in my thoughts; a lot of the time, so much that I can feel my brain molding into a different form. Hahaha! With that, I might as well slap the word 'Trekkie' to the end of that sentence and be done with it. What else do I have to lose, really? That's okay, I'll love my guilty pleasures no matter how lame they sound. Okay, now for the big question:

The value of my learning is almost unattainable. I truly love to learn. I've loved going school ever since I began in kindergarden. My learning for me is like the saying "Once you start, you never stop". That's so true for everyone, I think. And seriously, I honestly don't care about grades NEARLY as much as I do about what I'm actually LEARNING. If the grade is what I went to school for, it'd be like living with empty insides, almost like a machine. Why would I try to get the grade and not bother to learn on the way? Stupid, I say, stupid. It's like what those cheesey teachers say, "I care more about what you learn than how you learn, and more about what's in your head than what's on your report card". I always loved those teachers.

Sean J. said...

What I like most about the PLNs is that I can research current article and reflect about it. Sometimes it was difficult to write what I really beleived because it was going to be posted on the internet. I liked the PlN presentations because I got to see kids acuallly talk about their articles, and see how strongly they felt about an idea. I think that it's important to be reading and reflecting on our classmates blogs. I do it sometimes, but not as much as I should. The skills that I think I acquired doing this was more comprehensive reading and being able to express my thoughts and ideas in my writing. The importance of learning isn't to get good grades in school, but to solve problems and to be succesful in life. If I wasn't recieving a grade for my learning I probably wouldn't see it as valuable until I started to struggle doing improtant things. If I blew of learning and was iliterate I would have some real problems getting through life. So at first I might not have thought that having an education was important, but looking back I would not have been able to experience the things that I had without learning. I would never have advanced in anything.

matt r. said...

I can honstley say that i do not like pln's it seemes like a big waste of my time, and im just doing them to get them done. I personaly dont read other peoples blogs, and i dont really like having to present to the class. over all i can say that i really do not like the blogs.

Skylar.H said...

I dislike PLNs a lot. The only thing I like is when people present them because then I get hear about other people’s opinions. Plus like Kira said it makes a day more interesting than just doing book work. There are so many challenges for me for PLNs. One of my challenges is just to get a motive to want to read stuff. I hate reading with a passion. I do not know why I do I just do. Then after I read it’s hard to reflect on it and to incorporate it in my own way. Many things that I read about for PLNs is nothing even close to something that has happened to me so its hard to know how they feel and why they did that. Then people are like why did they do that blah blah blah.. Well the thing is you could act worst or do something stupider than one of those people so just give them a break. So it is just hard to know elaborate on it because I don’t know how I would react in some of those situations. Well I already pretty much answered this in question number 1. My school and news subscribsons are not very helpful to me because I don’t care how many people died on a train wreck and stuff like that. I just don’t want to hear about it it’s useless to hear all the flaws of the world (plus its sad). The school one is just hard for me to do anything with because school is just the same thing everyday. But then when we got to add our own subscription it was better because I actually care about sports and love them so it makes it fun that I can read it and make my opinion for a grade. When I do not complete an assigned PLN its not intentional it normally means I just forgot. I do no have any suggestions I don’t really know how you can change it. My value of learning is to get good enough grades to be accepted into a good college for sports. I would not see any value for me if there were not grades. Everyone bases learning around grades and if there were not any grades then you would not even need to worry about school and learning because no one would care. So the only reason I honestly want to learn is so I can achieve my main goal in life is to become a professional athlete. That is all I want in life and I would be happy. (Sorry this was so negative it’s just how it came out)

Andrew. H said...

Doing PLNs for the first time i honestly thought it was not necicary at all and it was just a waste of time, but the more weeks we did them the more intresting it got and the voices of all the students, and all the differnt opinions were put out there for everyone to see and think about why it matters, and how these events effect us. I thought the hardest part of PLNs was picking what o write about. It has to beimportant and somehow be able to have connection with an event and really think about what your opinion on how things are happining in our community. The presintations were very helpful for one reason, emotion, you cant tell what the person is feeling about somthing just by reading. When i dont complete a PLN that is assigned it just meens i forgot to, there is no other reason to just not do it. I think that next simester we should just post responces to other peoples PLNs and not presintate. I think the value of my learning is very important because without the ability to learn then mankind would still be sitting in caves yelling and throwing rocks at each other. Yet I dont see that much value in the PLNs if we werent getting graded on it.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes PLN's were absolute pains. You'd be happily in bed one night and then remember, o shoot I have a PLN due tomorrow. PLN's were not something you could rush either because they required critical and deep thinking which is hard to do in 10 minuets. I always liked to hear other classmates present their blogs. It was nice to hear about their interests and what they thought about society and the world. We had a lot of really good conversations because of it. Presenting these always helps us in the long run because we'll be doing as long as were in school and after that as well. PLN's made us really made us think about society and events around the world and made us choose something we had strong feelings for. PLN's should have a grade because that's the only way kids are going to do it, but learning will always be really important to me, I might not like it but I'll always be grateful for it.

Amanda C said...

What I like about PLN's is that it makes me think more than most other homework assignments and I feel like I am actually learning something on my own rather than just regurgitating information that I learned that day just to prove to my teacher that I actually know what I am doing like most homework. What I found challenging about PLN's is the time it took to sit down and research a topic, think and reflect about it and then actually do it because I am a procrastinator and I always wait until the last minute to do things. I think it is nice to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions about current and relative topics that we all interested in. It is also good to have the presentations on Friday because that gives us time to prepare. I think that the reactions of others does help me to make my blogs better because I actually think about what they say and use those comments to improve my writing. I also feel that my comments towards other people help them to improve their writing as well. I have never actually gone on my own and commented on peoples blogs without it being an assignment, but I guess it would be helpful to know what people think about what you have to say and we should probably do it more as a class. Some problems I have had with completing my PLN’s are usually commuter problems and forgetting my user name and password. I don’t really think that anything has to change to make the PLN’s benefit us more as students except that maybe if you would give us a little more time to complete them they would be more well reachered and thought out because we would have hade more time to reflect about our articles. I think that I have acquired a better knowledge on education from all the articles I have read on the Fich Bowl and 2cents worth. To me the value of learning is having the capability to always build and expand upon your learning even outside of school. In my oppion grades don’t accurately portray what you have truly learned and what is to come from a persons life because for example, Einstein had really bad grades and he was one of the great inventors of our time. Learning is important to me because with out learning there would be as many goals to accomplish and life would be meaningless.

DylanA said...

What I like about the PLN's is that it helps me keep in touch with the outside world more. I rarely pay attention to the news so I pretty much never know what is going on. With the PLN's however I'm almost required to read about things happening in both local and world news. This helps me to better keep in touch with the outside world. Along with that I get to write about the things I want to write about. Almost never have I received the chance to write about whatever I want. Sure you have to include something with the article. But you get to pick which article you want to write about! That's what makes PLN's so great.
However, there are some challenges of PLN's. For me personally I find it a little hard to remember. I always seem to forget about them for some reason. I'm just so unused to doing things with blogging that I space out sometimes and forget to do a PLN. Also with my hockey schedule when I leave on trips for hockey I usually leave by Thursday giving me less time to complete the PLN's. Although I shouldn't procrastinate and hold off doing it I still find it hard to it when I miss school. Not only that but sometimes there aren't any articles that I'm really interested in and I can't figure out what I want to write about.
I really like the PLN presentations on Fridays because it shows me what other people are interested in. I really get to know whoever is presenting a little better. I learn of their passions and what they enjoy doing.
I think that it does help to get the reactions of my classmates to my presentation. It helps me see how well of a job I did presenting. With reaction of the other students I can see whether or not my presentation interested them or if I need to involve them more next time. Also, I think that we should be reflecting on each other's blogs more often. I think that it would really help our writing. I actually don't read other peoples blogs. One, because I don't have a ton of time with hockey and two, because I don't have a list of the sights of all my other classmates' blogs.
I think the categories of my subscriptions are helpful because news stories and articles about school are probably the easiest things to write about for me.
When I don't complete an assigned PLN it is because I either forgot or I'm not home because I'm on a hockey trip.
I think that everything went pretty well this semester I just think that I personally need to be a little bit better about doing the PLN's.
I think that I will start to read newspapers more and watch the news to stay in tune with the outside world. Also I will maybe blog more to show who I am and what I am interested in so friends can get to know me better. I will try to hold myself accountable by putting a little news box on the corner of my desktop or something like that.
My learning is the most valuable thing to me. Without it I would be nothing. I wouldn't have a clue what was going on around me and I would not be who I am today. To me learning is priceless and cannot be replaced with anything else. I would still see learning as valuable even if I wasn't getting a grade for it. Learning is the most important part of my life. You are always learning and almost never stop.

MeganL. said...

Over the course of this semester doing these PLN's has greatly affected my thought process. Although tedious I like doing some PLN’s because they let me show my thoughts and beliefs. I like doing the PLN’s where I am able to connect them to my life and have then affect my life. Sometimes PLN’s are extremely hard to do because the articles that are posted in the Denver Post or any other source don’t exactly have purpose to our class. And it is hard to write about something without purpose to class or me. I don’t like the presentations in class because I get all nervous to share what I have written and don’t enjoy it. The whole presentation idea doesn’t one hundred percent appeal to me. I very rarely read me classmates’ blogs and mostly don’t have time. I think having feedback does help, but is sometimes hard to give on other people’s blogs or presentations. I think the categories help a little, but aren’t a major part of my blogging. I haven’t ever not completed a PLN’s I do them no matter what. I may not enjoy doing them sometimes but I do them. I think we should have to do a PLN’s every other week because one after another gets boring and doesn’t make me want to do them. Although PLN’s aren’t glamorous work I do think that they help me to think ahead. Whenever I read an article I start to automatically think how it work affect me and or my family. PLN’s help to deepen thinking and help to apply that thinking within my life. My value of learning is very high and I do take it seriously. I think I wouldn’t do as much work, but I would still do the work if these weren’t for a grade. I don’t think other people would end up doing these PLN’s if they didn’t see that it would help them or their grade. My value of learning is so high because I know I will have to apply that learning to my life when I grow up and start my career. Although I take my learning seriously I do believe that many kids don’t because they just see it as a waste of their time. I want to be able to learn and take that learning and teach others from it.

Albino Blacksheep/ Matt H said...

1)I feel like I can be myself and speak my mind. (Though, I feel restricted because I am stopped from saying things straight out)
2)The education blogs are rediculous they are way too hard to write because, we'd all rather discuss current events and our opinions.
3)I enjoy them. This is one of my favorite parts!
4)I think we should do what we did the one day in the lab and post on each others comments it was a blast. It actually got everyone thinking.
5)I'm sorry I don't get your meaning. If you mean current events and education blogs, you need to stop with the education blogs.
6)It's mostly my determination and my computer is so retarded that sometimes, I have to come in early and with seminary I can't do it. I enjoy it but, my computer is...silly in nice terms.
7)NO MORE EDUCATION BLOGS. Look I know your interested in getting student opinions but, most students want to be heard on what THEY think is affecting them. Not what the TEACHER wants.
8)Well, through personal experience I know the only way to improve is to keep doing it. (keep a constant flow)
9)That question is unfair.... I feel like I would be able to express my opinions more freely when I can speak freely. If they blog and put thought into it give them an A if not, give a 0!

So sorry this is late. Dumb computer, please give me a break this and my oddesey project could be the two deciding factors between an A or a B!

Anonymous said...

1.Well when it comes to PLN's the one thing i really like about it,is that we get involved and we discover more about our world and country.
2.Some of the challenges can start with finding a topic, that I may want to present and how it really relates to me and if I can give a good job on it.
3.I really like it, I think that it is very good to know what it happening out side of our own lives and how it can effect and relate to us.
4.Well honeslty it seems to me that i can be more open and start to read more blogs and give my own personal thoughts and opnions. But when it comes down to it i do read some of them, just so that i can get a head start.
5.Yes indeed they are, perhaps we can have a little bit more perscripsions but in the mean time it seems very helpful for me.
6.when i dont complete one, its honestly my fault. For whatever reason,if i didnt want to do it or i happen to forget.
7.No not at all! Ms.Comp does an fantastic job with our class and teaching techniques.
8.well the skills I now may acquired learning to respond in a detailed way to prompts that may now come my way. I will take away my knowladge and a better understanding of the PLNS and our world.
9.The value of my learining is very importent and will effect me days,months and years from now.Well yes i still would because it's still importent that we share thoughts and opnions of the world we live into today and how it effects us. Of course learning is importent to me, its somethng that will effect me forever and is the kickstart to me plans and way of living in the feature!