Teachers need to talk to other teachers for lots of reasons, to learn, grown, vent, work together, etc… This can be a bit difficult when you work from home and don’t see other teachers in the break room during lunch. But, that is what a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is for!

I have 3 major PLNs that I go to for support and inspiration.

First, I have the iEducator Facebook Group. This group has 6 members total so everyone contributes a lot. Because we all teach different subjects, this group is mostly for inspiration and technical support. We all share on this group awesome things that our students do that inspired us. When one of my students does something awesome I want to share it with this group because I am proud of them. I also like to look at the things my fellow iEducators post for inspiration when I need it. We also ask each other questions about important dates, share information about upcoming events, and lots of other stuff.

Second, I belong to a Facebook group called Technology in the Art Room. This group is AWESOME. I would say that about half of my time on this group’s page is spent posting/commenting and the other half I am just reading over other people’s posts. I really like this group because it is subject specific and technology specific. People share fun projects that they do with technology in their classes so I find this extremely relevant to what I do on a daily basis. I also post a lot of tips in this group. I shared with everyone about getting Google Certified, how I use Padlets in my classes, and a new podcast I found about using Google in the Classroom. 

And lastly, I joined the Art Teachers Facebook group while I was in college and wanting to gather ideas for when I became a teacher. While some of it is still relevant, mostly it has to do with projects and tools that can really only be used in the face-to-face classroom. Plus a lot of teachers in the group teach elementary school. I mostly use this group for inspiration rather than specific help.

Overall, these 3 groups are amazing to be a part of! I typically look at them after work each day for a bit and sometimes I save posts or take notes from them to implement the next day or revisit later. I like contributing to these groups, especially the Technology in the Art Room group because on there are a lot of teachers that are new to using technology for art and I feel like I can contribute a lot to that discussion. At first I missed chatting with the other teachers at lunch but these PLNs make up for a lot of that, especially the iEducator group where I am writing directly to my awesome coworkers!