reflection

As a teacher...

...a PLN expands the people I have access to gain ideas from and share ideas with one thousand fold, thus increasing my ability to engage my students by the same amount. There are days when I barely leave my classroom and don't see my colleague down the hall which reinforces the power and convenience of a PLN. We are all exceptionally busy people and with an established PLN you can guarantee that ideas are still flowing, discussions are still being had, and that you can pop in and out of these when it suits you.

Timezones is something I have become very aware of when collaborating with teachers in the US. The most powerful collaboration is when the students can actually engage with each other live, however when considering ways to connect between Vietnam and IL, USA our thoughts had to change as we realised there was no common times that the students would be at school unfortunately.

In my classroom...

...a PLN benefits my students by providing them with authentic opportunities to connect with people whose daily life varies from theirs in almost every way. For my students to be able to open their minds to a different life than what they know is invaluable in their journey to become a productive and open-minded global citizen.

As I have conversed with my collaborative partners and we have given each other an overview of the lives of our students, not only are we a great distance geographically apart, but the students lives are also worlds apart. As this information was shared I was able to reflect on myself as very much a life-long learner. All my age and experience affords me is the ability to pause before making assumptions about what I think the life of a third grade student in Illinois, US would be like. However, just as my fellow cohort members could not guess what kind of privilege we live with here in Ho Chi Minh City, I can only imagine what it would be like to be teaching students whom receive financial assistance in order to be able to have the nutrition they require.

If we want to learn to be a global citizen, we need to connect with citizens of our globe.

Moving forward...

As has been mentioned in numerous posts in our Google+ Community, there are many of us who have held back from putting our thoughts out there and preferred to scroll through the minds of others. This hesitation no doubt exists for different reasons in different people. Mine resides in the perfectionist side of me that is afraid of putting something out where others can see it that is not polished. I have also been hesitant to invite disagreement and opposing thoughts to my own, yet this is not how I live my face-to-face life. I appreciate my colleagues who question and deepen discussions. I do not take offence when someone disagrees with me or challenges what I say. I have resolved to finally adopt this attitude in my digital life as well and welcome the possibilities for both depth and breadth of discussion through my PLN.