My Personal Learning Network

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.

Before this workshop, my personal learning network consisted of only colleagues who taught mathematics around the state.  It was confined to just one subject area ---- mathematics.  During this workshop, I have learned about several Web 2.0 tools.  I now have a Google account with a Reader for RSS feeds and a Blog (as you can see), a Twitter account, and have learned how to create a Podcast.  As I see it,  rather than trying to implement all of the Web 2.0 tools that we have learned about in this workshop I will choose the tools that I feel best suit my current needs for me and my students.  I plan to keep up with the Reader for RSS feeds and follow certain educators' blogs and tweets.  For my current needs, I feel that the RSS feeds will be the most helpful.  I plan to share what I have learned in this workshop with my fellow colleagues and my student teacher interns as well as the mathematics students in my courses at Troy University Dothan campus.  I am very excited about the possibilities in the future that the Web 2.0 tools have opened up to me.

I would also like to thank my classmates in this workshop for sharing their knowledge, expertise, and ideas while I have been enrolled in this workshop.  Your comments have helped me grow both personally and professionally.  I wish you much success in your respective districts as you implement the Web 2.0 tools that we learned about in our workshop.    

My First Podcast Script

My name is Susan McSwean.  I am a member of the Alabama Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ACTM).  For those of you who don't know what ACTM is, I would like to provide you with the following information. 

The purpose of ACTM is:

• to provide a vehicle through which teachers and other educators can work individually and collectively for the improvement of classroom instruction;
• to provide publications and services;
• to provide a forum for the discussion of new developments in mathematics;
• to provide an opportunity for sharing innovative classroom experiences and evaluation trends in the teaching of mathematics.

Our current president is Dr. Sarah Patrick who will be turning over her gavel to Ms. Nydia Powell, vice president, in November, 2012.  On a personal note, I am the District VIII Director on the Executive Council and the Signs Chairperson for the 2012 Fall Forum.  I would like to inform my fellow educators of the details for our 2012 Fall Forum.  The 2012 Fall Forum will be on November 1 - 2, 2012 at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama.  This is the first year that we have held our annual conference at Alabama State University.  The theme of our 2012 Fall Forum is Practices for Professional Perfection or P^3 with a focus on Standards for Mathematical Practice.  We are still accepting speaker proposals for the 2012 Fall Forum.  If you would like to present, please go to our website to obtain the application form.  The Executive Council has a meeting on July 28, 2012 to finalize the details for our conference.  After that meeting, the details such as the program book, directions to Alabama State University, hotel information, and registration information will be posted to the website.    

We always gladly accept new members who are willing to become actively involved in our organization.  You can find additional information about ACTM at our website which is http://www.alabamamath.org.    

Blog Preference

When reading through our assigned list of blogs, I preferred the authors who focused on the issues important to school leaders rather than the authors who used personal reflections.  This seemed to be more what I was looking for to help with the problems within my school district. I thought the personal reflections of authors was based more on their opinions rather than research.