What my PLN has done for me

I have always considered myself a bit of a techy geek, a badge I wear with pride; I may not look it, but I love technology and computers.  My school has a couple of people like me and we meet in secret; sharing sites and ideas for how we can make our classrooms more technology friendly.  And yet, Twitter escaped me.  Sure, I had an account, but no desire to follow celebrities or wannabe celebrities in their daily doings.  So last Friday, I was following 15 people on Twitter, had 4 followers myself which included my husband and two of my brothers (who the 4th one was I have no idea) and I had used Twitter as a status update tool.

Last Friday, my world moved a little bit:  One tweet came across my computer that mentioned PLN, not knowing what this meant I clicked on the link to the article and was brought to @shellterell's twitter account.  I scanned her tweets and clicked to follow her; the rest they say is history.  In 9 days, this is what learning about a PLN has done for me:

• I now follow more than 100 educators, bloggers, techies from all around the world and daily add more valuable people .
• These fantastic people have invited me to join in the The Educator's PLN where I have established contact with even more educators and resources.
• I have started my own blog, not just doing a classroom blog anymore, and through that have been challenged to think about my teaching and which direction I want to go.
• Strangers have complimented me on things I post and encouraged me to keep blogging.
• I have been introduced to phenomenal free tools such as Voki, WallWisher, Wordia, Glogster, Prezi, and Mouse Mischief
• I have set up a student blog via KidBlog for next year and have designed lessons for the students to blog about.  No one does this at my school.
• I have discovered blogs to follow who do the research, try out new technology, come up with incredible lesson plans for me amongst many other things.
• I have changed my Master's Degree to Technology Instruction - no joke.
• I have forwarded blogs and articles on to my principal, PTO, Professional Development Coordinator for our district, and fellow teachers hoping to inspire them as much as I have been.
• I have made tentative plans to go to my first technology conference, ISTE 2011.
• I have out-geeked my husband for the first in our 10 years together.
• Most importantly though; I have become energized about teaching!  I am not alone and nor should I be.  Reach out and there are people who will learn with you, teach with you, and go with you on your journey.  I can't wait to start the school year and create PLN's for my students.

In the last 9 days, I have discovered that there is a whole world out there waiting to join me on this crazy teaching ride and they all have the time to talk.  I cannot hide behind the excuse of not having time to collaborate anymore now that I can do it in a matter of 10 minutes of skimming the tweets from my PLN.  
All I can say is; this is what 9 days with a PLN did for one teacher in a district, imagine a year with 10 teachers or 100 teachers.  Where will it take us all?