Blog Post #6

At first I had absolutely no idea what a Personal Learning Network (or PLN) was, but after watching the second video, Building Your PNL- A Primer for Anyone, Anderson said something that made me feel differenly. He said that every student already has some form of a PNL. I though about this and it all hit me, the sites that I use for what I consider to be social networking could also serve as my Personal Learning Network. Of course Facebook would be an option, along with Twitter, blog posts, and various others. Of all of the networking sites, I prefer Pinterest. Pinterest for a long time had been though of as an arts and crafts website, but in reality it is much more. It is a site where you can get together with people from all over the world and share ideas and opinions on various topics and ideas.
Pinterest is a safe site where a person is free to join with just an email. After signing up, a person is able to make as many "boards" as they feel they need depending on what they are looking for. For example some of my boards are titled: "For When I am a History Teacher," and "Art." If I want to add an idea or teaching technique that I find useful on the site, then I simply repin it to one of my boards for later use. You may also follow various people whom you find interesting and have good ideas. People also discuss ideas by commenting on them and emailing each other. I know that this may not be a Personal Learning Network in the traditional sense, but I know plenty of people on Pinterest. In fact I do not know many people who are not on it. What is so great about Pinterest is that if you find something on the internet that you want to remeber, you can also repin it onto one of your boards. On my various boards I have collected tons of information from humdreds of different websites. I would have never found this information if someone out there had not though to bring it to Pinterest for everyone to see. This shows how Pinterest works, millions of people sharing information with eachother.
I am giving the sites Netvibes, and Symbaloo a shot though. It is difficult to learn how to work these sites, and they actually remind me a lot of Pinterest. I have created accounts on both of these sites and am steadily working through my confusion in the possibility that I may create a better PNL than the one I have already established on Pinterest.