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Wk 6: “Change Comes From Reflection….”

  1. What are two lessons you learned about building PLNs?

The possibilities are endless! There are so many things you can incorporate and use in your PLN to enhance the experience/connect with the audience. Don’t get me wrong; I am generally “in the know” when it comes to the different applications, social media platforms and networks available to me. Not only does my professional work require me to research and use multiple ways to connect with my colleagues and audience, but I also have 4 children of all different ages and they are very attuned to various ways of networking!

One thing I have learned from building the PLN for this course is that it’s an active, on-going effort. In order to network with people on various platforms or through multiple modes of communication, you must be present, consistent and active! It shouldn’t be something that consumes all of your free time, but like any general relationship you build on, it takes time, effort and attention!

I have also learned that when you work in a professional field like mine, you REALLY have to do some digging to find a viable and active audience to connect with. The early childhood field is picking up momentum nation-wide in general, but we still have a long way to go by way of supports, resources and funding. Hot topics surrounding ECE currently are wages and workforce shortage but my POP was a tough area to connect with others on.

2. Briefly describe the PoP you chose and why.

The POP I chose to focus on was how to increase the attendance of my workshops. Currently, I am a Professional Development Coordinator for DIEEC at The University of Delaware. My team develops and hosts professional learning experiences (PLN’s) for those in leadership positions. Since the COVID pandemic, we have been struggling with our attendance to our workshops and since then, have taken many different approaches to encourage participation as well as enhance the experience for all.

3. Reflect on the technology tools you used this semester to connect with your PLN (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Make a list and rate each one’s effectiveness.

For my PLN, I have used the following tools. I have also rated them, #1 being the most effective and the last on my list, the least effective.

  1. Blogs
  2. Facebook
  3. Instagram
  4. Youtube
  5. Twitter
  6. Website-Bright morning

4. How might you promote your own school’s work through the use of social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram?

The organization I work for is already active on a few of the major social media platforms-Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I promote what they are doing, sponsoring and hosting by sharing their posts on my own media pages. I tag them when I make posts and I incorporate QR codes/info on how to find us on social media throughout my PLE’s (workshops).

5. Pose one question to your peer on your blog post about the development of your PLN. Be specific.

I guess if I had any one question for my peer reading this post it would be there any suggestions you have that could help me to expand my resources and supports with my POP that I maybe didn’t tap into?

Wk 5: Resources I Can Rely On For My PoP

  1. In two well-written paragraphs, summarize information you found from two resources that directly relate to your PoP.

Improving Attendance at Professional Development Events (newforums.com)-Improving attendance is the goal! Though this sites audience is geared towards those who provide higher education professional developments, the strategies can still be applicable to my area of work. The author, Dr. Hal Blythe, identifies 6 strategies to help improve attendance: 1. Create a name for your sessions, 2. Try to theme your events with something valued by your audience, 3. Establish an electronic registration system, 4. Publicize the events multiple ways, 5. Utilize a workshop format, 6. Try to use a variety of workshop facilitators. Though this is a short-and-sweet blog posting, it hits on a few ideas I had not considered before. This weekend, I had my first in-person workshop and a few of these ideas could have helped to put leaders in seats, especially number 4: publicize the event in multiple ways.

Home – Bright Morning (brightmorningteam.com)-This is an incredible resource that I have used many times before. Bright Morning is an international education, coaching and consulting firm that was developed and designed by Elena Agular. She is a writer, leader, teacher, coach and podcaster. She’s also the author of seven highly acclaimed books, primarily based on coaching. This site has an abundance of information for the viewer including trainings, blog posts, newsletters, podcast and how to bring the Bright Morning organization to your program. She’s such a great resource for my POP because she takes an approach of improving your PD’s by making the overall experience one that is impactful, insightful and collaborative amongst colleagues. She also offers a wide variety of literature and information on coaching, which is very helpful for my area of work.

2. State in which sources you identified the information.

As I mentioned in #1, The first resource was a blog post from New Forum Press. The second resource was a .com site that is a platform for the Bright Morning Educational Firm.

3. Explain the steps you took to verify the information. Refer directly to the CRAAP criteria and the core concepts outlined in the Keller & Share (2005) article. Summarize your view of the information’s reliability and provide a rationale. 

Both of these sites not only look professional and authentic, but all links are active, both authors are respectable professionals in their individual field of work and both sites have mission statements. Though New Forums Press hasn’t had a recent post since 2017, there are vast topics to choose information and resources on in a blog-format from reliable sources. There is extensive background info. on all authors from the site, in addition to multiple postings by each. I can also trace their education/experience online. Elena is an author for 7 books, 4 of which I have, and I’m currently reading as a work-study. This site has constant updates and posts on the podcast and blog. The site also has a calendar the identifies when and where Elena and her team will be hosting/presenting and/or offering trainings nation-wide. I can also locate her educational firm through multiple search engines. There is no doubt in my mind that both of these resources are reliable and authentic.

4. Include an APA-formatted bibliography of resources cited. 

Blythe, H. (2016, May 18). How to Improve Faculty Attendance at Higher Ed Professional Development Events. New Forums Press. https://newforums.com/title-list/featured-authors/hal-blythe/

Bright Morning Consulting LLC (n.d.). Bright Morning. Bright Morning Team. https://newforums.com/title-list/featured-authors/hal-blythe/

Wk 4:”Let Me Tell You ‘Bout My Work Buddies/Mentor…”

  1. Describe the plan you outlined.

Per my usual work schedule, I meet with my mentor, (and supervisor) Jen, twice this week (every other week) and my work buddies, Niki and Val, once this week (once a week at least). We meet with each other to discuss what we are working on individually and as a PDC team and allow space for brainstorming and collaboration opportunities on upcoming projects.

Jen is by far my only mentor in this new PDC role. Not only does she have a lot of experience in the role, but she coaches me through projects, ideas and my professional development. We dive into self-reflection, motivation and creating personal goals. Whenever I am stuck in thought, on a task or am feeling good about a particular aspect of my job, she is there to talk me through it, come to conclusions and be a cheerleader in my corner. Niki, Val and I have become close since we became a team in our PDC roles together. They both come from a different background of education and experience and I am so grateful for their support, constructive feedback and light personalities. We can relate to each other as we develop and grow in our positions and are present for each other when we need validation or bounce ideas off of each other.

So really, this was a simple task to complete. When we meet with each other, we do so via Zoom. Our meetings usually are 1 hour in length. I was scheduled to meet with my mentor on Monday and team buddies on Thursday, along with my mentor.

2. Explain whether you followed the plan when it was time to enact it or whether you needed to make modifications.

No modifications were necessary. It is part of my work schedule to meet with them. I did, however, meet and communicate with my mentor more than once this week.

3. Explain the direct communication that took place between you and the two buddies/experts. How many times did you interact this week? How did the interactions come about?

Main communication with everyone happened through ZOOM, the way most, if not all, of our interactions do. Our informal communication happens through ZOOM chat, which did occur throughout the week with everyone. As I mentioned earlier, we schedule to meet with each other frequently so as to be supportive, collaborative and stay connected since we do not see each other in person and work pretty much remotely at all times.

4. Describe the interactions. Were they positive? What was the content? How did you choose the content you discussed? How did the conversation/interaction inform your thinking about the PoP?

Whenever we are together, buddies, mentor or everyone, it is ALWAYS productive, informative and supportive. This week, we were able to touch on tech integration when it comes to our work. As I mentioned in my POP, we are always looking for ways to increase the enrollment of our PLE’s. How do we improve the experience? How do we reach our audience who is joined virtually? What can we add to make the presentation more engaging?

This week we discussed different tools like Powtoon and Voicethread as possible candidates for future integration. To my buddies and my Suprise, our organization actually has an account with Powtoon! We discussed how we could use their different features to not only support engagement AND interest, but that it offered a different way to reach the adult learner, who is more receptive to visuals. Voicethread could support collaborative work amongst participants allow for pre-recorded presentations or activities to embed into PLE experiences and support the audio/visual adult learner. Check out my Powtoon promo for Module 4 Activity 2 below!

Wk 3: There’s a “Niche” for that….(…or is there?)

  1. Describe the plan you outlined.

I think we can all agree that Early Childhood Education is, well, underrated. When I told my grandparents about the field I work in, their response was, “…and that’s a thing?!” Mind you, when I told them, they were in their late seventies so ECE was a foreign language to them. To this day, the search for quality ECE supports, resources is HARD. It’s not prevalent in the media masses, except when something goes terribly wrong at a program, nor is it represented well in educational institutions. What I’m getting at is that this was a tough task! My first step was to poke around social media. Facebook is my main source and I have a few ECE pages I follow on a regular basis. One page is for ECE professionals and another for ECE educators. The professional page isn’t as active and doesn’t have many followers as the teachers page. I should also mention that the teacher page is a more of a “OK guys you’ll never believe what happened to me in the classroom today..”, letting-off-steam kind of page. I follow Elena Aguilars pages as well. I would then expand my search on Twitter and tap into the new pages I follow from Elena Aguilar, ECE Ireland, ECE Experts and ECE Webinars. From there, I could explore the world of hashtags to see what kind of real-time conversation was happening around or at least closely associated with my POP. Hashtags such as #ECE, #ECEPD and #ECEeducation would start my search. Next, I would tap into the sites of the pages that I follow on social media. For example, checking out Elena Aguilar’s Bright Morning website for live/recent discussion opportunities and ECE Webinars site for engagement opportunities. As a last resort, I could visit NAEYC or DEAEYC websites for blog and/or social media activity.

2. Explain if you followed the plan when it was time to enact it or if you needed to make modifications.

I did follow the plan above for the most part because I already knew what was readily available to me. I felt myself having to come up with more creative ways to search for such a specific topic so that I could get more results.

3. Explain the direct communication that took place between you and at least one niche groups. How many times did you interact this week? How did the interactions come about? Were they with one person, a small group, or the entire community?

I attempted to interact with three groups: ECE Professionals and ECE Educators Facebook page and The Art of Coaching page, hosted by Elena Aguilar. I chose these are my “Niche” groups because of how generally active they all are. There are posts daily if not multiple posts in a day on all three pages. Unfortunately, I was not successful in getting responses to my posts. I only reached out once and since all three pages are on Facebook, the posts are visible to all.

4. Describe the interactions. Were they positive? What was the content? How did you choose the content you discussed? Will you continue to interact with these groups?

Again, I did not receive any responses or feedback to my posts. For the two ECE pages, I asked a question that was relative to my POP. In addition, I asked for resources or supports that could be shared. My topic area in question may just not be very relevant to the audience on the page, as my specific occupation has a narrow population of professionals WITHIN an underserved field of work.

Wk 2: Hello?…Is There Anyone Out There?

Explain the process of identifying the organizations and experts whose work relates to your PLN. How did you learn about their work? Did you know about them prior to this assignment?

Usually, my process is the same when I search for anything I need more information, resources or supports on; A Google search is the easiest and quickest way for me to get what I need. For this assignment, however, I wanted to try using Twitter and podcasting in my search efforts. I used terms such as “ECE PD’s”, “ECE professional development support” and “ECE” to start my search. I had some great results and after sifting through, I found one in particular I was familiar with on both platforms. The expert is Elena Agular and her organization is called Bright Morning. I am familiar with some of her publishing’s and own two of her books. I was unaware of her organization, podcasts, trainings, tools and webinars. This video provides a more in-depth look as to all her organization has to offer: https://vimeo.com/781325225/98116a5593?embedded=false&source=video_title&owner=103342322. Our PDC team is always looking for ways to improve upon the quality of our work. From advertising and recruitment efforts to the delivery and follow-up coaching, we want our PLEs to be impactful, insightful, motivational, inspirational and most importantly, utilized to improve upon current practices. This week’s assignment made me dig a little deeper into my POP to uncover a more important layer to my problem. It’s not just about getting bodies into seats but reaching our audience in their areas of need and helping them to discover the desire to change and improve upon their practice for the better of their program.

State the content curation tool you will be using to create your PLN and how it worked for this step of the assignment.

As I stated earlier, I used Twitter with key-word searches as well as key word searches associated with “podcasts” in my Google search. Though these helped with my initial search, I will be using the Bright Morning website to create my PLN: Home – Bright Morning (brightmorningteam.com).

Explain all the ways you can connect with the professional organization. Does it have Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, or is content presented solely on the websites? Which have you implemented?

The website, Home – Bright Morning (brightmorningteam.com) has so many ways to connect with Elena Agular’s organization:

I have explored the social media platforms listed as well as the Podcasts available. The website has so much to offer in addition to all that is listed above.

Describe at least two resources you found through the professional organizations that related to your PoP. Who wrote the documents? How were they presented? How do they relate to your PoP?

Elena Agular-It’s All in the Details
Elena Agular-When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

These are two episodes from the Bright Morning Podcast with Elena Agular. These two topics made me think about my own PD’s (at our organization we call them Professional Learning Experiences) and how important it is to consider these areas before hand. Most of my PLE’s are virtual through ZOOM and trying to reach my audience can be a challenge! Virtual “classrooms” present technical issues like poor internet connection, inoperable camera or microphones and limited access when using a smart phone. In addition, you lose that person-to-person connection, it’s challenging to engage individually as well as a group and as an instructor, your often met with an already-distracted audience. Though Elena is relating to an in-person experience with these two podcast topics, it’s still applicable to my own practice and bares the questions, Am I paying attention to the details in my PLE’s and how am I practicing for adaptive facilitation?

APA-formatted bibliography of references cited.

Bright Morning. (2023). Bright Morning Consulting.Home – Bright Morning (brightmorningteam.com).