How exactly do you give a PLN to someone? Several suggestions have been made today, but the one you pick depends on your relationship with your administrator.  Instead of signing up for a Twitter account for them I am going to offer to help them set up one up. I will have a profile picture of them ready to go  and I will have some suggestions for their biography.  I will also show them how to manage and share the information that they find valuable so they can become an asset to their PLN.

I have created this list of 50 educators with my two administrators in mind.  I have chosen these educators based on how much I think my administrators will get out of following them.  I have selected a mix of teachers, administrators, professors, educational technologists, and journalists.  So here they are in no particular order:

• karlfisch
• kdumont
• shareski
• mwesch
• mguhlin
• chrislehmann
• hdiblasi
• isteconnects
• kjarrett
• LarryFerlazzo
• jwindsor
• budtheteacher
• teach42
• MikeGras
• oswego98
• Edu4U
• lkolb
• AngelaMaiers
• ddrapper
• bbarreda
• plnaugle
• jutecht
• dstall
• SuzanneWhistler
• ScottElia
• watcanz
• wfryer
• rmbyrne
• mcleod
• kellyhines
• timlauer
• woscholar
• pgeorge
• Astro_Mike
• principalspage
• canyonsdave
• garystager
• Web20Classroom
• tomwhitby
• paulrwood
• lthumann
• courosa
• rickweinberg
• HallDavidson
• edutopia
• bengrey
• dianafingal
• WendyDrexler
• teachakidd
• bethstill (You didn’t think I’d forget to add myself, did you?)

I work up to the realization today that my summer is quickly coming to an end. I go back to school in two short weeks. I am sure the time will fly by, but I am OK with that. This year I am so excited to get back to school for so many reasons. I miss my coworkers and my students. Most of all I miss my routine!

The vast majority of you who are reading this post already know about the ISTE Newbie project. The project has a new face and a new goal this year. Last year so many of you supported the project because you were familiar with Richard Byrne, author of FreeTech4Teachers. This year Jason Schrage (@oswego98 on Twitter) will be blogging about his experiences as a classroom teacher. I hope that teachers who are new are apprehensive about using technology or who are simply new to the conversation will read his blog. The inherent problem of targeting this audience is that they are NOT on Twitter. I am counting on all of you in my PLN to help spread the word about this project in your district. As you go back to work please tell people about this project. Please subscribe to his blog and add the Newbie badge to your blog. I have also created some business cards that you can print and share.

Please share your suggestions on how to promote this project. While you are at it make sure you join the ISTE Newbie support group on the Classroom 2.0 Ning.

I received an email from Jen Wagner yesterday.  Jen has been part of my PLN for some time now. After reading my post on Ways to Support the ISTE Newbie Project Jen told me that she wanted to donate 10% of the earnings of her new book, Guessthewordle, to this project. I would like to encourage you to look into purchasing this book which. Doing so will allow you to support two members of your PLN at the same time. Guessthewordle can also be downloaded onto your iPod! At $5, it is a superb deal! If you are new to Wordle then check out their website.

Thanks again Jen for your generosity. You are helping prove once again that we really are all in this together.

This post is also on Wes Fryer’s blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity. If you are inclined to comment, please post on his site so we can have the conversation in one place.

I have had a post brewing in my head for a very long time and I think this is the perfect forum in which to bring this issue to light. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss a problem that so many of us have, but are unwilling to acknowledge. The issue I am referring to is finding a balance between the various aspects of our lives. More specifically, I am an going to discuss the amount of time we spend online versus time we spend with our families.

I have two great loves in my life: my family and my career. I am passionate about both of them, but lately it seems like work has overshadowed my family. If I am being honest I would have to say that for the better part of the last year my family has taken a backseat to my career. I teach and develop online classes. Most of this is done at home on my own time due to the constant interruptions at school which occur even during my prep time.

I also have developed an amazing PLN that I love interacting with, but each minute I spend with them is a minute that I could (and should) be spending with my family. My family does not quite fully comprehend that I learn so much on Twitter. The other thing that they do not understand is that some of the friendships I have made on Twitter are very meaningful.

My husband made the awful mistake of giving in to my request and bought me a BlackBerry for Valentine’s Day this last year. I am now connected to all of my email accounts, Google chat, and Twitter around the clock. While I think this is great my family is not as thrilled. You see, I have not yet mastered the art of unplugging and taking a tech break. I enjoy the ability to connect to my network at any time from any place. My family is not impressed that I make myself so easily accessible to the world.

Last week I walked away for a few hours. I actually powered down my laptop and cell phone and I snuggled up with my husband in our favorite over-sized to watch a movie. When I had trouble remember the last time we did that I realized that I have been plugged in for way too long! It finally occurred to me that I need to find some balance. While I love working and I am not in danger of burning out; I am missing out on some very important things in my life. I am just not sure how an online teacher spend less time online, but I will figure it out.

Twitter, blogs and emails can wait, but my family can’t. I still have a lot of work to do online this summer, but I am going to turn off Twitter and I am going to purposefully neglect my reader. While I am online I need to focus on the task at hand. I need to learn to become more efficient when I work. I get tend to get sidetracked very easily! I am not quite sure how I will do this, but I need to find a balance.

I know other people have faced the same issues. How have you managed to strike a balance between work and family time? What are some of the suggestions you have for finding an adequate amount of time for each?

The first time I heard of Leadership Day was last year. I had only just started blogging and felt like there was not much I could contribute. When I saw Scott McLeod’s post on it this year I felt like I might have something to add to the conversation. I spent hours thinking of something brilliant to say, but there were no flashes of inspiration. Then it hit me! Administrators need to know more about the benefits of social networking and how it can be used to help their teachers stay on top of the latest developments and trends in education.

I started developing my personal learning network (PLN) in April 2008. I joined  the NECC Ning and immediately started making connections with people who were attending the National Educational Educating Computing Conference in San Antonio. I also joined Twitter and that is when I really saw my PLN grow. It was not long before I was making true connections with people around the world.  There are a few people in my PLN that I work so closely with that I feel like we are coworkers.

In April I decided to test the power of my favorite social networking site, Twitter. I wanted to see if it was possible for the few hundred people in my network to work together to do something good for someone. I decided to ask for donations to help send a teacher to NECC. I asked Richard Byrne to be to the “newbie” and he gladly agreed. Within two weeks we met the $1500 goal. My plan had worked!

Stop and think for a minute about the implications that this has on learning.  I am a teacher in rural western Nebraska who was able to make a difference because of my personal learning network. I was able to help send a teacher from Maine to a technology conference in Washington DC.  People who knock social networking need to hear this story.

Can you imagine a student at your school harnessing the power of Twitter to change the world? I would like to ask you to start looking into the positive aspect of social networking. Teachers and students who are networked have so many more learning opportunities each day. No less than 99% of my professional learning takes place on Twitter. Before you totally write off what social networking can do in your schools for your teachers and students, please take some time to explore what it means to those of us who rely on it every day.