I think being a connected instructor means that you have a support network for yourself and for your teaching. It means that you work to constantly keep up to date with your teaching methods and keep coming up with creative ideas to help your students in a better way. It means that you take the time to find the best activities for the concepts that you're learning and are constantly learning yourself.
I think that having a PLN is a very valuable thing. It allows you to be able to keep learning new things as well as share your ideas with others. Students and teachers can both benefit as we all should be in a continual process of learning.
I am absolutely a lurker. I am an avid consumer of social media but I don't do a lot to give back. I think that being a lurker is not necessarily a bad thing, but that you should try to at least share good ideas so that others can find them easier. It's important to give back if you can, I just normally don't because I find myself comparing myself to others.
I really like this blog post Julia! I agree, I believe that a connected instructor should constantly be learning, but also help their students learn so that they can succeed. I also think that a PLN is super helpful for teachers because it allows us to share ideas and resources, and teachers and students will both benefit. Great job!
I agree! A PLN helps us to stay connected and learn new ideas from other teachers. Both students and teachers can benefit from having one.
And true. I'm a lurker too. It is always useful to see other people's ideas. I had an art teacher once who said good artists borrow and great artists steal, so I guess using other people's ideas is a great thing if it will benefit your classroom and students.