Fife Schools Technology

An idea gaining popularity in educational circles is that of a Personal Learning Network (PLN). While there are different variations on the definition of a PLN, I see it as all of those things that someone uses to further their own education and learning. It can include more formal environments such as teachers and classmates in a school setting but through the use of the Internet, many informal resources and connections can be used to further one’s own learning.

Blogs and social networks are examples of how we can learn from others and make connections with individuals and groups that share common interests.

For example, if you teach math, you may do a Twitter search for math teachers and follow some other educators teaching math to find out what others are doing and gain ideas.

I’ll share more ideas in the future but growing your PLN can start with a simple Google search.

How can you grow your PLN?

Sometimes words get used in certain circles and it can be helpful to know what they mean to those circles. In the tech world, the “enterprise” is such a word.

Techies have a reputation for being geeks and geeks have a reputation for liking Star Trek but this time we aren’t talking about the starship that’s on a mission to boldly go where no one has gone before.

In the business world, ”enterprise” refers to the overall organization and in particular, the overall job of the organization. For us, it refers to the big picture of the role of technology in the Fife School District and is one aspect of our decision-making process.

One of the challenges we have is finding the balance between what an individual computer user may want to do on their computer and how the choices that individuals make impact the group as a whole. We need to weight the potential benefits against the potential problems. Those problems can include:

• Security concerns (i.e. if this free program is installed, will it install a virus too?)
• Bandwidth concerns (i.e. will this program slow down the network because it is sending a lot of data across the network)
• Tech support concerns (i.e. how much technology personnel time will it require to install or fix problems)
• Cost concerns (i.e. free doesn’t always mean free).

While we try to do our best to support the needs of computer users, we always need to filter requests through the lens of the “enterprise” to make sure we can adequately support those requests and all that is entailed. In other words, we like to be able to say “yes” but sometimes we need to say “no”… but we like saying “yes” better.

Live long and prosper!