Technology Blog 1: Developing a Connected Learning Model and how it connects to my potential career choice.

   

      

 Chapter two talks about personal learning networks and how educators use these networks to help them grow and reach goals. As a licensed Massage Therapist for the past fifteen years, I can testify that continuing education courses, websites, and social media platforms have helped me stay consistent and motivated in my profession. Facebook has been a great way for me to connect with other therapists to learn which courses they recomend. I connect and collaborate with other professionals during our two or more days together every other year and get their instagram or Linkd in information to stay in touch. This past year at a massage therapy event, I met an occupational therapist named Jeff who owns his own practice. He holds two outdoor events each year and invites massage therapists to do chair massages. This sounds like an excellent opportunity to make some extra money and to further my personal human connections at the same time. I will be able to hand out business cards and progress my personal client base. Utilizing personal learning networks helps me become a more experienced therapist, learn new modalities, and offers opportunites to connect and collaborate with other professionals. 

I feel that the text relates to my future career as a clinical mental health specialist in that personal learning networks and connecting with other professionals in the field will help me to make wise decisions in opening up my private practice. My practice will be a wellness center that offers massage therapy, counseling that includes one on one support alongside group therapy, personal training, and nutrition. My son who is now ten years old was diagnosed with Leukemia when he was four years old. In my experience, I needed to heal the mind, body, and soul in order to cope with the trauma I faced. After three years of treatment at CHOP, my son is the picture of health! This experience changed me on so many levels and led me to the path I am on in becoming a licensed professional counselor. I hope to be able to work with families battling childhood cancer and specialize in helping them overcome the trauma associated with this devastating experience. Through social media platforms, connecting with non-profit organizations such as “Kisses for Kyle Foundation,” I continue to expand my connections so that when I have my degree, I can offer my services to those who need it. Being organized with my clients by using a secure data base such as Drop Box can help me save client information in a way that will allow me to utilize my storage space.

This chapter has helped me realize that staying connected in different ways will help make my future practice a success. I want to develop a strong personal learning network so that I feel confident without having to rely on someone else to organize my resources for me. Finding a local community in the world of mental health will help educate me in a purposeful way. I have already made connections with mental health clinicians, several who have their own practices. Finding a global network is definitely next on my list. Becoming a part of a bounded community will allow me to expand on a global level, seeing “the big picture” of what is fully possible instead of limiting my goals and dreams. Before reading this chapter, I thought that I would wait to build this network until I was finished with graduate school however, now I appreciate how beginning this network now will benefit me so that I can begin learning more about the industry. I would like to utilize RSS feeds, twitter and wikis more in the future.