Anytime Anywhere: A Discovery Educator’s Guide to Lifelong Learning
Personal learning network? Who has time? Rather, who doesn’t have time to join like minded professionals who also don’t want to waste time? As a leader of a district, school, or classroom, you need to know what new ideas are floating about, what old ideas are being reinvented, and what old ideas are being discredited. Blogs, social networks, and other Web 2.0 sites are fantastic places to develop and grow a personal learning network (PLN) on a variety of topics. This session will help participants make connections with other educators to increase opportunities to grow professionally.
53. Challenge!
• If you’re not using Twitter, I challenge you
to:
– Follow 50 educators
• Use our list to get started
– Log in and read for 5 minutes everyday for 2
weeks
I am Porter Palmer, Director of the DEN Global Community. That means my job is to create and implement opportunities for educators to connect, collaborate, and learn. I invite you to connect with me via email, on Twitter as @DENprincess, and by following my photo journal at porterpalmer.com. You’ll notice that’s a SC phone number, and I have a SC accent.
That’s because I grew up in Greenwood. My family still lives there.
I graduated from Lander University.
I taught special education in SC schools.
working with students with a variety of disabilities and of just about any age during my 8 years in the classroom.
Currently, I live just a little bit south of Flint, Michigan
I was encouraged as a youngster here in South Carolina and continue to try to be a lifelong learner. As educators, we hope that our students will find a passion for learning. We can help them by modeling this, by being lifelong learners ourselves. The way I do this is by building a PLN.
So what is a PLN? Some people call it a personal learning network, others a professional learning network. whichever you prefer, the important thing to remember is that it is a learning network. A PLN is a 2 way street, where members both learn and contribute.
Personal learning networks are not new. We learn and contribute in face to face situations all the time
More and more though that learning and contributing is taking place on line through social networking sites.
The important part to remember is that PLNs are powered by you.
There are two questions you’ll need to ask yourself when joining a PLN. We’ll start with just getting our feet wet by discussing question 1.
You can do a lot of lifelong learning passively.
I am a certified SCUBA diver, ham radio operator, square foot gardener, not so extreme couponer, amateur shutterbug, part-time RV-er, and geocacher. So in addition to continuing to learn about teaching, these are the things I want to learn about. What about you?
One of the main ways that I learn is by reading blogs. I have hundreds of blogs that I might read in a day.
The DEN blogs are my go to source for learning about education. It’s not because I am a Discovery Education employee, it’s because educators from all over the US voluntarily share here. Members of the DEN Leadership Council, post several hundred times each month on topics that are important to them.
But I like to read a lot of blogs about a variety of topics. Going to a bunch of different websites is inefficient, so I let Google Reader do it for me. I skim through the titles of the blogs
and just click on the ones that really interest me.
Are you already using RSS?
Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers is one of my favorites. Let me show you how easy it is to subscribe.
Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers is one of my favorites. Let me show you how easy it is to subscribe.
Steve Anderson’s Web 2.0 classroom blog is another favorite. This blog post from just this week is all about this step of getting our feet wet. This time where we’re just lurking.
I connect with people that I have met at DEN events
I also connect with people I have never met in real life, but have met virtually through my PLN. Since becoming virtual friends with Lucy, we have met in real life.
I haven’t actually met Allison, but If I can learn from you, I’m willing to connect.
You can learn from thought leaders in the field of education like ed historian Diane Ravitch
This is a post from one of the blogs I’ve already shared
You can also connect with organizations like ISTE
Edutopia
and discovery education
Because you’re a school administrator, I do want to take just a minute to talk to you about using facebook at school.
Facebook is the most used website on the internet. It’s the second most accessed, but number one in time spent.
Setting up and using a facebook page for your school or district allows you to tell your story.
share important information with parents
reach out to families where they are
give your community the chance to celebrate your accomplishments.Showcase student/faculty workCommunicate with students, parents, alumni (expressive/receptive)Share links, videos, picturesTransparency
If you choose to share on facebook, here are some words to live by
Twitter is probably the place that I learn the most.
You don’t even need a twitter account to start learning. Go to anybody’s twitter page, not just twitter.com. I suggest going to Discovery Ed’s. At the top, there’s a search bar.
Hashtags
Often times a search for one hashtag will lead you to others
#AppyHour is a Tweet Chat held on the third Tuesday of each month and hosted by the Texas Leadership Council of the Discovery Educator Network.Next topic in June: iPads for students with Special Needs June 19, 2012 at 8PM ET
You don’t just have to search for topics with hashtags. Interested in learning about using a wiki?
Google maps?
Now if you do sign up for an account, you can also ask for help.
Classroom 2.0 Then they archive the sessions on itunes.