During the Learning 2.008 Conference one of the most interesting workshops was about Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). A PLN is your own personalized educational virtual environment. It is made of blogs you read, people you connect with, videos you watch, podcasts you listen to, and how you process this information and share it in a new and creative way of your own. Of course, you can also use sources that are normal print, people you interact with daily, workshops you attend, and courses you take. Here are some examples of people and places in my PLN:
Online:
TeacherTube, Edutopia, ASCD, United Streaming are sources for me. I read articles and posts and watch movies about administration and teaching in order to continually think about education.
Jeff Utecht’s Blog the The Thinking Stick is full of interesting ideas and great information about technology in the classroom, the school, and life. I try to read something from his blog on a weekly basis.
Dr. Larry Creedon who I email and exchange ideas with about Educational Leadership.
Dr. Richard Cunningham is another former professor of mine that I continue to dialogue about education with.
Online courses at Lehigh University. I’m earning my second Masters degree through Lehigh while in Korea.
Offline:
Conferences and workshops: I engage in professional development activities both as an audience and as a presenter.
Discussions with Colleagues: It is incredible what can be learning and shared at even simply in-house faculty discussions. Too bad that administrators rarely capitalize on this resource. I receive the best tips, advice, and suggestions from people I work with on a daily basis.
Committees: Chairing and co-chairing committees in the school community is an excellent way to improve the school. Too many teachers think of these activities as wasted time, but it is only wasted if you make it that way.
In addition to these things that I engage in, there are forums and groups to join. The Internet is a vast environment where literally millions of people can be accessed for help and information. Start exploring!
