ETFO AQ Winter 2012: PLN -Are you ready to learn?

Are you ready PLN? Are you ready to learn? Are you ready to learn one from another?

So what’s a PLN? Personal. Learning. Network. I added periods after each word because separately, they each mean one thing, and together, they represent one of the goals of this course. You have chosen to take this course, and are therefore making a personal decision to develop professionally. Your challenge over the next few months is to learn as much as you can about the integration of technology into classrooms and schools. Or you may be required to help someone else learn about what you are doing to engage your students using technology. The network that you have entered includes those in the class, the instructor (me!), along with people you know who are experts in your place of work, your school district, and beyond. Also, my PLN is connected to this course because I learn from them, and share that knowledge with you. Together, we are a Personal Learning Network that will collaboratively build and construct knowledge, share resources and best practices and challenge beliefs and current practices.

Recently, my school district held a 21st Century Teaching and Learning Symposium. Our guest speaker, Dean Shareski (@shareski) suggested that the 21st century learning model includes some major paradigm shifts. Shareski’s Blog is worth following, by the way. His points were quite challenging for the audience.

Two new paradigms to consider:

1. You are what you SHARE! As teachers, we should share everything we know and resources we have for the betterment of ourselves, our students, our colleagues, our school.
2. Who’s YOUR Teacher? Everyone with whom you come in contact is someone that can teach you something. Students teach adults, adults challenge each other. Teachers help students. Principals learn from their staff. An interesting Blogger, Joe Bower, keeps a chart of thought provoking challenges on the wall in his classroom and on his For the Love of Learning Blog. “Think for yourself- your teacher might be wrong!” and “Learning, after all, depends not on what students do so much as on how they regard and construe what they do.”

So, let’s learn from one another!  What will you share with the class?

Let’s start today!