Online Professional Development

In the last month I have tried out some online learning opportunities. I first started PLENK, which is an experimental learning community that is doing guided experimentation with creating personal learning envirnments. People are registered from all over the world. Each week, the facilitators unveil articles about a different aspect of the personal learning network/community/environment. People read and comment and give suggestions to help flesh out this up-and-coming field. There are some live opportunities with Elluminate as the the app that lets you hook in live. It is easy to use: I know this because I was able to do it, and I have technophobia when it comes to microphones and logging in, etc. I ended up listening in only. What LM_Net calls "lurking". I highly recommend it for a starting place. Not too threatening. I figure if and when I get comfortable I can ad the participation piece.

My second experience is with the K12 Online Conference 2010. They bring together nationally known speakers that can be experienced "live" or downloaded via video for later. The conference is all about using web 2.0 tools for learning and has components presented by students, by administration, and by librarians. I am able to get information in 15-30 minute presentations that allows me to decide if I want to learn more about a topic. I can do as much or as little as I want, and everything is archived so I could look at it later. They have archived materials from other years as well.

Altogether and interesting experience. I know that no one has time for this. However, we have an obligation as teachers and employees to be prepared to expose our students to this information so they will be prepared for the world. I know that it is not necessarily part of the "standards and benchmarks" but it is what they need to know in order to thrive and learn in our newest version of "the world."