4 Ways To Grow Your Personal Learning Network This Week

“Alone we are smart, but together we are brilliant. We can use the collective wisdom to do great things when we are connected.”

I said that way back on September 17, 2013 and yet I think it is even more true today than even back then.

When I was in the classroom, I felt isolated as a teacher. Teaching middle school math and science my first few years out of college I had ideas as to what I wanted to do but I really needed help. I would reach out to my colleagues but many were apprehensive to give away their secrets. They wanted their kids to be the best using the methods they had developed over the years. All I wanted to do was improve and I felt stuck.

We live in an age where we have near real time access to just about anything you want to know and to the people who know it best. Social media allows us to connect, to learn, to grow and to reflect not only within ourselves but with each other. As just as my quote says we are brilliant together.

Recently, on a webinar with my friend Erin Olson, she talked about an activity she does with teachers. She has them write 3 things they need to improve their learning and 3 things they can give to improve the learning of others. As you could guess it’s easy for them to write the 3 things they need. However, when asked about the 3 things to give many struggle to come up with one. Many educators still believe they have little to offer to improve the learning of their colleagues.

All of us have something to offer. An incredible lesson or teaching method that just worked. Or maybe it was an idea that was born out of a struggle to get kids to better understand their content. All of us have had those wins that could help others win too. Being a connected educator is more than just taking ideas from a Twitter chat or even this blog post. It’s about always being in pursuit of that selfish goal of improving our learning so we can improve learning for kids.

Our personal learning networks are all different. Mine looks different from yours and yours from mine. But that is where the beauty lies. Each of us has something different to learn and different to offer. They are going to naturally look different. And they are a constant work in progress. We don’t just decide to have a personal learning network and we find some folks to follow and we are done. Connected educators constantly have to be chasing down the learning they need and the educators who know it best.

4 Ways To Grow Your Personal Learning Network This Week

Edweb-Most know Edweb for their awesome webinars (like this one this week on school culture.) But what many don’t know are the extensive communities that come with those webinars. In those communities there are blogs, messages boards and tons of people to follow and learn from. And you don’t have to feel like you have to visit all the time. At the end of the day you can get a simple email that tells you all that was discussed and upcoming events. You can participate at your pace. The Leadership 3.0, Early Childhood Learning Solutions, Game-Based Learning and Amazing Resources For Educators. Come for the webinars, stay for the conversations!

ASCD Edge-The ASCD Edge community is full of some of the brightest minds in education sharing blogs, having discussions and posting resources. You don’t have to be a member of ASCD (although you should be) to join. Create a free account and browse the hundreds of groups, and insightful blogs. The groups cover topics like Being A New Teacher, Mobile Learning, Problem Based Learning and more. And if you don’t find a group that suits your learning needs you can request a new one created for you.

Google Communities-Often overlooked, Google Communities can be a great place to connect with others on loads of topics. Of course they have many Google related like the Google Classroom community. But there are several other active ones like Connected Classroom, PBL, and Digital Leadership.

Voxer-This one will surprise many, because I am not a Voxer fan. I have used it sparingly and honestly don’t know if I even have the app on my phone any more. For me Voxer doesn’t work. For others it may be the best thing ever. Voxer is a 2-way, walkie-talkie type app. Think of it like leaving a voicemail for someone without calling. You can create small groups and leave longer voice messages or text. The app is free and many educators use them for book talks, reflection, or to, believe it or not deliver professional development. This is a very comprehensive list of ongoing Voxer conversations that you can jump into.

If you are looking for more ways to grow your PLN, Shaelynn Farnsworth and I recently wrote a blog post about why it’s important to be connected, and you can check our our resources we shared recently at ASCD.

It’s important to point out here that the tool is just the means we use to connect. It’s what we do with those connections that really matters. The art of being connected is in the conversations, the discussions, the debates, the learning, sharing and growing that all take place when we connect to each other.

Download The Post Image: https://spark.adobe.com/post/wWaq6mvPl5ESh/ 

Becoming Connected Is Easier Now More Than Ever

This post is sponsored by Samsung. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Across the globe educators just wrapped up celebrating Connected Educators Month. During October the focus was on helping all educators, everywhere, understand the importance of being connected to one another and an examination of all the ways to make that happen. It's always a fun month filled with book clubs, webinars, chats and conversations.

My one complaint with Connected Educators Month is that it's just a focus for a month. Being a Connected Educator can't be something we push once a month or for a week here and there. Being a Connected Educator is a mindset.

As Tom Whitby and I point out in our book, The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning (Corwin, 2014) we believe there are 8 things all Relevant, Connected Educators do:

• Practices and Models Lifelong Learning
• Views Failure As Part of the Process of Learning
• Believes in Sharing and Collaboration
• Willing to Explore, Question, Elaborate, and Advance Ideas Through Connections With Other Educators
• Uses Technology and it's Connection to Other Educators to Learn and Teach
• Uses the Tools of Technology to Personalize Their Professional Development
• Comfortable With New Technology and Shows a Willingness to Explore
• May Put Creation Over Content and Relevance Over Doctrine

These Tenets of being a Relevant, Connected Educator should be embraced by all in the teaching profession. We are deliberately provocative for a reason. In order to maintain relevancy in the classroom for students and each other, educators need to connect together, to learn, share, reflect and grow. 

While it sounds like a daunting task for those that are just beginning to explore this world, it doesn't have to be. Our mobility, use of social media and access to devices has made making connections easy and impactful. 

Learning On The Go-More and more educators are writing, reflecting and sharing through blogs and articles. Because of the shear volume it can be difficult to find exactly what you looking for. And who has time to sit in front of a laptop for hours searching for just the right blog post. We can use those in-between times because of our access to mobile to do some learning, growing and reflecting. Waiting for a doctors appointment? Picking up the kids after school? Any time we're waiting can be time for learning. 

Apps like Flipboard curate the web and find the content that you want to see. It allows the user to customize the sources and type of content you want to see. For example, I can give a piece of content and thumbs up and now the app knows I like that source and like that topic and it will find similar content for me. Apps like this not only make learning happen anywhere, it makes that learning truly personal. 

Personalizing Professional Development-Personalized learning doesn't have to stop at apps. Educators, now more than ever before have multiple options to take part in professional learning from the comfort of their own home. As Samsung points out in a great post, over 90% of teachers have a need for specific PD in digital resources. And in most cases these needs are drastically different (just as they are in the classroom). The reality is, districts can't provide personalized PD to every educator. Therefore, we have to seek out those places on our own to fill those gaps. 

Edweb is one of my favorites. Edweb is a group of communities on a wide variety of educational topics. Leadership, digital learning, the arts, school communications, even school gardens are just a handful of the 100's of communities that are there. Communities have message boards to share ideas and ask questions, blogs, and more. But the best part of Edweb are the free (and on-demand) webinars that take place there. On any given day you can find 2-4 free webinars on an even wider variety of topics. And after each webinar every participant gets a certificate of attendance. Can't attend a webinar live? No worries! You can view it on demand in the community. 

Reflecting on our Learning-Just as it's important for students to do, educators need to reflect on their learning and share that growth with others. Often we just need to talk-it-out with others to better understand our own positions and thoughts. Teaching can be isolating but it doesn't have to be. Alone we are smart but together we are brilliant. We have to work and share together to all be better. 

Twitter chats, as I have said for a very long time, can be a great starting point for these types of reflections. As a founder of #edchat, I have seen the evolution of Twitter chats over the last 7 years and seen the impact and power they can have for educators. In the beginning there were just a handful of chats to pick from. Today there are in upwards of 30 a day. Most states in the US have a chat, and there are chats that take place from all corners of the globe on just about any topic you can choose from. Check out the Twitter Chat schedule to learn more and, most importantly, commit to participating or lurking on a chat. 

As Educators, being connected should be an important part of our growth process. If we are truly committed to being lifelong learners and we want students to learn the importance of lifelong learning than we must use the power of mobility, social media and digital devices to reach out and learn, reflect and grow together. 

For more content like this, follow Samsung on Insights, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.

Building Your PLN-A Primer For Anyone

At ASCD2011 I sat down with the good folks over at Follett and talked about a wide variety of topics surrounding technology, leadership and more.

Here is the first part of the interview on Building A PLN.



What do you think? What are some other important aspects of PLN building or just network building in general. What works for you?

Get Connected Why Don't Ya!

Last week I spent several days in San Francisco taking part in ASCD 2011. It was a great conference with lots of great sessions. I might even have a wrap up post in the works.

While there I ran into my good buddy Ken Royal and he and I did a short video about what I was doing at ASCD11 and the importance of getting connected.

What do you think?



If you are interested you can find the resources from my Connected Administrators session here and the resources from my PLN session here.

Here is what I am struggling with in my thinking lately. What makes someone get connected? I had someone tell me they had been following me on Twitter for 3 months. I asked her what she was doing 4 months ago and why she decided to give Social Media a try and she really didn't know. So, what say you? Why are you connected? What made get connected? Why stick with it? Leave me some comments below.

Why You Need A PLN-An Excerpt From The Simple K12 UnConference

Recently, I had the honor and pleasure of kicking off the Simple K12 UnConference. The "UnCon" aims to provide high-quality professional development to educators that is available anytime. Conferences are usually limited in time and can be expensive. The UnCon provides both live and recorded sessions from now until May 2010. But if you join you have access to the materials for a year. A pretty sweet deal for quality professional development.

Over at their blog they posted an excerpt from my talk on Personal Learning Networks and why you need one. This is a 10 minute clip of an hour long talk on PLN's. I hope there is good information from this clip and I hope you will check out the UnCon for the full version. There are tons of other great sessions on a wide variety of topics including podcasting, digital storytelling, Twitter and more.


Sneak Peek: Personal Learning Networks from SimpleK12 on Vimeo.

Thanks to Kimberly for all your hard work on the UnCon and to both Kimberly and Lisa for what you guys are doing!

Just How Valuable Is Your Face-To-Face PLN?

Last night on #edchat the conversation turned from talking about how valuable student blogging is to whether or not students should learn or have their own Personal Learning Network (PLN). There has been a lot of talk lately of whether or not we should even use the term "PLN" and what place it has in education. (Frankly, a PLN is what you make it. Mine is different, from yours so I dunno why we continue to argue over semantics. But I digress....)

I got into a really interesting conversation with @wmchamberlain on Face-to-Face relationships with students. His comment was that because of the location of many of his students access to digital resources was a problem. Others said the same things. And I have to agree. It is still a fact that in many places, even at school, access to digital resources is a problem and encouraging students to connect through digital means might be a bit of a challenge.

That got me thinking last night. Are we pushing too much (either with kids or adults) the use of the digital PLN. Now before you go thinking I am losing my mind I am not. I still believe that educators (and kids) should use things like Twitter and other social networks to create, communicate and collaborate with colegues. But I just wonder, what about the face-to-face relationships. Aren't those equally as important?

I have a great group of people in my school and district that I am lucky I get to work with on a daily basis. I see these people regularly and consider them valuable members of my PLN. There are others that I know virtually that I feel equally about but many I have never met face-to-face. In both of these situations I feel like I get some major value out of my relationships.

I just wonder...when we are talking to teachers about collaborating and growing our network, are we jumping right in and showing them Twitter or Nings or other social networks? Or are we taking the time to tell them that they already have a network of professional learners that they collaborate with (hopefully) everyday?

I love my digital PLN. The connections there are some that I feel will last as long as my career. But I love, too, my face-to-face relationships and the professional connections I make mean a lot to me.

So what do you think? Are we placing too much emphasis on the digital aspect of PLN building? Just enough? Not enough? What about your face-to-face relationships compared to your digital ones? Leave me some comments below and help me sort this all out.

What Makes A Personal Learning Network Valuable To You?

I get that question all the time. Really the meaning is, well, personal. My PLN is different from anyone else's, however, we all have similarities is why we have one and why it is important to us.

Recently at #ISTE10 a video was shot, interview several members of my PLN as to why they have one, how they use theirs, and more specifically, how Twitter has helped build that PLN. This is a video I will definitely be using in upcoming trainings and talks. Check it out...



Also, last Spring I got several other members of my PLN to give me the reason why their PLN is important to them and why they find theirs valuable to their professional learning.



So those are just a few examples of why a PLN. What are your reasons? Why is your PLN valuable to you? Leave some comments below.

The PLN Is Powerful...

I have had the opportunity lately to do a lot of talking about the power of Professional Learning Networks (PLN's, or you might know it as Personal Learning Community, PLC, also.) to some of my teachers and to teachers around the country. For part of my talks I asked my PLN on Twitter this question:

I really wanted to hear stories of change. I wanted to be able to share with other teacher successes, in 140 characters of how the PLN makes us better educators. I am regularly surprised at how the PLN comes through for me, and this time was no different. I was truly moved. In just over an hour I had over 200 individual responses to my questions. Here is just a taste:

• I now feel confident that others go thru the same issues as me. value of PLN = sharing of resources.
• I was not able to "talk" education. Doesn't happen at school, only here.
• I can PLC on global scale - geographically, grade level, subject, . . .
• I was floundering in ideas & questions but in need of someone 2bounce them off of. NOW I have MANY ppl to consult!
• The value is the plethora of resources, viewpoints, & ideas I now have access to (has become an addiction and time hog :-)
• Beyond amazing tools, love connections made w/ real people who care a lot about kids. So many perspectives
• PLN provides resources to share w/teachers, ed tech news/info, & communication w/others in the field of ed tech.
• With my PLN, I get ideas for technology lessons that I would have never gotten otherwise.+ confidence to try them.
• I could not collaborate w so many teachers around the world & present on Skype & in person to their schools
• I'm connected to a much bigger conversation than is possible within my workplace.
• Through my PLN I was able to make an Australia-Vietnam link via a blog for my Society and Culture class
• My PLN gives me encouragement, support, and endless resources. I am a better educator because of them!

You can read more of the responses here.

A while back I did a video about what my PLN Means To Me

Several people have also made videos about their PLN, all of them worth a look.

So if you have someone who is a "PLN Doubter" show them this list, play them a video and all the other comments then ask if they really see the value in going it alone.

What My PLN Means To Me

This video was created in response to a challenge made by Joyce Seitzinger (@catspyjamasnz) to introduce the concepts of a Professional Learning Network to a wide audience. You can visit her post to learn more and to see the other videos created. And I encourage you to make your own. What does your PLN mean to you?

Why Go It Alone?

Yesterday, as I was relaxing and catching up on some Tweets, when one entered my stream and really "spoke to me."

Glenn's statement struck me on so many levels. I thought back to my most early days of teaching. I was fresh out of one of the best teaching schools in the southeast, Western Carolina University. I was full of new ideas and techniques that I was ready to try out in my classroom. But I was also primed to learn from those who had been in the profession for much longer than I. I thought to myself, these teachers have so much to offer me and I have so much to offer them. We can work together, all for the kids. The first month of teaching was a wake up call. Many teachers, once the bell rang, closed their doors, never to emerge until the bell rang again to change classes. When I tried to reach out for advice or ideas I was quickly turned away. But for what reason? I was seen as the "rookie." What could I possibly know? I hadn't paid my dues yet.

Teaching is not an "island" profession. All of us; those that have been in 30 years and those that have been in 30 days, all have unique skills to offer each other. Remember, sharing is caring....ok...that was cheesy but you get the point.

Many do not see the value in Social Networking sites like Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others. I place most of the blame on popular media. In the US we have a fascination with celebrities. So when one is in competition with another to get to 1 million followers on Twitter, the value of the tool is somehow lost in the message. Most of the stories that show how useful these tools are stay within the education circles and never make it to the mainstream.

I have said before that schools and districts need to embrace the tools that students are going home and using. Yet many districts, again, only see the negatives. So instead of saying, these are the tools students are going to use and educate parents as to their use, we simply block their use, never to see the light of day classrooms across the country.

The ones that can push for use of these tools in the classroom, with the students who need to use them, are the ones on the front line. Teachers. If teachers can embrace these tools and use them, they can understand why our students need to use them to learn.

How do we do this? Simple. A PLN? What is a PLN you ask? A Professional Learning Network. In the days before social networking a PLN may have been built around who you taught with in your school and district. You may have even reached out to those you met at meetings and conferences. With the advent of email we had the listserv (which still survives today) that allow you to connect with others via a daily digest of messages. Now we have the "Real-Time" web where we are instantly connected. Let's, as Educators, use that to our advantage and learn from each other!

If you want to use social networking tools to grow and build your PLN, great! If you don't want to use Twitter, don't. If you don't want to use Facebook, you don't have to. Nings not your thing? Fine. You don't have to use the computer or any technology at all. Building and growing your PLN can be as simple as opening up the door to your classroom and sharing what you do with your kids with your staff. If you are an administrator or school leader, set up a time during your faculty meeting to highlight some amazing teaching you have seen. Encourage teachers to share with each other. Most importantly, give them the time to share. If you have to get subs so all the English teachers or 5th grade or PE teachers have to be out, do it!

Remember, teaching is not about isolation. We leave our homes everyday, and head to school, prepare lessons, do paperwork, serve as teacher, counselor, psychologist, referee, and sometimes waiter/waitress all for what? Test scores? Curriculum? Technology? Glory? If you are teaching for those reasons it might be time to consider another profession.

We do it for the kids. Plain and simple...