On-Line Professional Development

This post has been cross-posted at htp://changinghighschools.blogspot.com

This week I had the pleasure of attending a training facilitated by the incredibly talented Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson: Western New York Powerful Learning Practices. In the context of Web 2.0 technology, at Iroquois Central School, we are advocating for the use of technology as an instructional tool that has the power to prepare students for the 21^st Century. One way we are doing this is the development of an on-line platform to develop a professional learning community across our district.

The purpose of this learning community is to share best practices in our schools and how we educate 21^st Century Learners. This platform has no boundaries i.e., grade level, subject matter. The vehicle is a Wiki. There are resources related to our district’s initiatives for the year, lessons that teachers can develop, expand upon and share.

As we know in any business (education not to be excluded as a ‘business’) relationships are the key to success. Through these on-line learning communities, relationships are developed. People begin to identify credible individuals that provide trusted information. These on-line platforms have the ability to ask a person questions and make comments about their work or contributions. As practitioners, we will model exactly the skills we want students to be learning: Collaboration, Literacy, and becoming Global Learners with no boundaries. Our location is no longer a barrier. Whether across town, in another state or another part of the world, there are talented individuals that have a lot to offer educators.

 

We share bookmarks on line with tools such as del.icio.us. This link will take you to my account. The bookmarks you find are articles and resources on a variety of topics that interest me and that I have used in my learning related transforming how we prepare students for the 21^st Century. In my account, I have followers and people that I follow. We each have access to each other’s bookmarks. All you need to do is sign up for an account and you can have complete access to my resources.  People give permission to share their bookmarks with "fans" and information is easily exchanged.  My learning, and resources is then expanded exponentially. In the busy life of a superintendent, time is precious. I would love to spend hours researching a topic. But why should I? I can connect with these people and see if they have bookmarked resources that have topics similar to what I am looking for. If this isn’t collaboration, I don’t know what is. Dare I share for the “digital novice” that MySpace is nothing more than a social bookmarking tool? Obviously used in a different way.  Many of our students are already proficient with the concept.

Obviously, I blog. I began blogging the minute I learned how to. Blogs are communication tools. I can instantaneously post current information. Then people read my blog. Some leave comments, others just read it. I never imagined the power blogging until I added clustrmaps, a program that tracks where in the world people are reading my blog. It also tracks how many people are reading my blog. The incredible power of this is not only the shocking reality that there are people all over the world interested in reading what I have to say but that everyone of these people are potential people for me to learn from. And I have.

When it comes to literacy, I have read more in the past 18 months than I have read in the previous 3 years. I read a lot. My job demands it. I read research, professional journals and magazines, newspapers. I know add blogs to my reading. Can you imagine how much reading our children can do on the web? What if your child/students could “publish” on the web, send the link to their parents, cousins or grandparents who can see their work on the internet? How excited and motivated would they be to write? What about their classmates that blog? Would children be interested in reading blogs of their friends? They read their profiles on MySpace of FaceBook don’t they? If this type of reading and writing were expanded, would they increase the amount of material they read? Would they not become critical readers? If a peer published something with erroneous information or misspelling, would they not comment? Would they then question where that peer’s blog is a credible source of information? What if this form of reading and writing was shared with students from another country? Not only are students becoming more literate, they are becoming global learners.

 

Leadertalk for me is yet one more way for professionals to share their experiences and resources to help leaders across the country learn from each other. In some ways, this blog is functioning as an on-line Professional Learning Community. I have so much to learn, but not enough hours in the day. After critically determining which blogs provide the information I need and want, I bookmark these blogs and view them several times per week. If this isn’t powerful, I don’t know what is.

I will continue to blog as a means of “spreading the word”. It has been cited by many authors that we are preparing our students for jobs not yet invented. The questions we all need to be asking ourselves include:

• Do we want our children to function in a global society?
• Should “learning” include a global perspective?
• Do we want our children to collaborate with other students around the world?
• As professionals, aren’t we to be models for our administrators, teachers and students?
• Can we not all learn something from someone else?

If you answer yes to all these questions, spend some time on the read/write web. Follow some of the links on this blog and see what is out there. As an instructional leader I will continue to support the use of the read/write web, on-line collaboration for administrators, teachers and students. I will continue to support changes in how students are taught and learn so that they can develop the skills needed in the 21^st Century.

 

 

Comments

[Dave Sherman]

Neil,
I had the same experience when I added a ClustrMap to my blog. I was blown away every time a new red dot appeared. For a while, I was checking it every 20 minutes! Our students are publishing their work on the web in blogs and Wikis, and they are becoming more self-directed (an important 21st Century skill) as a result. Our technology teacher spent the last three weeks in Japan, and while he was there he was blogging, writing a Wiki, and "Skypeing" with classes back at school. This was highly motivating for our students. They were very involved in his trip to Japan. That could not have taken place to this extent five years ago.

[Neil Rochelle]

How cool for your students. Imagine if we had these tools available to us? Imagine what "school" will be like 10 years from now?

[Barbara S]

I plan on sharing your thoughts with my principal. Great summary of how important it is to communicate (at all levels...school, district, and globally) and ways technology makes that easier now. BTW, the link at the start to changinghighschools.blogspot.com is not working. I think you left out the 's' after school in the url :-)