Personal Learning Communities, School-wide Communities of Practice, Professional Learning Communities, these are all concepts I’ve been tossing around in my head lately. We are attempting to begin our own PLC here, meeting during lunch on Thursdays and Fridays.
The benefits are tremendous. And, if we use the tools available, we expand our school PLC to a global PLC. No longer are we working in isolation. In an instant, we can put our hands on research, tools, anecdotes to support whatever we are working on.
Here’s an example, I was thinking of how to talk to our students about their "online presence." We are a laptop school and attempting to embed (not integrate!) technology into our classes. A few minutes ago, a Twitter popped up from Jeff Utecht on a presentation he did for his students. Perfect! Then, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach posted about school-wide community learning related to 21st century skills and this great quote from the Journal of School Improvement:

"That means a new role for teachers. Great teachers will not only
serve as subject matter specialists but will also become partners
with students, helping them learn how to turn information into usable
; knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. Rather than simply dispensing
information, 21st century teachers will become orchestrators and
facilitators of learning" (Marx, 2002).

Some days we get weighed down by the technology that fails, the students that seem overwhelmed and unwilling to try new things, or the teachers who are stressed by not having enough hours in the day to consider other ways of teaching.
Then there are days like this when I find this about leading and learning, or this on turning fear into goals. And get this from a colleague, who is letting me work with her students in spite of the tech issues we are having:

This is all a learning process……..
and isn’t that what school is all about!  I’ll stop by your upper
school chair tomorrow morning to catch up.

Sigh. It’s a good day.

Last night we had Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired, What Your Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online, speak at our school. Her message was right on target, and we loved hearing her validate what we have been saying to our parents and teachers. However, it was raining–for the first time in what, months? I suppose everyone decided to stay home, as we had fewer than 25 (including administrators and teachers) in the audience. Too bad. They missed a good session.
At the last minute, I realized I could try to capture her speech using Ustream, so I plugged in the webcam minutes before she started, and clicked Go Live.
Well, I thought I was. But I wasn’t.
I’m not sure what I did, but nothing recorded, unfortunately. I shouldn’t try to wing these things! Next time, I"ll be more prepared.
And next time, I hope we have a better turnout.

Somehow David Warlick always manages to say what is in my brain. Before I can even begin to articulate it, he’s blogging about it.

So, I think that if we can simplify the question of staff development
by saying that, “It’s part of the job of the teacher to continue to
grow,” then we can get on with the far more interesting question, “What
does the school and classroom look like where learning is what you see happening, not teaching — where learning stops being a job, and, instead, becomes a lifestyle.”

Read the whole post here.

After reading Kim’s blog about watching the K12 Online presentations with her colleagues, I was inspired. I want to talk about the ideas, roll them around in my head, hear what others have to say. How about it? After school? During lunch? I’ll bring snacks:)
Let’s begin here:
More than cool tools K12-Online

Have you heard this?
Deschool, Reboot, Real School

What do you think about this??

Tonight I watched/listened to two different online professional development events. From my kitchen table. One was a live audio interview, and the second, a video (not live, but I picked it up after I got home tonight). I couldn’t figure out how to get to the archives of the third event online. It’s probably a good thing, since my head is full of ideas, and I am trying to figure out how to find the time to use any or all of this with the kids.
Will Richardson shows us how the video works here. Ustream.tv allows the user to have his/her own tv show, live, with added effects. And, yeah, it’s hard to get our heads around watching, chatting, thinking, and blogging, all at the same time. But I can’t wait to try it.

Any FA teachers want to go to Philadelphia with me? This promises to be an enriching, exciting weekend.

Educon 2.0 — January 25-27, 2008, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, PA

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not
a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School
2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we
want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the
future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas,
facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked.

The K-12 Online Conference is up and running. Check it out!

Here’s the keynote by David Warlick