I used to sit in workshops that were peripherally, if at all, related to my professional practice. I’d spend hours in a physical face-to-face workshop and leave with maybe one or two ideas that mattered to me. I may or may not have acted on those ideas dependent on how stressed the workshop left me, knowing that I had classroom responsibilities that superseded what some suit was telling me about what should matter.
It was a broken but ensconced system for growing professionally that ignored the fact that there were things that personally mattered to me and the students I taught. I wasn’t asked if the PD interested me; I was just told to go. I received my initial teaching certificate in 1998, a time when I was well aware of the information the internet had to offer. As I started following educators across the myriad social networks I participated in (first with listservs and physical chat rooms), I learned quickly that scheduled and barely relevant PD was too long of a wait to get vital, transformational information.
Unlike traditional and months-in-advance-planned face-to-face professional development, being a connected educator has afforded me “just in time” learning opportunities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This was even before the popular social networks were entrenched in the fabric of today’s PD landscape. I’ve known for more than a decade the value of socio-technological engagement. No workshop I can attend now is more valuable or offers me more perspective than my online digital professional learning network (DPLN).
I’d like to clarify that what I’m writing about is not necessarily about technologies per se, but about what we’re doing with the technology that matters. I am laser-focused on my objective: How can I grow professionally with a cadre of peers that “gets” what I’m seeking to master?
To continue reading this post and to see the 3 things educators should consider when deciding to participate in connected PD, please view the full post on TeachThought.
Mike on Twitter: @fisher1000
Digital Learning Strategies and Upgrade Your Curriculum, available from ASCD
Exploring the Close Reading Standard, eBook available from Amazon
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