How does a network classroom and Web 2.0 tools change Professional Development?

Personal Learning Networks

As we head into the 7th week of this course I want you to start thinking about the Personal Learning Network (PLN) you have started to form using your Google Reader.

On page 81 Siemens talks about pace of knowledge development today and how we just can't keep up. As the half-life of knowledge continues to decrease and the amount of knowledge known to us continues to increase we cause a gap of what we know, what we think we know, and what we think we should know. Let's apply that to our students.

What should they know?
What do we think they know?
What do they need to know?

The problem with these questions is the answers are based off of what WE know. What we were taught and what we were told we would need to be successful in this world....but knowledge has changed, the world has changed, the pace of knowing has changed...do we still need to know what we know or do we need to know something different?

Confused? Me too!

A personal learning network is a network that you create that gives you the knowledge and understanding that you need and want. Your Google Reader is the start to your PLN. It is your pathway into the network of knowledge. You read, respond, follow links, read more, and expand your knowledge on a given subject. I gave you a starting point for your PLN but my hope is you will continue to customize it over the coming months/years so that it fits your needs. Some of you have already started.

Your PLN is your pathway to the information you want in a information overload world. You can waste a lot of time looking for information. By creating your PLN you start to cut through the info you don't want and focus in on what you do want.

What does this mean for our students? They already know the power of a PLN. Facebook and Myspace are two examples of sites our students today use to create their PLN. They learn from each other in these spaces, follow each other, and read what they want to read and learn what they want to learn. How do we take this powerful learning tool and use it in our school?

What if every student had a RSS reader? What if it was mandatory at your school? What if each teacher gave students feeds to sites they wanted them to follow? Could you use this in a classroom? Would it be interesting to students? Could you help students cut through the information maze and help them focus on what was important for your class?

One teacher at my school last year did just this. He was a 5th grade teacher who set each student up with a Netvibes.com account (another RSS reader) He then gave students blogs and websites to read based on what they were studying. As their topics in the class changed, so did the feeds in the student's RSS readers. After awhile the students started adding their own feeds, reading and learning about stuff that interest them, writing about it on their blogs, and learning on their own.....let me say that again LEARNING ON THEIR OWN.

Isn't that what we want? In an world where the half life of knowledge is roughly 3 years, how important is the knowledge we give our students?

Netvibes (which I love and use) has just released a new version that has what they call a "Universe"--basically a way to make some of your feeds and information public. I just completed setting my universe up at www.netvibes.com/jutecht and I set one up for our school www.netvibes.com/saschina. You can read my blog post about it here.

One of my favorite principles of connectivism is, "The capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known." (pg. 31)

That's it for me.....we must continue to learn; we must teach our students to not just acquire knowledge but to seek it out, expand on it and learn more. One way to do that is to create a PLN around what you want to know and continue to learn!

• Web 2.0 Book: Chapter 5
  
• Google Reader
  
• Find Current Reading on PLN
  

Assignments:

• Blog Topics
• Professional Development
  
• Personal Learning Networks