Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals

Introduction

You have probably just listened to a brief workshop presentation attempting to define the impact of Web 2.0 and the potential these tools have for assisting learning or maybe you found my blog via Twitter.

Learning professionals and more importantly, their students, will greatly benefit by using Web 2.0 tools to create, collaborate and communicate.

This ‘Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals’ page at my blog has been established to support my presentations at conferences and professional development activities. The intention is that delegates can continue to pursue their professional learning by further developing a ‘Personal Learning Network’ PLN post-conference.

Hopefully, this page will assist you to establish the beginnings of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) .

Self-directed learning

You may wish to choose your path from the following suite of options to continue, at your convenience, where we ended at the conference:

• Jane Hart’s 2008 and 2009 Top 100 Tools is a great place to start

Jane’s emerging list for 2010 has twitter way out in front.

Here is another list of web 2.0 tools.

• Read more about PLNs (here, here and here too) and check out some fine educational blogs
• Read more about Twitter or Delicious or Google Reader
• Establish a Google Reader Account. You may wish to watch this video and another before commencing.*
• Everything you need to further understand RSS feeds is here
• Establish a Delicious account. This video may help.
• Establish your identity at Twitter . This wiki will help.
• Already many DET employees have excellent blogs. For example, you may wish to check out Kelli McGraw’s  blog and bookmark it using Delicious before adding it to Google Reader.
• Here’s a good collection of resources and another video about Web 2.0
• If you are interested in blogging, an earlier conference workshop post may get you started and here’s a tutorial on establishing a WordPress blog.
• Find other educators to follow on Twitter here  &  here + enjoy this ’Twitter love song’ too. 

 *You can find all my saved videos (collected using VodPod) here.

 

THE VISION

I am pushing the notion that staff need support to develop PLNs so that they can understand how students may develop a PLE to encourage them to engage in Deep Learning using 21st century tools.

I believe that we should use PLN as a term for teachers/staff and PLE in relation to students’ learning needs. I wrote to a ‘system leader’ outlining this last year:

If we facilitated a model that emphasised each professional teacher developing their understanding and skills on how to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) using Web 2.0 tools along with traditional notions of professional development (professional associations, regional networks, school-based TPL), it is possible that a quantum leap forward in how students were taught and learn, may take place

If we developed a model that emphasised each student having a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and facilitated staff understanding of how this could be undertaken, learning outcomes would not only be enhanced but potentially, teachers and students could adapt more readily to technological change due to the development of this most flexible of models.

Growing numbers of students will very readily grasp the concept of what a PLE means for them personally. Teachers and educational leaders must develop their skills dramatically if students are to flourish.

Here is a Connectivist learning (PLE) video to view that will further explain the concept.

For staff to be ready to deliver in this new paradigm considerable professional learning needs to take place.

•  Imagine if staff used RSS feeds well and were updated from professional websites they had ‘fed’ into Google Reader.
• Imagine if every school in each region had a school Delicious account that all staff accessed and tagged websites of professional interest well. Each school could be part of each others’ network sharing sites creating a phenomenal number of peer reviewed sites.
• Imagine if  we were all able to dip into the river that is Twitter to share, collaborate and communciate.
• Imagine how much children would benefit if Education became Learning 2.0

More resources…

Here is a great presentation by Graham Attwell on Personal Learning Environments:

 

Here’s the most intellectually stimulating video about Web 2.0 available (from Professor Michael Wesch):  The machine is us/using us

And here is a presentation on PLNs you may wish to browse:

 

 

A collection of Web 2.0 resources compiled by John Larkin can be found here and this post will help too. Elaine Talbert has collected many Slideshare presentations that may be of use too. Finally, here’s an A-Z toolkit.

 

And, there’s so much more…

 

 

Conclusion

 

The internet, specifically Web 2.0, is having an impact similiar to that of the printing press and the explosion of inexpensive digital technologies is transforming our hyperconnected world.

 

Developing a PLN is the most practical way that a teacher can learn more about pedagogy, their subject and what the internet has to offer learning in our schools. It is the only way most of us are likely to stay relevant and professional. 

 

Quite simply, we need to collaborate!

 

I look forward to dialogue about these ideas.

 

 

 Darcy Moore