Below is an awesome PLN success story! I writing this as a means of encouragement for the teachers in my building [and yours] who haven't yet bought into structuring up their PLN!
Ms Hubbell is one of the co-authors of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. After our initial training, we've arranged for her to give a follow-up webinar on incorporating technology with these strategies. I couldn't wait to share this with my central office staff - now we are building on this! Talk about a valuable resource!
Our district is planning on implementing the research based instructional strategies from Classroom Instruction that Works. Building a common language around proven strategies is going to make a serious impact. As I began searching for training/delivery materials, I reached out to my PLN through Twitter with the simple question of who has experience with initial CITW training?
In a matter minutes I got this response from Elizabeth Hubbell [@erhubbell]:
After a quick call, we talked and collaborated on our needs and what Ms Hubbell can offer West Middle School.
Ms Hubbell is one of the co-authors of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. After our initial training, we've arranged for her to give a follow-up webinar on incorporating technology with these strategies. I couldn't wait to share this with my central office staff - now we are building on this! Talk about a valuable resource!
The awesome piece to this is how the students at West Middle School win! Our teachers are about to receive some great training that will make a direct bearing on student learning.
This is a great success story for developing and using your PLN! Earlier this year, I've lead a couple of training sessions on building a PLN using Twitter and Diigo. I shared this with staff members at our next faculty meeting. We all have need for a PLN: trainers can always use help in with better resources, administrators need to collaborate on building vision, teachers always need to improve upon lessons- the PLN is the way to make that happen.
Below, I'm asking everyone who reads this and actively supports their PLN to share a success story as well. I've stressed that these experiences couldn't happen with a typical email/web search experience.
My PLN experience is unique and yields incredible results, please share one of your experiences.
My PLN experience is unique and yields incredible results, please share one of your experiences.
Your thoughts and reflections resonate loudly with my. I have experienced so many success stories as a result of my PLN that I wish I had the time to write them all out. Without a PLN I am positive that many, if not all, would have materialized. The Tri-State Educational Technology Conference (TSETC) that was held at my school this past fall was one of the proudest moments of my life as an administrator. Through my PLN I was able to get world-class presenters to donate their time, major sponsorships so that the event was entirely free for all educators (i.e. Dell, Schoology, Glogster), and the word out to passionate educators who wanted to get better on a Saturday. Best of all, many of my own teachers attended and immediately began to change their instructional practices based on information gained at the conference.
ReplyDeleteThese successes, on all scales, show the power of the PLN and following through with the main goal - impacting student learning. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI'm a student teacher about to dive in to teaching a unit on a novel in a 6th grade class. I discovered Prezi, Glogster, Voicethread and the joys of Wordling student work through the PLN of techie educators I joined my work with Fotobabble.com
ReplyDeleteJust last term, I shared Glogging and Prezi for classroom activities in one of my graduate classes, and brought tips from the Twittersphere into my real world. There is an absolute wealth of inspiration buzzing around the web, and I find a new inspiration from teachers researchings like TheNerdyTeacher.com and Kelly at iLearnTechnology every day!