Thirty-two years ago I went to Japan to teach in a small international Christian school. I might have felt, professionally, a little isolated. Then came Amazon. It was almost unbelievable to be able to buy any English book I wanted with the touch of a button and have it in my hands in a couple of weeks! Now there are Kindles and a whole Internet full of professional connections, from journals and memberships to blogs to Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. I discovered today that there is a Facebook page for teachers of The Crucible—talk about a specific resource! As long as one has a device and Internet access, there is no longer any reason for professional isolation.
A virtual professional learning network (PLN) can provide all the community and support of a trip to a major conference or a huge school with a vibrant department. I've rather blundered my way into the PLN I've developed, so if you're already convinced you need one and are looking for an organized approach, go straight to the Edublog series here. It’s a set of 7 blogs that will guide you through the steps of building your own PLN. I came across it doing a Google search to make sure I was using the right term. I’ve bookmarked it because it looks like a resource I want to go back and review myself.
What I can do here is just reflect on a few of the amazing online resources I’ve been experimenting with recently—a Facebook group and an online course—and share a little of the joy.
I found out about the Crucible Facebook group in another Facebook group I recently joined: Creative High School English hosted by Betsy Potash of the Spark Creativity website/blog/podcast. When I joined the group in October, there were 10,000-some members; now membership is 11,657. People ask about everything from how to handle a discipline issue to what short stories can pair with a given novel to project ideas. From all my life being the only teacher of my grade level subject area at my school, to having thousands of other 10th grade English teachers and their expertise at my fingertips is truly a gift!
The story of how I discovered this group illustrates the organic way my PLN grows. Cult of Pedagogy is one of the core blogs I follow. Last spring it featured Betsy Potash and one-pagers with a link to 4 free templates with rubrics from Betsy’s site Spark Creativity. To get the free materials, I had to sign up for Betsy’s newsletter. Then early in the fall, that newsletter advertised a book discussion for In Search of Deeper Learning she would host on her Facebook group. So I joined the group in order to participate in the book discussion, and I found this whole great new community resource! Someday I may explore some other Facebook groups, but between this one and the online course I’m taking, I have all the input I can fruitfully use for now.
The course—for lack of a better word—is Angela Watson’s 40-Hour Teacher Workweek Club, which I also found out about from Cult of Pedagogy. The goal of the course is to help teachers attain better work-life balance. It provides materials and guidance for everything from scheduling to back-to-school night to differentiating lesson plans to handling homework and beyond. It does this through a year’s worth of weekly podcasts/pdfs on different topics, curation of scads of online resources, and membership in a Facebook group where one can find further support. (I haven’t even gotten around to joining the Facebook group yet—I’m so busy just reading the pdfs and exploring the curated materials.)
As opposed to the Creative High School English Facebook group, there is a cost for all this help. However, I think it is so well worth $149 for eternal access to all the excellent materials. In fact, while I think just the guidance and curating is worth it, the sticker price of materials available for purchase online that are made available free to club members far exceeds the membership cost. For the college or school that wants to put feet to its concern about teacher retention, this club should be a part of the final semester of every teacher training program or made available to every 2nd year teacher. (I think the first-year ones may be too busy!)
There are still so many ways I could better utilize my virtual PLN--like joining more Twitter chats (I tried my first this summer) and making more thorough use of my organizational memberships in NCTE and ASCD. I'd also like, someday, to actually attend an NCTE conference. In the meantime, I have more than enough opportunity to stay professionally connected and growing.
What parts of your virtual PLN do you find most invigorating to your professional practice right now? If you're feeling un-invigorated or isolated, how might you access a virtual PLN to help?
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