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Padlet is a digital board that can be used for for professional development for teachers or with students. The teacher creates an account, then creates a digital bulletin board that only requires web access via a link. Links can be emailed or posted in Google Classroom. Students can post using the link without signing in, which makes it easy to use. This tool can be used for brainstorming, formative assessment, collaboration, or an exit ticket.

I have used this in my composition classes to work on constructing thesis statements and to view the resources the students are working on.

Padlet is an online virtual "bulletin" board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, share links and pictures, in a secure location. Padlet allows users to create a hidden wall with a custom URL. Padlet creators can also moderate posts, remove posts, and manage their board 24/7.

This resources gives a easy to understand definition of connectivism. It also discusses not only how connectivism can be used with teachers, but also with students through guidance. The article describes the massive open online course (MOOC) phenomenon which is something I had never heard of before.

Here is a very short, but simple to understand explanation of connectivism. I had to read through this one before I really had a basic understanding of the concept even though I had read a couple other articles first. This one cleared it up quickly.

A brief summary of connectivism. Connectivism was developed to account for the Internet and technological advancements and the roles they play in knowledge and learning.

This site not only defines personal learning networks, but it also provides ten reasons educators need a PLN. It further offers links to helpful resources to illustrate each reason.

Great justification for forming PLNs for teachers! Every teacher should have a PLN so that they can continually grow as teachers.

Thanks for sharing this graphic. I love Sylvia's work. Sketchnotes are such a fun way to capture and share complex ideas. Number 7 really resonated with me. As a classroom teacher, I used my PLN to create meaningful and engaging global learning projects for my students. It was so nice to have a group of supportive, like-minded educators to connect with! Thanks for sharing!

This is a collection of teacher resource pages on Pintrest. It was organized by the creators of pintrest as a resource for teachers. This is a great example of how some teachers are using Pintrest to meet classroom needs.

ePals is for classroom teachers to create and participate in a variety of projects. This is a great site that connects teachers with other teachers from around the world to use social networking and create global learning environments.

Summary: The goal of this project was to look into the preparation of teachers on the topic of PLN's and a range of other eLearning tools. This project is interesting because they really dove into the current teacher training methods. The project goes through all of the major hurdles into getting these new eLearning principles used in the classroom by the new generation of teachers.

In this article, Chandler and Redman discuss how teachers have access to many collaborative technologies that enable them to develop personal learning communities. The article also discusses how to integrate new teachers into these learning communities during their educational programs.

This blog describes the basics of what a PLN is. It also provides a look back through recent decades at how the concept of a PLN has changed with newer developments in technology.

This is a fun article about teachers and there PLN. It goes through and talks about them from the pre internet 80's, the email 90's and the social 2000.

I loved reading thoughts about Professional Learning Networks from a very personal perspective. One woman discusses her personal experience with her PLN and mentions that some of her very best friends are teachers within her network. Teachers that we learn from, share with, and socialize with are excellent individuals to have within our PLNs. She also takes readers through a journey through time, discussing how PLNs have transformed from the pre-Internet 1980s, with very few resources, to now, where we have multiple resources and tools at our fingertips.

I thought that this personal learning network resource was a great fit for our class. This article discusses how schools are using social media to engage students and real-world relevance, for professional development, and school, district, and teacher collaboration. They used Twitter to document and share a paper tower challenge with schools and teachers from all over the world. Twitter was used to connect with experts and students got to see that not all scientists agree on certain topics. They also connected with the community.

I like that this article looks at how Twitter can be used for students and for educators. The idea of Twitter for educators as professional development fits very well with the ideas of COP's and PLN's. While I haven't been a true part yet of a structured Twitter session for PD, I have lurked in many formal PD discussions with hashtags for our public school system and benefitted from what I gleaned.

What an awesome video. It makes me excited to go back in August and really challenge myself to use Twitter or Facebook to showcase my students. Our school district uses a hashtag #bsdpride for teachers to showcase things going on around the district and it's starting to take off. It's awesome that teachers are encouraging each other to use Twitter and begin challenges that involve students. You can tell from this video how important these students feel when their work or projects re used on social media, and are getting attention from other schools.

This blog post by Tom Whitby explains what a connected educator is and is not. Whitby discusses that way that educators can connect through social media and who they connect with is very crucial. He continues by discussing that being a connected educator is not an add-on, it is a necessity. We need to have digitally-literate educators to be able to teach digitally-literate student.

I really enjoyed reading this post, and it helped validate the reason I sought my Master's degree in Educational Technology. It is so important for educators to stay connected for their own professional development, and to enrich the instruction given to their students. When teachers connect with other teachers and use PLN's it benefits everyone involved, including the students.

It so true. Educators are finally arriving a pedagogy that reinforces the digital tools already available and provides a theoretical framework for all those teachers who resist technology or say that it isn't for them.

The goal of teachers in the digital age and how we can use PLN's to help. "No one is really asking teachers or school systems to change what they've been doing. They're basically asking them to basically do what they have been doing better. The huge barrier is trying to get people to acknowledge that this new world of learning exists and then starting a conversation around how can we make that effective for kids." - Will Richardson

The goal of teachers in the digital age and how we can use PLN's to help. "No one is really asking teachers or school systems to change what they've been doing. They're basically asking them to basically do what they have been doing better. The huge barrier is trying to get people to acknowledge that this new world of learning exists and then starting a conversation around how can we make that effective for kids." - Will Richardson

Great article on schools using teachers to help teach others in the school about different areas in technology that they are competent in. My only thought was that it really should have gone further and reported on schools using its students to train the teachers and fellow classmates. We have a school nearby that has a class on basic computer repair and then the students then spend one hour a week going around the school helping out the teachers. Really cuts down on expenses and students have a sense of pride and a useful and marketable skill!

A blog created by art teachers for art teachers that shares tons of ideas to help make your classroom better. It focuses on technology integration in the art room and has information to keep art teachers up to date on things going on in the field currently. 

Provides an example of a teacher using blogs, before blogs were commonly used as a classroom tool. The teacher had the students take their blogs and morph them in to online portfolios. The teacher published an eBook talking about the successes.

100 Essential Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

100 Essential Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers

Here is a very complex study. Fortunately, the highlights tell us some important findings. This study went with the understanding that teachers have organically formed professional learning networks using the Internet, and report that they like them. This study focused on putting some data behind that, which it has provided. As a teacher, I found this quote very refreshing, about a researcher that "argued that top-down teacher PD in schools often aligns with hierarchical structures that de-skill teachers from their intellectual work by treating them as passive recipients of mandates. Even the term "professional development" conveys that teachers are "deficient and in need of developing and directing." In my own PLN, I have learned much more about teaching and learning from an 8th grade math teacher than I have in any of my administration-mandated social studies PD sessions.

I'll be honest, I did not read the entire study, but the highlights from this article and the abstract once again confirmed what I'm starting to realize. We are teaching in a way that is behind the times when it comes to the current ways students learn naturally. We are fighting their expectations trying to bottle them into the box that is traditional education.

This speaker does an excellent job showcasing that our students are totally capable of being part of a learning network before they can even recognize what it is they're doing. Things have changed intensely since the rise of networked connections between people. School needs to adapt and use these tools that professional educators are using to improve meeting the many "standards" that Mr. Regur talks about. "We have standards just to write standards…" We need to avoid the closed off island that is being a teacher… There is no longer an excuse to be stuck in this single-player version of education.

We all create personal learning networks in everything we do. Using this in education is extremely important so that students a) know how to connect with others, and b) know how to benefit from connecting with others. I like how he called the "teacher the most important activator".

Two is a meeting, Three is a network. Steve had some great "real" advice and reasons for why we should all join PLN for a variety of different reasons to create a stronger and more educated world.

A list of free Family Feud PowerPoint templates that teachers can use to create a fun game of Family Feud for their students based on the curriculum.

A list of free Family Feud PowerPoint templates that teachers can use to create a fun game of Family Feud for their students based on the curriculum.

This article was a study of novice music teachers' experience using an online community for one year using wikispace. A community of practice was formed in this wikispace and findings found that teachers' emotional needs were supported in this community regardless of grade level taught and music specialty taught. Knowing that other teachers were going through similar things gave teachers a feeling of support.