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This article explains how communities of practice are growing and evolving through technology and allowing teaching (and learning) to advance to new heights with very little limitations.

I truly believe that reflection takes place once you are involved in a learning community. That is the best way to achieve knowledge and change. This article was a nice read about how a learning community can boost professional growth. Students need to see educators taking ownership of their learning as an example of how they need to be in charge of their own learning as well.

In this scholarly article, Bessenyei discusses the current desire in education to decrease the alienation of traditional schools. He looks at connectivism and network theories as a way to decentralize learning into self-organizing networks. These networks allow information sharing to become more significant as students information sources are varied to include experts as well as other students from multiple institutions.

In this article the author discusses the importance of connectivism that is dependent upon learning in a web 2.0 platform. As the influence of the web has spread so to has the importance the ability to share and distribute information to people all over the world. The premise of this article is that as costs continue to soar in education the connectivism platform offers an alternative way to disseminate learning. The web is now no longer a medium for learning, it is the platform and center for personal learning. One final point that is made is the importance in educating students how to use the available online resources to construct learning for future use because as online resources and CoP's continue to be the primary sources for information it is important to understand how to use and identify these resources for continued learning.

Bessenyei takes an interesting look at the history of elearning as it relates to student learning requirements, societal norms and Connectivism today. The authors perspective on Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and the policital development of elearning provides the reader with a new lens to look at the variety of social media that is used today.

This website is monitored by edublogs and geared towards teachers who are wanting to create professional learning networks. Step 1 provides a detailed examination of what a pln is, which includes videos, images, and other media to convey content. From this page teachers can move forward in creating their own pln.

Great share Courtney! I love the videos explaining what a PLN is (very simple and to the point). The video about connected educators is one I want to share with my district on my proposal to get social media active. It discusses why educators need a PLN and how beneficial it can be!

A PLN is personal because you choose who is in your group and if you want to lurk or comment. A PLN is what you want when you want it- reminds me of the Burger King slogan- "your way right away"

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.

Discusses the importance of students learning through social networks and how teachers can leverage students' experience with social networks to develop the skills necessary to be an independent learner.

This is a great article because it addresses the needs for PLNs for students as well as for teachers. I couldn't agree more, especially since our students are growing up in a highly connected world - it only makes sense for them to learn via PLNs of their own.

Found in this article, author, William Bauer, shares an anecdote of a teacher that is seeing the value in becoming connected via Web 2.0 tools. In these tools, Bauer discusses their importance as they relate to developing a PLN in the teaching profession. Descriptions and focus are given to RSS, blogs, Podcast, Wikis, Twitter and News sites. Bauer suggest that educators should "get started with your technology-assisted PLN by setting up a newsreader and subscribing to resources of interest. Both you and your students will be the beneficiaries."

Personal Learning Networks are nothing new, they have been around since the beginning of civilization. This article highlights how communication technology enables the expansion of your learning networks without going into overload.

This is an excellent guide for someone seeking to create and develop his or her PLN. In addition to development tips, the article provides management strategies that could be useful for someone planning a PLN.

This article describes the three main types of personal learning networks: (1) Personally maintained synchronous connections; (2) Personally and socially maintained semi-synchronous connections; and (3) Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. The importance of social media in a PLN and lifelong learning are stressed in the article. It also give tips on how to create and manage your own personal learning network.

This article discuss the different ways school librarians have access to self-regulated professional development opportunities in the form of online personal learning networks. Examples include discussion lists, webinars, blogs and twitter feeds. A twitter group was researched and was found beneficial.

I didn't even consider how librarians could be brought into the PLN era. When thinking about my school librarian, the first thought is how she deals with books all day. Then you have to consider their use of online databases and the potential to converse with professionals all over the world.

This was an interesting read because my soon-to-be sister-in-law works in a university library and I had a conversation with her last summer about how technology affects her work and how she uses technology to help her, instead of librarians becoming obsolete as many think they will.

A great article on how high school musicals qualify as communities of practice. Impacts are shown beyond the "stage" and onto personal development, family, and work ethic.

Ryan John is an elementary and middle school music and theatre teacher in New York City. In this case study, he examined how the community of practice formed in a musical theater group impacted their personal development.

A brief but excellent look at the need for PLN in school.  Give a good description of why teacher's need to be involved as students develop their existing PLN's and why they need to develop their own.

Everyone's network is going to look different. It is more of a process than just being in a room with those you interact with every day. It is an independent function that you need to engage in! We have to create our own PLN so that we can connect with our students who already have one.

Everyone's network is going to look different. It is more of a process than just being in a room with those you interact with every day. It is an independent function that you need to engage in! We have to create our own PLN so that we can connect with our students who already have one.

I like this slideshare because it broke down Constructivism in a very simple way. It also brought up that knowledge gained doesn't only happen by making connections but by being able to travel across those networks of connections. This is important because it's one thing to connect to an idea, but to be able to take that connection and connect it to something different is difficult. Knowing how to access that knowledge once the connection is made is crucial to retention.

I like how this slide show clarifies a misconception that some people can have about what connectivism is. "In connectivism, there is no real concept of transferring knowledge, making knowledge or building knowledge." ... "we are growing or developing ourselves our society in certain (connected) ways." Brilliant explanation!

Cheers! Glad that this resource mentioned the initial developers/founders of connectivism, so many sites lack that credit. I enjoyed this how this presentation used mixed forms of media to communicate, very accessible for a variety of learners.

This article explained what actually is done in a CoP and it helped me to connect it to PLNs and Connectivism. In a CoP, communities of people that have common goals and interests are sharing, collaborating and discussing ideas, solutions, and problems that have to do with their particular interest/goals. Through these interactions, new knowledge is formed and they are able to continue to gain more insight and advance in their endeavors. A CoP is a PLN and uses Connectivist theory to enhance the learning and networking.

Communities develop through a variety of ways. A table is provided with many examples that help to clarify these ways. Some include problem solving, requests for information, seeking experience, reusing assets, and discussing developments. It is very easy to apply these examples to a variety of personal and professional CoPs.

This paper looks at the use of specific communities of practice (CoP) created at McMaster University designed to promote informal teacher professional development (TPD). They found that the CoP's that were specifically created to foster teacher interaction affective, were not only effective but that several additional CoPs were organically created by the faculty during the writing of the paper. They use this as evidence of the effectiveness of CoPs for TPD.

Explores how personality affects interactions and perception of interactions amongst learners. Noting that there is sometimes tension between being connected enough to benefit from plethora of choices on the internet & still experience individual, personal development. An important component of understanding connectivism is to never assume that those who do not show overt involvement are not as engaged as those who do.

SEDL discusses some of the interpretations of PLC. Additionally, SEDL discusses the development and attributes of a functional PLC. SEDL also discusses the variety of configurations of professional learning communities.

A mostly visual representation to explore connectivism as it occurs through an open learning system. Points brought up include learners making meaningful choices while exploring their personal interest in order to guide learning. And as participants engage in making connections, a natural result will be content development and eventually those more experienced students becoming mentors.

Great video that has a section about how our students are "different" than when we were in school. "They [Students] expect to learn from technology because that is what they are used to." As soon as ALL teachers realize and accept this fact, then we as teachers can be one step closer to helping our students achieve their FULL potential!

I like the idea of learners making meaningful choices. Anything that can guide students to make effective and relevant connections is a great resource. I also think teachers have a lot to learn about the way our students learn these days. The idea that students actually need to be a force in their own learning and that they expect instant gratification are concepts I have been seeing more frequently in my own classroom. Great resource!

A drawing tool that allows you to develop pictures, charts, diagrams, etc. I am really excited to find this and be able to have students create Double Bubble maps, Venn Diagrams, etc, online.