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This website talked about 5 key resources needed for educators to being and grow their own personal PLNs. http://ning.com offers podcast downloads, discussion forums, videos, relevant blogs, videos and more resources. Powerful Learning Practice is a professional development opportunity that teacher can attend. It offers hands-on applications and the know-how to build and use technology within the classroom. Webinars are conferences people can attend online to join discussions and offer insight to like educators. EdChat is something we can join now on twitter using the hashtag #EdChat every Tuesday. Game based-learning tutorials and talk can be found on http://edweb.net where mentors and people who've successful implemented these practices in their classrooms can offer advice and help.

Those are 5 really good resources. Thanks for sharing.

This article provides insight into personal learning environments by answering seven basic questions about them. A scenario in which an avid car enthusiast uses a PLE to help him gather knowledge to restore a car provides a helpful image as an introduction. Additionally, an overview of PLEs is provided, along with some examples of institutions that encourage their use and how they are used. Web 2.0 allowed the evolution of the PLE into a digital world. One drawback mentioned by the article is that students who have never practiced metacognition in their own learning practices are said to have difficulty at times with the format of PLEs.

There is an introduction you could possibly skip, though I learned some new things about Downes I did not previously know. If you are skipping, go to the 5:10 minute mark and start when Downes comes online. He addresses the Symantic Condition (where meaning comes from networks) and being a highly connected learner in context of Connectivism and for me seeing that correlation made an impact. He uses the group to whom he is presenting to get answers to questions he poses. He poses that a successful network is one that is dynamic and an unsuccessful network is a static, non-moving network.

I did not know that the government required schools to filter information if taking part on an E-rate discount. A simple article but has a lot of important content.

In this Bloomberg's Business Week article, Aaron Ricadela explores the Obama push to increase the number of computers available to students in America.

It's great to see that Obama wants to increase student access to computers but we all know that computers are just a tool. Hopefully he understands the need to provide PD to teachers so that they can use the computers effectively. The worst thing that could happen would be to purchase all the computers and have them sit in the corner with nobody using them.

As students construct personal learning environments, teacher instruction and support is likely to be needed. PLE's must be constructed based on needs, and students may or may not be able to articulate what their learning needs are.

Today, students already have personal learning environments, but as teachers we have the ability to forge new pathways to learning by utilizing what kids already know and modeling collaboration and exploration.

Wow! What a cool article. I really enjoyed the picture of the Networked student. This article is like a how to for a teacher wanting to teach the 21st century student. It makes me wonder if our school system should provide a class on how to set up a method for each student to display their learning or their personal learning environment.

This article comes from the OD Practitioner journal, Fall/Winter 2000. This article focuses on the basics of Communities of Practice, defining the dimensions, purpose and changes from knowledge sharing now rather than in the past. This article focuses on the industrial and business world. It shares that knowledge in the past was knowledge was to be horded for power, while today it is to be shared to grow said power "in multiples" (Allee, 2000). The article goes on to share the benefits for everyone as far as the business, community and the individual. I appreciate the call for possible new communities of practice to meet new business community challenges.

I like how this article, even though it focuses on the industrial/business world, still has some great applications to the world of education. It's also interesting to find out more about some surrounding groups to CoPs and how they are related. A quote from the article (pay close attention to the last sentence in regards to education) says, "Communities of practice emerge in the social space between project teams and knowledge networks. When multiple project teams are engaged in similar tasks the need to share what they know often will lead to community formation. From the other direction, a loosely organized knowledge network of people who share common interests can gel into a focused community when people recognize new shared opportunities or begin to seek a significant breakthrough. Those who would support communities need to learn what conditions foster their emergence and create an environment in which they can flourish."

This text is similar to others posted in that it highlights the main features to the communities of practice theory. However, this particular text's focus draws to the readers attention the importance of the commitment factor in order to form a successful community of practice. A community of practice can exist in haphazardly fashion, but when the commitment is to the common purpose and shared experience the success will be more vivid. It also alludes to the seven principles outlined by Etienne Wenger which include: shepherd the evolution, encourage internal leadership, weave private and public space, invite multiple level of participation, find rhythm between familiarity and excitement, build momentum, and develop both communal and personal identity. The author states that the communities of practice platform is the perfect place for new and unattempted concepts or ideas to be practiced with nurtured care.

This site explains the five stages of adopting a personal learning network: Immersion, Evaluation, Know it all, Perspective, and Balance. It includes an image that shows the evolution of those stages.

This article is fairly specific.  It helped understand the difference between a CoP and a PLN.  Primarily it talks about what learning is and how a PLN can help and how learning can come in a PLN.  It elaborates that a PLN is something that we have.  It is our connections that we make and, while not explicit, it emphasizes that we feel ownership in the PLN.

PLNs are a necessity. Even when we are learning in a formal situation, we take the information and go to apply it in our jobs. However, we typically do not have access to the original resources for information. This is where the PLN comes in. In many cases we may not know some or all of the members personally, but they are still a very valuable resource!

This article addresses setting up a PLN in the corporate workplace. When reading this article it reinforced the need to expose students during their formative years to this type of collaboration.

The idea of managing an organizations body of knowledge. This article talks about how a wiki can aid in a community of practice. Educators are not great about sharing what they know (ironic right). The effort to share knowledge needs to be intentional.

This video provides the importance and opportunity of connecting using social networking and building up educators through connecting with each other. There are many examples of how being connected has worked for different teachers.

Educators have always been connected and new tools help them get connected easier to other knowledge sources. Like the interviewed people say in the video, how do we know that we are doing well if we are not connected and get feedback? I completely agree with the idea of the need of being connected to students, colleagues, parents, community...to be a 21st century educator.

This link provides 10 tips for using PLNs and 10 tips for establishing productive ones. Using Diigo is the first tip for establishing a productive PLN - I thought that was pretty cool.

"Sharing discoveries is more efficient and honorable than patenting them" - I love that! The steps outlined in this post definitely are based on this great principle. It's also great to know that that's exactly what we do at Edtech (unlike in so many other grad programs where so much of the student work never gets shared.) Great post!

I like lists and how-tos. This article by Miriam Clifford provides a great introduction to the nuts and bolts of establishing a PLN.

Twitter chats are absolutely the best way to connect with educators on Twitter, and there are Twitter chats for every conceivable subject or location. But how do you know where to look? Just check this handy list...

A video that talks about the growing opportunities for digital audio.

A wonderful source for teachers on how-to, uses of, and just about anything you want to know about digital storytelling. It is especially useful for writing and social studies.

Scholastic sponsors Beth (I don't know how)... and she gives an EXCELLENT tutorial for making movies in class (Note: Mac computer required)