Group items tagged

Video Tutorials Setting up a Wordpress Blog Writing a Blog Entry Setting up a Twitter Account Joining a Ning Social Network A Brief Tour of Second Life Mining the Blogosphere Mining the Twitterverse Mining Social Bookmarks Setting up an RSS Reader Adding RSS Feeds to your Reader Creating a Word Cloud Using Trend Plotting Visualizations Demonstration of Digg Visualizers

Within networks are passionate affinity-based spaces that are learner-determined.  Important literacies are learned through play in such spaces. For example in massively multiplayer online games like Minecraft or World of Warcraft, learners have the ongoing opportunity to participate in complex systems, which in itself is a critical skill.  I have previously written about my son, his play in Minecraft and the learning he is composing with his guild and have come to see how powerful and socially complex the learning among these players can be. (I discuss this here, here, here and here). 

Professional Development Overview Professional development is not just something that is important for teachers. It is important for all those involved in education from the support staff right up to the administrators. Professional development that includes participants from support, teaching and administration at the same time can help to bridge the divisions between groups. When differing groups work together, there is a greater chance for understanding each others work and also for forging bonds between the groups to work towards a common purpose. Developing a culture of continuous learning and modeling the use of personal learning networks will be key to engaging students and the community. Below we focus on professional development for teachers; on the page following, we talk about professional development for administrators.