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"We are in the middle of a enormous change of the culture of teaching and learning. The teacher must see himself/herself as a learner, since he/she is on uncharted territory as well in our ever changing (digital) world. Key competencies and literacies, such as global, media, network, information literacy and digital citizenship amplify our traditional notion and expectation of basic literacy in education. In addition to the traditional content knowledge we are expected to teach/learn in schools, we must include learning how to learn."

"ou have all been there… Professional Development days at your school… Administration usually choose a topic, design the activities and/or bring in a speaker. Most likely, they will be slides with bullet points…listening…turn to your partners…learning about a new initiative your school will take part in…etc. As more and more educators are building PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) and taking their Professional Development into their own hands, they realize that their in house, school based PD needs to take on new forms as well."

"Alan November's article Students as Contributors: The Digital Learning Farm has inspired me in my professional life beyond words and guided many of my research and actions in the classroom and professional development since then."

"I just returned from a consulting/coaching visit to Mount Scopus Memorial College, a K-12 Jewish Day School, in Melbourne, Australia. It was a one day full faculty (K-6) keynote style workshop to set the tone for a four day intense follow up work with the upper primary school teachers and students. Together with Edna Sackson, the Teaching and Learning Co-ordinator of the school, we planned the overall theme, Documenting FOR Learning, of the intense week to connect with the whole school goal of using data to inform learning. "

"Humanities teacher, Shannon Hancock, at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, read and worked through The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo with her 8th grade students. Not only did they read the text, learn about literary elements, but also learned to articulate and discuss in a professional manner the text with their peers. Shannon chose to use the Socratic Method, specifically a Socratic Seminar (Inner/Outer Circle Fishbowl) to hand the learning over to her students. She stressed to them: " Educators don't need to have all the answers, it is about asking the right questions.""

" From Visible Thinking Routines to 5 Modern Learning Routines January 11, 2015 - Featured Carousel, Learning, Sketchnoting, Visible Thinking Routine - no comments I have been a fan of Visible Thinking Routines which were developed by Project Zero from Havard, for a while now. I have used these routines with students, as blogging routines and in professional development workshops."

"My colleague, Silvana Meneghini, and I have been working on developing a Professional Development framework for embedding technology use and modern learning litercies based on Ruben Puentedura's SAMR model."

"As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student."

" The What? Why? How? of Documenting4Learning April 19, 2015 - Documenting4Learning, Featured Carousel - 1 comment My work in formalizing Documenting4Learning is moving forward. In good old fashion, regarding practicing what one preaches, I am documenting my journey: Learning to Document FOR Learning and Sharing Copyright and Backchanneling in the Music Classroom Unpacking a Twitter Conference Feed Professional Development Model: Documenting4Learning Tools that Facilitate Documenting Documenting FOR Learning"

"his post if meant to be seen through the lens of Looking and Documenting FOR Learning from the perspective of administrators or staff in charge of supporting teachers' professional development and ongoing learning. I worked with teachers and administrators this past week at the Bavarian International School in Munich, Germany. Rachel Jackson, teacher librarian (mostly on Twitter) & Kim House, Technology Coordinator (mostly in a TodaysMeet backchannel) did an incredible job in documenting the work over our 3 days together."

"What Do You Have to Lose? was a blog post I wrote 4 years ago… It is a new idea for many classroom teachers/students to move from writing, reading and "doing" work, not only for themselves, supervisors/parents or for a monetary compensation/grade, to share their work openly and freely with others. The idea of putting oneself "out there on the internet" (on a larger scale than the teacher lounge) and publicly "brag" about successes, admit failures, ask for help or document one's learning and teaching process, feels unnatural and even scares many of them. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, a lot has changed in terms of technology… It has been 4 years and my belief in sharing to amplify teaching and learning has grown stronger, even when the work I share gets taken, plagiarized and used for profit by others. I am continuing to make the benefits of documenting (for reflection, metacognition and connection purposes) visible, but the documentation can not be the end all. The next step must be sharing and disseminating that documentation. It is about sharing conversations, resources, model lessons, student work, reflections, innovative ideas, action research, etc. Sharing in service of benefiting the educational community and advancing eduction. Sharing in order to be part of a network that supports each other and and pushes thinking forward. Without individual parts, there is no network. The more parts, the larger and stronger the potential network. In the last few weeks, there have been many examples at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, that show the power of sharing and the ripple effect it created: Teaching others you will never meet Authentic audience Feedback Personal Branding Remix & Added Value Building a Personal Learning Network"

"I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints. If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody."

"The Connected Educator Month is around the corner. Norway, Australia, New Zealand and the USA have organized hundreds of events for educators to learn, connect and collaborate. As I am preparing to be part of a panel on October 2, 4 pm (USA EST)/October 3rd, 9am (NZ time) and keynote in Oslo, Norway on October 21st, I am looking at 4 big ideas around the connected educator through the lens of connected professional learning."

"We are fortunate to have a Visible Thinking Routine (VTR) expert at our school. Claire Arcenas, our MS/HS Physical Education teacher, previously a third grade classroom teacher who has done extensive readings and research in experiencing, implementing, embedding VTR in teaching and learning. Recently, she started sharing her experience and reflection on her professional learning blog: Visible Thinking Across Subject Areas. Claire invited me to an 8th grade PE class before a unit on Volleyball skills and allowed me to film her facilitating the VTR called Chalk Talk. She explains the overview of her volleyball unit on her classroom blog post: Can You Dig It?"

" Copyright and Backchanneling in the Music Classroom April 1, 2015 - Assessment, Documenting4Learning, Featured Carousel - 1 comment This post is another one in the series of posts originating from Professional Development Framework: Documenting for Learning Dani Aisen, a music teacher, at Mount Scopus Memorial College, was part of a small group session with Specialists (Resource teachers) during my visit at the school in Melbourne, Australia. It was an opportunity for these teachers to question and talk more in detail about the keynote presentation (Documenting FOR Learning & The Now Literacies Through the Lens of Sharing) and for me to share examples of how to support modern literacies in their specific subject areas."

"Twitter, without a doubt, has become the social network for educators to take their professional development into their own hands. Twitter allows teachers to connect with other educators from around the world, join discussions related to their interests and have a steady stream of resources (to help them teach and learn) available to them whenever, whereever and however."

"As I am speaking of the benefits of blogging as a professional and student, I sometimes wonder if the word "blogging" is not a word we speak as we talk at cross-purposes with other educators. When I use the word "blogging", I am NOT seeing: technology, a project, an add-on to the curriculum content. When I use the word "blogging", I am seeing: learning how to read and write in digital spaces, the possibility of writing for an authentic global audience, a platform for reflection, investigation, documentation and curation, a platform that supports and amplifies modern skills and literacies. On the tails of Visible Thinking Routines for Blogging, comes this new blog post that wants to make Blogging VISIBLE!"

"Twitter can be overwhelming, even for a seasoned Twitterer. We use tools, such as Tweetdeck, to help us organize the tweets coming in --we use #hashtags to filter and connect our conversations --we @mention, we RT, we DM, we #FF --we participate in #edchats --we give credit where credit is due --we take notes --we disseminate interesting information to our network --we amplify our voices to engage in conversation with people from around the world Yes, it can be overwhelming to follow a conference Twitter hashtag such as #AASSA15 (Association of American Schools in South America Annual Educators Conference . (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3). You will find a few sample sreenshots of Tweets from the AASSA conference in Curaçao. Unpacked and annotexted to make the value of Twitter as a Professional Development tool, a learning tool visible to the untrained eye."

"Those of us who are involved in Professional Development have known for a while now. We don't have the same crowd sitting in the audience anymore. The crowd is not "WoWed" by fancy PowerPoints with clipart from the Microsoft Gallery. A sigh goes through the ranks when animation (maybe even with sound) pop one bullet point after another onto the screen."

"Looking at the goals, I want to take a closer look at "getting more educators connected". I see Twitter profiles of educators every day who have "jumped on board" by joining "The Twitter". I wonder if these newbies are network literate? Where do they receive the support to grow? Who supports them?"