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This excerpt from an interview with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, PLP founder, captures critical points for PD online. "Will and I agreed that we would only work with teams of school-based educators because the research made it clear that it was collaborative teams within in a school, working together, that really brought about sustainable improvement. That would give us what we needed to anchor the virtual experience in a local context. We also wanted participants to experience a global community of practice-to be able to have conversations with people very different than themselves, with fresh perspectives. Our thinking was that if we put teams of educators who had different ideologies, different geography, different purposes and challenges, all together in the same space, then they could each bring what they did well to the table and people could learn from that. Ultimately that would mean public, private, Catholic, and other kinds of schools; educators teaching well-to-do, middle-class, and poor kids; educators in different states and nations, at different grade levels, and in different content areas and roles. What ultimately grew out of our brainstorming was a three-pronged model of professional development that emphasizes (1) local learning communities at the school/district level; (2) an online community of practice that's both global and deep; and (3) a third prong that is more personal-the idea of a personal learning network that each educator develops as a mega-resource for ideas and information about their particular interests and areas of practice. (These three prongs are described in depth in a new book, The Connected Educator, where PLP community leader Lani Ritter Hall and I tell the story of the evolution of our model and the very solid research base behind it.)

blog post by Jenny Mackness on blog aggregation and tools to aggregate, May 17, 2012. The blog goes beyond the choice of tool to tagging protocols and how to aggregate when some of the writing/reflecting by learners is done behind password protected walls.

World Education's blog and index for adult education teachers on using technology in the classroom. These are practical lessons for use in adult ed, literacy, and college transition classes. They are fun and easy to follow, but don't really build teacher networked skills - they are use when you can or want to. Good for us to refer to, but what we want to offer goes deeper and aims to guide teachers to be networked learners themselves. This site does not do that.

Interesting blog by Jenny Mackness on attending two keynotes at the Association for Learning Technology Conference in Manchester, UK: Jonathan Worth and Laura Czerniewicz. She attended virtually. She found some common themes in the keynotes about privacy, vulnerability, and trust in open learning environments on the learner level. From Jonathan she says: he talked about the difference between the image and the photograph and how there is a paradigm shift because the image is breaking away from the photograph. Photographs are about evidence, images about experience. Laura's talk was about the inequality on a global scale and is a life or death issue and it is a challenge to address inequality in new online landscapes. Jenny ends the blog with: Jonathan's focus on vulnerability and trying to see the image clearly will inform issues of inequality and Laura's focus on inequality will inform Jonathan's concerns about privacy, trust, and vulnerability.

excellent discussion of networks and social learning in organizations with references to Hart, Jennings, Cross, and Internet Time Alliance among others, 2010

Blog by Sui Fai John Mak, 1/23/2013 wondering about differences/similarities between Connectivism and Constructionivism. Like premise of Connectivism. Excerpt "Are PLNs founded in the theory of Connectivism? Connectivism is based on the notion that learning is the result of connections of nodes in networks - as the capacity to build, construct and navigate across networks (including social and personal learning networks, and the neuronetworks)."

Excellent list of Diigo linked resources assembled by Elyse Eidman-Aadahl on traditions in adult and workplace learning. Has implications for how we structure the learning processes/places for WLS.

Look at this page of online learning communities for different gatherings of educators--the numbers of members, who's running them, where they are located, etc. It's a virtual constellation of learning networks/communities. Could WLS directory look like this someday?

Review of John Thackara's new book that has bearing on designing online learning spaces.

An interesting website that offers eCoach services to help someone become an online facilitator of professional learning communities. Scroll down to see promise of stimulus funds for eCoach certification.

A nicely organized record of Sheryl's interviews over several years, published in May 2012

Great blog post published by Ronni Barrett but featuring content by Marc Leavitt on why internet mastery is important, April 2014, with great lists in comments of what internet allows people to do for themselves.