WomensLearningStudio

Learning Counts.org to help adults get college credit for what they already know--resource for WLStudio?

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

Interviews with four CoP practitioners including Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, May 2012. PLP uses three buoys for worksites--Ning, wiki, and website.

Describes the 3 layers of licenses, and the 6 types of licenses available from Creative Commons. There is also a link to their simple License Chooser to help you decide which license to use.

I joined Sheryl N-B's Google circle and have wandered through her posts including her Connected Learner Manifesto (that I believe came from a Twitter request she made, subsequently summarized into Circle document). I wrote a couple of entries. Note that on this page advertising the PLP Live 2012 event, they stress the need to do "embedded job learning" with their learners. Makes me wonder if we need to be more specific about the types of transitions/situations we wish to help women with. Because all learning needs to be applied/reflected on/? to be owned and used as a springboard for the next phase? Writing reflections or doing representations of learning advance learning and certainly document waypoints but are they enough?

The pricing information about Adobe Connect Individual host services

Adobe connect individual meeting pricing information

Google+ has many great features besides adding your friends to circles. The network's video chat tool, Google+ Hangouts, has awesome audio and video quality. If you're curious about the tool but not sure how to get started, the points below will help you be successful when you're video chatting with others on Google+.

Blog by Penny Scott at Info Career Trends website, 5/4/2009 See excerpt on five year goals and being proactive in PD and career development. When I began my current position at the University of San Francisco in 2003, I knew that five years down the road I would need to apply for a promotion. This involved showing my professional development and service by creating a promotion binder that traced my career development - and seemed a daunting task to my new librarian's eyes, because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find enough professional opportunities with which to fill my binder. I've found, though, that the promotion process is a model for the art of being proactive about career development, both in thought and in deed. Being proactive requires an active, open, seeking attitude, as well as reliable, high-quality action. This combination is very powerful, and can help you get beyond the constraints of time, funding, geography, or your current job description - giving you a career path of which to be proud."

Blog on professional development, 12/7/09 "In the newer flatter models, there are still leaders and followers but not so many layers in between, and that ratio seems to be evening out and actually shifting towards more leaders than followers. In others words, when an employee feels empowered and is driven to leverage all the tools available today for better decision-making (the collective human knowledge is now free and accessible), then really, organizations need to set goals and truly get the heck out of the way. The flatter models are working and they are working great. In addition to being flat, they are also virtual and function-based as opposed to departmental or vocation-based. So, whoever has the expertise necessary to achieve a goal is sought after and their knowledge is harnessed. In some cases, this functional expertise could very well be outside the traditional walls of an organization. As we start 2010, let's be open to performance instead of accountability, to flatter models instead of traditional hierarchies, and to achieving greater success by empowering those who we compensate to perform."

Even if you've never purchased Mifeprex, the abortion pill that turns 10 years old this week, you've seen the logo. At a yoga studio, in the supermarket's natural foods aisle, or even at a charity event, the silhouette of a dancing woman has become the marker of a product designed for women.

In an image-based essay, artist Shana Moulton collects logos from women's health, beauty, and support groups. Here finding: logos for lady groups feature mainly "Squiggles, Trees, Ribbons and Spirals" and other shapes that reinforce gender stereotypes.

Blog post by Ron Carlee, October 25, 2011, on Societal Impacts of Digital Exclusion, TechSoup for Libraries. He was "asked to comment on the importance of digital technologies from the perspective of local govenrments." Great quote for connected learning value. See cost proposition below: This increased societal connectiveness and awareness, however, is only available if one is connected. If you're not connected, you're really not connected. In an earlier day, we could legitimately debate the importance of a digital divide relative to other public priorities. In its infancy, informational technology was interesting and useful, but was it truly essential for everyone all the time? This is no longer a credible question. Without digital connectivity in the 21st century, people will earn less, pay more for the things they buy, live life with fewer personal connections, and they will not be exposed to virtual worlds of vast knowledge, art, and even frivolity. If we really care about having successful communities of educated people who can compete in a global economy, who are entrepreneurial and creative, if we really want people to connect with one another, if we want our institutions to connect with the people they serve, if we want a sustainable world that improves the lives of all people, then we must ask the question: can any community afford involuntary, digital exclusion for any of its residents?

Showcasing your work in an online Portfolio can help give employers a clear picture of you and your skills.

The New York Times recommends creating an ePortfolio to show potential employers.

The New York Times recommends creating an ePortfolio to showcase skills to employers.

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.)

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?

Model for WLS PLN?

Four minute video by Michael Wesch in St. George, KS, an assistant professor of anthropology. His video chronicles the evolution of the technical internet through html, XML phases and how the current use of code enables us to share our ideas at an unprecedented rate because anyone can click to write and publish to the world with the simplicity of an off/on TV control. We are (re)creating something new every second and can build relationships with people we never knew existed before. It's now one degree of separation between internet residents even though people may be miles apart in location, employment, lifestyle, temperament, etc. We can choose to collaborate with anyone who agrees to work with us. In fact, we can learn from afar from anyone without affiliating with them or they with us if they have some presence on the internet. We must figure out how to organize the things that matter to us that we harvest from across the internet. Tagging helps us do this. The web 2.0 transition has already had and will have impacts on copyright laws and practices, self-identity in different contexts, privacy, relationships, etc. Are you ready? Am I ready?

Free PLP (Professional Learning Practice) options at PLP Network

Pricing chart for year long Connected Learner Experience

Look at this description of the Powerful Learning Practice ecourse offered by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and others at PLPNetwork