Our team members that participated in yesterday’s Learnscope regional workshop Go Virtual 07 – Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds for VET learnt and shared in some great experiences around SecondLife – check out Dean and Judy’s blogs for their comments.
Professional learning can certainly occur in traditional contexts, such as workshops (although yesterday’s workshop was operating simultaneously in three environments, one face-to-face and two virtual – very exciting and not at all traditional). On a different note, I also wanted to follow on from Paul Meldrum’s comments at our workshop last week about not waiting for these opportunities, but instead challenging each of us to take charge of our own professional learning.
In the Diocese we have access to a range of short Atomic Learning tutorials through Staffnet. A new series of tutorial videos on Web 2.0 have been created for Atomic Learning by Vicki Davis, of Flat Classroom and Horizon Project fame. These videos may be of use to you, but I think their real value would be as a great ‘just-in-time’ resource to share with colleagues who are new to web 2.0 and want learn more. They do have a US slant but don’t let this deter you – the information they contain is delivered by a classroom teacher, for classroom teachers. To gain access to them, choose Atomic Learning from the resources menu in Staffnet. Let me know what you think!
Paul also mentioned podcasts last week. Three places to investigate to see how podcasts can provide effective professional learning are:
1. The Virtual Staffroom Project, which is a community podcasting project created by Australian Chris Betcher. Chris regularly interviews leading teachers on their views about the impacts new technologies are having in classrooms around the world.
2. Cut to the Core is a series of podcasts from Apple Distinguished Educators around the world, “showcasing current trends, innovative strategies, and replicable ideas that will empower educators to transform classrooms of the 21st century.”
3. TED Talks are the recordings of an amazing conference held annually in the US, that bring together extraordinary people from a diverse array of backgrounds to speak – to a theme, or about their own story. As the TED conferences website states “Hearing experts in your field may deliver incremental improvements to what you do… But if you want the big breakthrough, the giant “Aha,” then you have to emerge from your trench, climb to higher ground and see the big picture.” Terrific, inspirational listening (podcasts are available from itunes or you can watch/download/link to videos of the presentations on the TED website.)
If you know of other sites that provide quality podcasts around education, please share them in the comments below, so others in the team (and beyond) can check them out!
