Thinking About Learning

I was first introduced to the concept of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) last October on Jeff Utecht’s Thinking Stick blog (one of my faves). It seems that this idea is finally taking hold in our corner of the world. There’s a lot of research to support this practice as a strategy for improving student achievement. Here’s a link to some supporting online documentation that I located regarding PLCs. My understanding is that generally a PLC is a group of teachers at the same school who are involved in an inquiry-based study of a specific educational topic or practice. Collaboration among teachers has been proven to improve teacher quality. As I have continued to ponder the need to change the way we provide education and how we might go about doing that, I would be very interested in being part of an online PLC that focuses on using web2.0 tools in the classroom. A cool tool that I learned of from Jane’s E-learning Pick of the Day is Xpanity. This application evidently provides a way for users who are reading the same web site to have conversation about it. I’m still trying to work with it, but this potentially seems like a fantastic way to facilitate an online PLC. (I discovered Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day in Widgetbox and have added it to my Pageflakes online learning page.)

Some other cool tools:

Seterra: This is a free download geography game. You can study or take quizzes to learn countries, capitols, and flags of the world. It seems to me that we should be placing a greater emphasis on teaching geography as our world gets flatter and flatter. A great use of time when you have a few minutes left at the end of class!
Slideshare: This application allows you to upload your PowerPoint slides and podcast to create a “slidecast.” This tool be used by teachers to make a lesson available online. It would also be a great way to share professional development presentations.

Technorati:plc thinkingstick elearning edtech cooltools