Educators Are Doin’ It For Themselves: Creating Their Own Professional Development

Educators are creating their own professional development opportunities on their own time without compensation, acknowledgement, nor credit.

With so many great resources on the web, teachers are realizing that they can learn just as much (if not more!) from their personal learning network (PLN) as they can from traditional professional development (PD). Educators are connecting with like-minded individuals across the globe, reading about best practices and new trends in education, and sharing their experiences with friends and colleagues. Through social media, popular blogs and webinars, teachers are taking ownership of their learning and finding PD opportunities that weren’t possible a decade ago (Do-It-Yourself Virtual Professional Development: Taking Ownership of Your Learning).

Here is a list of how they are doing it:

• Being active on Twitter via
  • Twitter Hashtags (see http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/a-comprehensive-index-to-educational.html )
  • Tweet Chats (see http://goo.gl/IYDNqk)
• Attending and/or presenting at a virtual conference:
  • Reform Symposium
  • Global Education Conference
  • K12 Online Conference
• Participating in a MOOC:
  • Making Learning Connected
  • Tinkering Fundamentals: A Constructionist Approach to STEM Learning
• Attending and contributing to ongoing webinar series:
  • Classroom 2.0 Live
  • Connected Learning
• Writing Blog posts – reading and commenting on others’ blogs.
• Going to and/or helping organize Edcamps (see http://theeducatorsroom.com/2014/05/edcamp-unconference/)

For more information on self-directed professional development, see my post, Teacher Agency: Self-Directed Professional Development: