Developing and Growing Personal Learning Networks for School Leaders

Session 6 Discussion Forum

1.     Reflect on how your personal learning network has changed and grown during the course of this workshop.  Discuss your plans for how you plan to continue to grow your learning network and how you hope to contribute to the professional learning of your administrative colleagues.

Before taking this course, my personal learning network consisted of the connections that I have with fellow math educators who I have met through organizations such as Alabama Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ACTM) and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), my high school colleagues, and my colleagues at Troy University.  My personal learning network was limited to experiences connected to my job and teaching math.  If I needed to find information related to my job or teaching math, I would conduct online research which would sometimes take several hours to find what I was looking for.  After taking this course, my personal learning network has increased through use of such Web 2.0 tools as:  1) the RSS feed Feedly; 2) twitter; 3) blogging; and 4) podcasting.  I have learned how these Web 2.0 tools can be utilized to build, manage, and maintain my personal learning network more effectively and efficiently. 

I plan to continue to grow my personal learning network by:

·        learning about 21^st century skills.

·        improving my own 21^st century skills.

·        modeling 21^st century skills.

·        attending at least one regional, state, or national 

     technology conference every year.

·        collaborating with other school leaders to identify, 

     develop, and implement technology to communicate 

     and engage with all stakeholders.

I hope to contribute to the professional learning network of my administrative colleagues by:

      ·       encouraging and engaging all stakeholders in 

           conversations about integrating and 

           implementing 21^st century skills.

      ·        providing a vision for developing, integrating and 

            implementing 21^st century skills in the K – 12 

            curriculums.

      ·        surveying the school district’s plan for technology 

            integration and implementation of 21^st century skills.

·        revising the school district’s plan for developing, 

      integrating, and implementing technology to address 

      emerging technology.

·        developing and implementing professional 

      development for 21^st century skills for all stakeholders.

In the conclusion to the article “Empowering the 21^st Century Superintendent”, the author stated, “Superintendents and district leadership teams must adopt the mindset that is typical in the business world:  Why would we try to achieve our goals without making intensive use of technology?”  The author emphasized that technology is essential for organizations and individuals to learn and work, to think and collaborate, to compete and succeed.  The article stressed that school districts should be in the business of preparing students to do all of these.

I want to end with the quote from U. S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in his 1975 book Fifty-Four Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States which I found very appropriate

 “Education is not the teaching of the three R’s. Education is the teaching of the overall citizenship, to learn to live together with fellow citizens, and above all to learn to obey the law.”