To learn, I do the following:
- Collect and nurture a dynamic Professional Learning Network (PLN) that includes a 9,000+ Twitter PLN of awesome thinkers, readers, researchers, and doers in a number of fields, a collection of blogs that come directly to my email, a professional Facebook page, and colleagues within the school community I work in, at the state-level, and national level that I work and learn with in person at conferences, workshops, and at school.
- Read/Research. As I interact with my PLN I collect titles of articles, books, and videos to read and view.
- Blog. As a blogger I collect, reflect, create, and synthesize ideas that will better my practice as well as impact the work of those who read my blogs.
- Social Media Threads: On YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ I collect and categorize multiple videos, articles, people, ideas, and other information that positively impacts my learning.
- Conferences: I attend and present at conferences to develop my repertoire in real time with others.
- Projects/Problems: I work with colleagues on committees at school and elsewhere to work on projects and solve problems. I find this to be a highly effective way to learn and develop my practice.
- Discourse/Debate: I spend considerable time discussing information, questions, and ideas with others in and outside of the educational field.
My typical routine involves the following actions:
- Periodically directing my learning by establishing goals and posting those goals on my online ePortfolio.
- Revisiting, reflecting on, and revising those goals regularly.
- Daily reading, writing, and research beginning with a review of my social media threads and daily blogging. Then reading more in-depth articles and information.
- Keeping a to-do list of books, videos, articles, and conferences to attend to.
- Scheduling deeper reading such as reading books, attending conferences, planning units of study, collaborative projects and problem solving, skill building, and research projects.
As I learn, I continually try to spiral up towards my goals by deepening, enriching, and refining current knowledge and practice to match the needs of my students, the world around me, and future pursuits and upcoming events.
I find that this routine keeps me current, fills me with wonderful, timely, and valuable questions, and informs a worthy direction of good practice and positive collaboration.
