Teacher Enrichment - Developing Your Own PLN

Andrew McCarthy’s blog is always worth a read and his latest piece about developing a personalised learning network is a rich resource - connecting us to some of the people that he has been following as part of his own professional development. It prompted me to think about the architecture of my own PLN and how it might grow.

Often times, a personalised learning network simply evolves rather than being the product of some grand design. Most schools and colleges have commitment to continuing professional development and a perhaps a sizeable budget to go with it. But my instinct is that many of the best CPD resources do not carry a heavy financial cost.

I have long since stopped going to expensive (and often shallow) events run by commercially driven exam boards and by some of our competitors. To spend £225 or more (cooped into a dull hotel) for a day being told how to be a brilliant Economics teacher, or to be laser guided through the minutiae of past exam papers and photocopies of scripts that were probably not marked properly / at all in the first place is often a crass waste of money!

A PLN might be defined as “the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online.” My own personalised learning network has several spokes leading out from the hub - each of them are valuable in different ways as a way of staying up to date, refreshing my ideas and drawing on the good practice, energy and ideas of some great people. So here are some ideas!

1/ Student-run societies - often the best form of CPD. Our students invite speakers to school and I have enjoyed dozens of informative and entertaining evenings over the last decade or more.

2/ Twitter - this is not to be underestimated as a vibrant element in a PLN. Jim wrote about the uses of Twitter in a recent blog post (Nine Great Reasons for Economics & Business Teachers to use Twitter) and there is no doubt that many more teachers and students are now making stronger use of it as a learning resource.

I constantly remind myself of Steven Johnson’s wonderful phrase from his new book “Where Good Ideas Come From” - namely that “chance favours the connected mind.” Speaking at the LSE back in October he urged those listening to make the list of those they follow on Twitter as diverse as possible! That is good advice, but for colleagues wanting to get some great ideas, arguments and help from fellow educators in their areas of expertise, Twitter is becoming almost manna from Heaven!

From Kevin Hinde at Durham Univ I get a superb flow of news stories on competition issues. Diane Coyle is fantastic at reviewing a staggering number of new economics books. This aggregated flow of tweets is good for following developments on the UK economy. Tweets from the Boston Globe Big Picture often give me ideas for visual images to use in the classroom as does the Guardian Pictures twitter feed.

Twitter pages from the likes of the Guardian Business News Desk, the Financial Times and BBC economics and business correspondents such as Hugh Pym and Robert Peston allow me to get immediate access to breaking news stories for building into classroom discussion. I know of several teaching colleagues who now routinely check their chosen twitter feeds before each lesson and often get some gems to use in our fast-moving subjects!

News of recently published economics research is now released through twitter accounts. For example the RBS economics team, the World Bank.

Our updated list of economics teachers on Twitter can be found here

3/ Radio - yes .... a good old fashioned radio as part of a PLN! A little time on a Sunday evening listening to Radio 4 whilst marking is always a productive time ahead of a new working week. And the BBC’s business, economics and current affairs output can be accessed with ease via the iPlayer or through iTunes podcasts. From Radio 4’s Analysis programme to Peter Day’s In Business, and from the wonderful More or Less to the daily World Business Report there is always something to enjoy. If you can spare the time, play one of your economics classes a radio programme - it encourages focus and concentration and invites them to experiment with different forms of note-taking ahead of a plenary discussion.

4/ Royal Economic Society - the annual essay competition run by the RES is a real highlight for me during the year not just because of the great essays we get to read and discuss but also because the teacher judging panel is full of passionate and switched on teachers from across the UK who gather together for 36 hours to read through the essays as a team and create a shortlist. The annual RES lecture is also a super CPD opportunity - details can be found here

5/ Enrichment lectures and conferences at universities and other organisations - I am lucky living within touching distance of London because this gives me the chance to go to the many free lectures and public events held by the LSE, the RSA and many others. But all of them now provide pod-casts and videos of the events - often streamed live for those who are unable to get to the capital on the day itself. iTunes U is a great resource to tap into.

6/ Visits to other schools and colleges - these are a luxury but wonderfully useful. Time spent with friends in other schools always provides new ideas and avenues to explore. And it is fun to host colleagues here to share approaches and resources.

7/ Collaboration and sharing using other Web 2.0 tools - for example collaboration between colleagues using Google Docs and Drop-Box. Both of these make it quick and easy to develop resources with colleagues in other schools and across national boundaries.

8/ RSS feeds - RSS feeds provide a means of directing the flow of news, research, comment and analysis my way instead of having to search for it. Some of this now comes through Twitter feeds but it just takes a couple of steps to connect to RSS feeds using your email account embed them into your VLE. Moodle 2.0 makes this an intuitive and painless process.

Personalised learning networks take many forms and I am sure that I have missed out some important ingredients!

One not mentioned is the value I attach to the many informal contacts and connections made with so many of the teachers who attend the Tutor2u CPD events during the year. There is a strong teaching community out there many of whom are embracing the opportunities of the Open Web to invigorate and deepen their understanding of economics, business and finance to the benefit of their students.