Our Students Are Changing
Today, new and emerging Web technologies are connecting our children in ways never before possible. Through blogs, social networking sites, multimedia and other Web 2.0 tools, their worlds are becoming more and more networked and engaging, creating environments for learning and collaborating that look little like our traditional classroom spaces. And they are not alone in these changes. Businesses, journalists, politicians and others are struggling to find new models that take full advantage of the opportunities these technologies and shifts afford.
…but Schools are Not.
To date, however, schools have by and large been resistant to these shifts. Yet, this networked landscape of learning challenges us to re-envision what we do in our schools and classrooms or risk a growing irrelevance in our students’ lives. And at the core of this challenge is how well we realize the potentials of these technologies in our own professional and personal learning practice as educators.
How do we best begin to leverage these connections in our own learning lives so we can best understand the pedagogies and literacies that are required to help our students embrace them in effective, ethical and safe ways?
A Unique Plan to Move Our Professional Practice Forward
Powerful Learning Practice offers a unique opportunity for educators to participate in a long-term, job-embedded professional development program that immerses them in 21st Century learning environments. The PLP model is currently enabling hundreds of educators around the country to experience the transformative potential of social Web tools to build global learning communities and re-envision their own personal learning practice.
PLP’s learning cohorts are led by internationally recognized voices and practitioners in the field of educational technology. Based on a highly successful Microsoft grant-funded pilot carried out in Alabama over the last four years, the cohort model uses a blend of face to face and online curriculum to connect small teams of educators from forward thinking schools and grows those connections over the course of a school year. Finally, it prepares schools and districts to move forward in systemic ways after the one-year commitment ends by laying the groundwork for three and five-year community building project plans.