Powerful Learning Practice Blog

How Does Blogging Improve Students' Reading and Writing?

Team Name: New Literacies Team Members: John Thomas, Trish Dower, Matt Scott, Ray Brookman, Richard Lambert, Suzie Janssen, Kathryn Hamilton, Alyson Leete, Michelle Johnson School: Winters Flat PS, Castlemaine PS, Pleasant Street Primary School, Berwick Primary...

What Can We Do About Junk in Our World?

Community: Australia's ConnectU Team Name: Environment Team members: Team Members: Margo Edgar (Pascoe Vale Primary), Delia Jenkins (Brauer College), Craig Bradley (Eltham High School), David Allender (Eltham High School), Liz Ash (Roxburgh Homestead Primary School),...

Contagious Leadership

At the best unconference experiences, contagious leadership abounds. And isn’t this the foundation of every social networking site, every blog, and every wiki? Isn’t this the true definition of collaboration? The sum of the parts is always greater than the individual. Together, we are stronger, smarter, and more creative. Leaders who get this are not only better for it, but can lead others to create communities of excellence.

Google Jockeys in the Classroom

Marsha Ratzel and Shelley Wright are regular writers here at PLP’s Voices from the Learning Revolution group blog. They both teach science, they both keep popular personal blogs about their classroom practice. Marsha’s from Kansas, Shelley’s from Saskatchewan. Shelley teaches high schoolers, Marsha teaches ‘tweens. They’ve never met but they’ve become colleagues and collaborators thanks to their Powerful Learning Practice experience. This dialogue about classroom Google jockeys is their first joint post for VFLR.

Let's Take Back Our Team-Building Time!

I am trying to shift my teaching, make inquiry the centerpiece, and have my students be the leaders in their learning. The biggest challenge I face is that my students have no idea how to work together. As teachers we need to steal back the time necessary to make community-building a priority in our classrooms.

Teacher Fails: Let's Talk

I recently blogged about the importance of cultivating a culture where our students are expected to fail sometimes — it’s part of taking risks. We need to do this as teachers too. The first step, of course, is to create a culture of trust and support among teachers, and that’s hard in the midst of high-stakes testing and the publishing of teacher and school rankings. The only way this will happen is if we’re honest.

I’ll go first.

Connected Online Communities of Practice: PLPeeps represent!

The 2010 National Education Technology Plan demonstrates the importance of educators becoming more connected to resources, tools, colleagues, experts, and learning activities, both within and beyond schools. Participation in online communities of practice is a key way...

Periwinkle Begins the Adventure of a Lifetime

Periwinkle is the official mascot of Powerful Learning Practice (PLP).  Powerful Learning Practice offers a long-term, job-embedded professional development program that provides a unique opportunity for educators to work together collaboratively to understand 21st...