Archdiocese of Philadelphia Cohort wraps things up

By Mary Worrell
The teams from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia cohort gathered to celebrate at a culminating event last month and share their projects.
Nancy Caramanico, director of technology for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Catholic Schools, said having full participation from all of the district’s high schools enhanced the experience for all the teams involved.
“We have 20 [...]

Illinois-Ohio Cohort celebrates at culminating event

By Mary Worrell
Earlier this month teams from the Illinois-Ohio Cohort gathered at the Marie Murphy School is Wilmette, Ill. to celebrate the end of their year-long PLP experience with a project showcase.
Gail Soriano from the Avoca School District 37 said the PLP experience gave her team a chance to get to know others in the [...]

U.S. International Cohort teams reflect on the past year

By Mary Worrell
Members of the PLP International Cohort’s U.S. teams celebrated the end to their year-long experience together with a culminating event in Fredericksburg, VA earlier this month. Even though it was the U.S. teams celebrating and presenting their projects, teams from Australia and New Zealand attended the event via the PLPLive Ustream channel. It [...]

Self Directed Learning Teams

By Robin Ellis
In the November issue of Educational Leadership there was an interesting article, Students at Bat, as I read it I saw a correlation between the article and conversations about self-directed learning, both for students and adults. The article used an analogy of how playing neighborhood baseball taught many skills to children, for example: [...]

On Growing Mushrooms and Community

By Karen Richardson
As an early birthday gift, my husband gave me a mushroom growing kit.  It was pretty much a box of dirt with a bag of “starter,” which I think were spores in peat moss.  I spread the contents of the bag over the dirt, spritzed with water, and then covered it up with [...]

As Confidence Builds

by Robin Ellis
One of the challenges of my position in the district where I work has been how to “teach” others about social networking, how do you convey the benefits of virtual personal learning communities / networks, in a 3 hour workshop? How do you cover all the options, explore all the tools available to [...]

What Makes PLP Work

By Dean Shareski
Being part of 3 cohorts and witnessing and hearing the work of 4 others I’m trying to get a feel for these geographically diverse communities.
As someone who is charged with a leadership position in my own district and trying to achieve much of the same kind of work as PLP, it’s a wonderful [...]

Expert Voices

By Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
I am happily paddling, running in and out with the discussion waves, splashing a bit in the groups, occasionally sticking my head under and blowing a few small blogging bubbles. Feeling I can’t yet go too long with out taking a breath to edit and definitely still need my Google goggles, although am [...]

Many Voices

By Lani Ritter Hall
On the side, in the middle, questioning, nudging, modeling, holding back sitting on my hands –as the many voices of the members of the Illinois/Ohio cohort storm the NING in conversations related to 21st Century learning. Rich and thoughtful contributions have grown this community and its members’ learning in exciting ways . [...]