Learning

One section of the blogosphere that is of interest to me is the teachers/educators’ blogosphere (is there a name for it?).

Just saw this post on David Warlick’s blog, on self development:

A Path to Becoming a 21st Century Literate Educator — Self Development

1. Find two or more other educators in your school who are interested in learning and using emerging information and communication technologies. It would be of enormous advantage if you can include your schools library media specialist.
2. Identify the appropriate person in your school or district who can provide technical support and configuration for your increasingly utilized computers and network. Bake them some chocolate chip cookies.
3. Identify some edu-bloggers who are talking about the emerging ICTs you are considering. See the Bloggers to Learn From wiki, contributed to by a world community of educators.
4. Delegate! Assign each member of your team some of the selected blogs to follow, and share specific posts with each other.
5. Read, study, and discuss books about teaching and learning and the world we’re doing it in. See the Books to Learn From. wiki, contributed to by a world community of educators.
6. Schedule regular meetings (once or twice a month) at a local restaurant, coffee shop, or pizzeria (preferably with WiFi). Meet and discuss what you’ve learned and what you want to learn.
7. Start a group del.icio.us (A social bookmarks service) account for organizing and sharing web resources.
8. Start a wiki for posting notes, links, and step-by-step instructions.
9. Join one or more of the Ning social networks, such as: School 2.0, Library 2.0, Classroom 2.0.
10. Start your own blogs for sharing your reflections on what you are learning and how you are learning it.
11. Start experimenting in your class and share the results.
12. Share your results with other teachers in your school and invite them into your conversation.

Start to model, in your job as a teacher, the practice of being a master learner.

Us librarians are educators, too, and could very profitably collaborate with teachers – and learn from, and with, them. I’m often amazed (and sad) when I come across colleagues who are obviously not bothering to learn anything new, and have not done so for a long time. Everything you learn goes towards making you a better librarian.

I personally would be bored out of my brain if I wasn’t continually learning and finding challenges for myself.