Learning Digitally

Many thanks to the inventors of RSS feed and the aggregator! When I started reading the blogs in my Blogroll I went about it old school; when I found a blog I really liked I bookmarked it. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of that little orange square up in the address bar. I had used it to subscribe to several podcast, but figured that since I was reading my blogs in the browser I would just keep track of them one bookmark at a time. On, thank you Vicki Davis, for listing Google Reader among your favorite tools! Now I am never more than one click away from a night of great reading.

With my morning coffee near by and the determination of not going shopping Thanksgiving weekend, I settled in to checking out what Google Reader had brought me. Several hours, and more cups of coffee later, I realized I had stumbled upon a resource for infinite Professional Development from the comfort of my chair.

Think about it…how often are teachers able to leave their classrooms to attend conferences? When you factor in lost instructional time, registration and travel costs, and demands on your time outside of the classroom (yes there is life outside of school), realistically we are fortunate to attend one, maybe two, conferences a year. That’s not a criticism or a reflection on one’s commitment to PD, just an observation.

However, from my comfy chair I was able to listen to Wesley Fryer and Kevin Honeycutt and discovered VoiceThread. Reading Andy Carvin’s blog linked me to Alan Levine’s wikispace listing 50 free online tool to tell the same story. Ryan Bretag’s 50 tips for avoiding roadblocks to blogging in the classroom, and the links embedded in the blog, can serve as a great conversation starter on how to use blogs in classrooms. And that’s three examples, and I could go on, but you get the idea.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that we trade attending conferences for reading blogs. The energy and excitement that can come from attending a conference, listening to, and talking to presenters and other teachers is vital. But a morning’s reading may inspire ideas of how to collaborate beyond the walls of the school or provide the “Ah-ha” moment that inspire a new ways to engage your class in reading or writing. You may find a great website or online resource that enhances what your teaching already. Or you may find a post that simply asks you to think about how and what you teach.

For me, checking in and reading the blogs in my RSS feed connect me to what my peers are thinking, and doing, and using to help move our classrooms closer to ones that will help prepare our students for learning and working in the 21st century. They are my daily Professional Development.

Just my thoughts…