Getting personal at Language World 2011

In light of the current economic downturn and the difficulty teachers have of getting out of school to attend courses, I felt it was apposite at this year's Language World to promote the myriad ways colleagues can improve their own continuing professional development by taking advantage of powerful online tools such as Twitter to nurture a personal learning network.

In an ideal world, it would be great to receive training during the school day in a centre or hotel paid for by your school, but in the current climate, these opportunities are simply becoming less and less viable. Finding alternative sources of CPD is becoming increasingly important and teachers need to be more pro-active if they want to keep up with the latest developments in their field.

Enter the MFL Twitterati. Now I understand that Twitter may not be for everybody and there are  concerns about it from some quarters, but more and more teachers are realising the power it can have to make connections with other like-minded colleagues all over the world. According to a crowdsourcing experiment I did earlier this year, language teachers particularly value the support Twitter offers them, as well as the ideas and inspiration they receive.

Twitter certainly presents a golden opportunity for networking and finding authentic materials that can impact on the classroom. Language teachers Caleb Bloodworth, Catherine Ritz and Val McIntyre have all blogged about their own experiences and plans in this area recently. Worth checking out too is this post Twitter tips for language teachers which includes a podcast of a Skype presentation I gave to a group of language teachers in Australia. Thanks again to @mrsangell for the opportunity I heard about on ... Twitter!

Have a look too at this comprehensive Livebinder curated by Steven W. Anderson and below is a great guide by Brian Sharland A Teacher's Introduction to Twitter.

Here is a slidecast of my presentation as well as a summary of all the links I refer to.

Continuing professional development this time its personal!

Download CPD_this_time_its_personal.mp3

Show Notes

• Continuing professional development is hard to access
• Language Trends survey 2010
• Links CPD survey: teachers go online but still need face-to-face contact
• The networked teacher
• The rise and rise of the MFL Twitterati
• Coming to terms with Twitter
• Piggybacking on Twitter
• MFL Twitterers list
• WL Twitterers list
• Tweetdeck
• Twhirl
• Seesmic Desktop
• How to bookmark Twitter Links
• Packrati.us
• Del.icio.us
• Friend or Follow
• Manage Flitter
• What does the MFL Twitterati mean to you?
• The MFL Times
• Ukedtech list
• Ukedchat wiki
• Ukedchat blog
• Ukedchat daily paper
• Twitterfall
• Using TwitterFall to get the most out of Twitter Chats
• MFL Flashmeeting
• How to videoconference with Flashmeeting
• Flash Forward
• MFL Show and Tell
• You and Yours: the follow up
• MFLresources
• TESConnect with RSS
• Linguanet Forum
• Ning networking
• Talkabout Primary MFL Ning
• 70 tools in 70 minutes
• A – Z Internet Resources for Education
• MFLEdapps
• edapp Twitter Search
• langchat Twitter Search
• CILT 14-19 Training Zone
• O2 Learn
• Add a dimension to your teaching: an introduction to language learning in Virtual Worlds
• ALL London Webinar June 2011 Report!
• SLIC conference webinar
• LARC Social Media Workshop 2011
• Primary languages podcasting, Lancashire Children's Services Authority
• MFL Sunderland podcasts
• ICT Links into Languages Conference Buzz!
• Technology in schools: Is the clock being turned back?
• The mother of invention
• ICT - Make Do and Mend
• One in three ‘overwhelmed by technology’

To finish off, I'd like to quote primary deputy headteacher Julian S Wood from Sheffield who in May delivered a thought-provoking TeachMeet presentation about PLNs in which he concluded that

"We is most definitely better than me".

I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment and in these difficult economic times I think it is essential that we all explore the potential of online collaboration as a way of improving our own CPD and receive the support we all need as a profession.

Comments

[Brittany Grogan]

Hi Mr. Dale,

My name is Brittany Grogan and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I've read a few of your posts and decided I wanted to talk to you about Twitter. I personally did not have a Twitter account until this class. I agree with what you said on how it can help teachers find colleagues with similar interest and ideas especially for language. I was thinking about how you can meet so many people from around the world that can give you inspiration to teach your class about their culture and language. My goal is to become a high school World History teacher and I know that talking to people that have different perspectives of history will be so helpful in the future. Thank you for the videos and links, I hope to see more in the future.

[Joe Dale]

Hi Brittany,

Thanks for visiting the blog and for your comment. I would encourage you to explore the power of Twitter as a way of connecting with like-minded colleagues as I’m sure you’d find the interaction and support very valuable. Good luck in your future career.

Best wishes

Joe

[Ideas_Factory]

Hi Joe fabulous post-thanks for the mention and including my TM Leeds presentation.

Let's hope we can get the message about the benefits of Twitter CPD to those non-belivers!

Keep the faith.

Julian

[Mia]

Twitter is a great way of getting people to notice what you do and may be if you do have any new articles posted you can let people know on Twitter. We should all wake up and realise that Twitter is the new way to communicate.

[Carmita]

Another informational, enjoyable post to read.......thanks for putting it together.

[Brandy]

I agree that Twitter can be a very useful tool for contacting like minded individuals. You just have to be careful whom you follow. Like the video most people use Twitter for the most useless reasons like in the video. No one wants to know you are brushing your teeth or going shopping. I only follow people who use Twitter in a professional manor. I use Facebook for mundane purposes and Twitter for professional reasons. It keeps the professional and personal lives separate.