Tools+for+Ongoing+Professional+Development

Professional development is about keeping in touch -- with the latest research, with colleagues, with what's happening in the world of education. Subscribing to listservs, forums and webpages by email is one way to keep in touch. But there are others.

5 Ways to Build Your 1.0 and 2.0 Personal Learning Network

Personalized homepages
Personalized homepages are one way to pull together the websites you use regularly in one place. You choose and organize what is displayed. There are several tools that allow you to do this -- and they make it very easy to share links or modules, often called "widgets", between users.
 * [|iGoogle] is one of the most popular. It's great if you have a Gmail account, but because each page is private (you have to log into your Google account to see it), it's not something you can share with others.
 * [|Netvibes] is another -- with the added advantage that it allows both a private and a public page.
 * [|Pageflakes] is very similar to Netvibes. example, [|Mrs. Beasley's Pageflakes] as a basic "fun" page for students to access. Here is another one [|n2teachingscience] from a teacher in Kansas.
 * [|Pageflakes] is very similar to Netvibes. example, [|Mrs. Beasley's Pageflakes] as a basic "fun" page for students to access. Here is another one [|n2teachingscience] from a teacher in Kansas.

RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are ways of getting automatic updates from your favorite websites. Here's a CommonCraft video to explain them in plain English.

If you subscribe to RSS feeds, you need to set up a "feed reader". [|Google Reader], as mentioned in the video above, is one option that allows you to manage many feeds.

You can put a widget for Google Reader onto your iGoogle or Netvibes page. Find educational blogs for your content area here. http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/Education+Blogs+by+Discipline Add these blogs to your feed reader to keep up to date on educational technology. Free Technology for Teachers Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day Making Teachers Nerdy

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[|Learn Central]LearnCentral™ Offers Free Social and Professional Networking, Real-time Online Meetings, Live Online Events, Peer-rated Resources, and More

Social Networks in Education wiki Use this wiki to find that certain social network.
 * [|Classroom 2.0] is a social group for educators interested in implementing web2.0 applications in the classroom. There are many subgroups within this network. You can post questions to the forums and receive answers and explanations.
 * GROU.PS a new online community site creator. Free up to 100GB of data transfer
 * Grouply a free social network creator for education.

Edmodo Free, private, social platform for education. DEN Discovery Educator Network Thinkfinity Thinkfinity Community [|Twitter], a micro-blogging tool, is the latest craze in instant communication, but one that looks like it will be around for a long time. In essence, it's a news feed on someone's professional or personal life. If you are unfamiliar with it, watch this [|CommonCraft video], Twitter in Plain English.

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5 Real Examples of Using Twitter for Education

If you want to see some examples of Twittering, flip through this slideshow, [|Why is the Fail Whale Smiling?] media type="custom" key="6600517"

Find teachers you may want to follow on Twitter in this list.

=Further reading/exploration=


 * Explore some of these Twitter "Shorty Award" winners**.

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