Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education - Softcover

Will Richardson; Rob Mancabelli

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193554327X ISBN 13: 9781935543275

Publisher: Solution Tree, 2011

Synopsis

Bronze Medal Award Winner--ForeWord Review's 2011 Book of the Year in Education

The Internet connects us in unprecedented ways. New tools allow us to build global learning networks where we can pursue our intellectual and creative passions with people around the world. To prepare students to flourish in this new learning world, schools will need to transform themselves in important ways. Personal Learning Networks is a road map to guide that transformation.

In order to bring these learning networks into classrooms, teachers must first create learning networks of their own. The authors describe a bottom-up progression that will help educators understand the power of these networks and become networked individuals. Learn how to use learning networks in the classroom to improve student outcomes and make the case for learning network use across your entire school. Using step-by-step advice and real-world stories, this book aims to narrow the technological divide, put educators on the same footing as students, and provide a recipe for incorporating these tools into every classroom.

Benefits

* Notes the importance of teachers exploring Internet tools in their own lives before bringing them into the classroom

* Introduces tools such as Twitter, social bookmarking, RSS feeds, blogs, and Facebook

* Offers real-world stories of teachers who have created personal learning networks

* Shares a three-step plan to build a learning network throughout a school or district

* Discusses four common hurdles most schools face when implementing learning networks

About this title

About the Author

Will Richardson -- A parent of two middle school aged children, Will Richardson has been writing about the intersection of social online learning networks and education for the past ten years at weblogg-ed.com and in numerous journals and magazines such as Ed Leadership, Education Week, and English Journal. He was a public school educator for twenty-two years, and is a co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice (plpnetwork.com), a unique professional development program that has mentored over three thousand teachers worldwide in the last three years. His first book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Corwin Press, 3rd edition, 2010) has sold over 75,000 copies and has impacted classroom practice around the world. Over the past six years, he has spoken to tens of thousands of educators in over a dozen countries about the merits of learning networks for personal and professional growth. He is a national advisory board member of the George Lucas Education Foundation and a regular columnist for District Administration Magazine.With nearly twenty years of experience in educational leadership, technology, and planning,

Review

Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli have created an essential book for educators, students, and anyone concerned about the future of education. Personal Learning Networks provides the perspectives and the processes we need to use personal learning networks to become educated, empowered and ready for the global economy. --Jason Ohler, Professor Emeritus, Educational Technology, University of Alaska, Juneau

This book presents an innovative, comprehensive strategy for reinventing education to meet the needs of 21st century students and society. Much more than familiar rhetoric on what is wrong with education, the authors provide a compelling vision for education as it could and should be and a road map to help get us there. Mancabelli & Will Richardson have provided us with a step-by-step guide to create globally-connected classrooms, implement powerful project-based curriculum, and introduce our students to tools and technologies with transformative potential. --Angela Maiers, President of Maiers Educational Services, Clive, Iowa

This book is chock-full of useful information and highlights numerous practitioners who are walking the walk. A fantastic resource for administrators, teachers, policymakers, and others who are trying to lead their organizations into the digital, global world in which we now live. --Scott McLeod, Director at UCEA Center for Advanced Study of Technical Leadership in Education, Ames, Iowa

Edition details

• Publisher: Solution Tree
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 193554327X
• ISBN 13: 9781935543275
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 168