Edubeacon

The VITTA 2009 Conference Slide to Open has been a busy place for the past three days.  Keynote Speakers Larry Johnson of the Horizon Report and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 were inspiring, presenting a vision for educational change.   Choice of workshops was varied and provided a balance of ICT integration topics.

The session I presented was entitled: The Long Tail of your Personal Learning Network. (Resources are linked to the title).  By coincidence, Steve Hargadon spoke about the ‘long tail’ of social networking in his keynote.  He emphasised the Internet as a place of conversations and laid out strategies for schools to cope with the change.

The ‘Long Tail’ of your Personal Learning Network refers to the fact that, although we have peer leaders such as these two gentlemen, the Internet has provided immense opportunities for us to learn.  Support and learning can come from the least, to the most significant person in our network.  What is important, is that we get on board and begin building our networks.  Lack of time can no longer be an excuse when we have RSS and platforms such as iGoogle to help us stay organised.   Furthermore, we have an obligation to our students to be informed.  Twitter doesn’t suit everybody, however, it is only one of a vast array of resources that can contribute to our knowledge.  How valuable is your personal learning network?