Professional Development – not shameless self promotion.

I’ve spoken to Jenny Luca and asked if I can take part of her post on Professional Development – not shameless self promotion and add to it. I’ve written several posts on ‘why I blog?’, as it seems to be a hot question. The reactions of colleagues are varied, some very positive and others, well…!

I have received an enormous amount of professional development this year, self generated and cost free.  How I explain this to the VIT is another question but what has made this possible, is a mentor, a colleague (from another school) who is happy to take me on and develop me professionally with commitment and patience.  Mentoring, coaching, sharing, whatever you want to call it, is a powerful way to develop us all professionally. My blog is about professional sharing! It’s also an authentic way for me to apply my new skills.

Web 2 and ICT applications  is new territory for me, but having read the 2009 Horizon Report K-12 Edition, I know that I’m equipping myself for classroom teaching changes during the next five years.

Excerpt:  Jenny Luca & link to full post.

‘Are you like me? Is your head swimming with everything that is now possible in our world as a result of the Web and the ease of transfer of information? We are so connected in today’s world. I can get onto Twitter and make connections with educators around the world and share ideas – I can find out what’s new and add my two cents worth to the conversations taking place. I read feeds coming to me in my Google Reader and am in awe of educators who are willing to share their knowledge to empower others. I am thankful to software developers who are willing to provide open source products that are making our lives easier to manage and our classrooms more interesting. I feel like I am in a constant state of professional development and what has it cost me? Time and an internet connection. What has it cost my school? Nothing this year – I haven’t been to one PD session and yet I feel like my knowledge attainment has been exponential.  How will this benefit my school? Plenty. I have knowledge and am willing and eager to find ways to share it – writing this blog is one of vehicles I am using (just hope some are reading!). 

I’ve been mulling this around the last 24hrs after reading Liz Davis’ post where she reflected on how she wondered if alerting people to her blog posts via twitter was an act of shameless self promotion. The post resonated with me because I’ve shared these thoughts – is what I’m doing a way of grandstanding? Look at what I know- nah nah na nah na! I’ve talked it over with friends who aren’t a part of this network and they tell me they are learning from what I am writing so I feel like what I’m offering is worthwhile and not self serving. I think people who are blogging about educational technology should be giving themselves a bit of a pat on the back – what I’m finding from my reading and conversations is on mass Professional Development for free!’

Thanks Jenny for being an inspiring educator. We’ve had many conversations about knowledge hoarders and sharers. VIT World Teacher 2008 you certainly are!

Cheers Nina