Mind Dump
 
Nov 24

Should educators be able to get PD credit for participating in a PLN?

by Scott McLeod
Why is it that I can get 1 continuing ed credit for sitting in an hour-long presentation by an obviously biased cooperately employed presenter and not engage myself meaningfully in the topic at hand but for an hour of reading and meaningful career related reflection in my PLN I get nothing institutionally recognized?

via Carl Anderson

I think Carl meant "corporately-employed"... Great question (tough logistically, though)!

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5 comments

Nov 24, 2009
Con Morris said...
Maybe accreditation should follow evidence of impact on learning and not the medium of the PD (or CPD as we call it in Scotland). Even tougher logistically! ;)
Nov 24, 2009
wrtngtchr said...
Accepting PD credits takes some bureaucratic manoevering, which kills creative, imaginative thinking. PLNs are certainly not the only answer to ongoing learning necessary for effective teaching, but what we learn participating in PLNs transfers the power of our minds from the collective "them" to the individualized "us." Sounds a bit paranoid, but managing change is, in my opinion, more concerning to decision makers than to individual educators. We know that if we aren't flexible and imaginative in our classrooms, learning comes to a grinding halt. If PD is controlled, learning becomes stagnant for educators, too. We are supposed to be the learning professionals. So let's receive credit when credit is due.
Nov 24, 2009
Greg Thompson said...
One district I worked in offered the option of earning CEC's for reading education books. I know other educators given the same option. A yearly form required us to indicate book title, author, month we read, and whether we recommended the book to others.

It would seem, logically, that there would be some way to quantify and qualify an educators activity in a PLN. I would tend to disagree with Dr. McLeod that this would be logistically problematic. It would be one more option in an educators PD options and one that is, at the current time, rather robust in opportunities to extend PD past the traditional "listening to or watching" approach to PD to one that is based heavily on "talking about," which is, I think, a faster avenue to innovation.

Nov 24, 2009
Ben Grundy said...
I love this idea and it's one that I very recently questioned myself. Working in the international school sector I am lucky enough to not be mandated by how many hours of PD I have to take each year. However, over the last year or so of my time connecting with educators via twitter, I have experienced first hand the benefits involved in this forum. For this reason I have just started a new delicious account (http://www.delicious.com/bensreadinglist) where I can at least keep track of some of the online reading that I am doing as a result of my PLN - including this reading :-) Useful for both my own record and for reference for future employment.
Dec 03, 2009
Carl Anderson said...
I cnat spel. Thanks for catching my typo.

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