Out of bounds

Today is the last day of an 8 week professional development course I’m teaching on the importance of understanding and expanding our professional/personal learning networks.  It’s been a good time for me — a time to reflect on my own practice, a challenge to think about these things more intentionally, a time to evaluate how successfully I’ve been engaging in networks myself.

For me, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

1. I need to partition my life a little better.  I’m getting overwhelmed with all the information heading my way lately.  And I’m feeling the burden of a “need to connect.”  Planning how and when I access these networks, and letting it go when I don’t, is something I’d like to see in my own professional practice.
2. Reflection is good.  I knew this already, but the face-to-face collaboration that I’ve enjoyed during this class has reinforced this understanding again for me.
3. These tools are worth the investment.  I think they’re worth my time primarily because, as David Warlick so eloquently says, “it’s not about the technology.”  I’m grateful that people are so willingly sharing their interests, questions, and expertise online.  It has helped me grow as a professional and as a person.

I’m looking forward to contributing to more of these conversations, outside the typical bounds of face-to-face connections, in a more intentional and consistent way, in the next few months.   I hope the teachers in my class have taken as much away from this experience as I have.

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