Welcome to the video series explaining some of the basic concepts and tools
of the aPlaNet project.
One of the main goals of the project
is to show teachers how to keep up with that professional development
through the use of social networks.
Social networking as a tool for learning is relatively new but today
hundreds of thousands of educators are connected
through various social networking sites
and hundreds are joining everyday.
What is a social network?
It's a website which allows you to connect with other users
and share information, activities, interests, news, phtographs, and ideas or viewpoints.
Chances are, you already belong to one.
According to wikipedia, at the time of creating this video,
46% of the world population belonged to some social network or other.
But why should we use social networks for professional development?
How do social networks respond to the way we learn
and the way we hope to develop as foreign language educators?
Perhaps the answer lies in social groups theory which tells us
that people learn best in social groups,
beginning with the family as the first social unit or group we belong to;
school later, university, teachers' assosciations.
This is an idea that was carried forward into the digital age
and expressed by George Siemens in his theory of connectivism.
All this points to networked learning
as a great way to keep up with our professional development
in a free and autonomous way.
And this is where social networks can help you.
Language teachers, always amongst the first to embrace innovative ideas,
have started using these social networks
to communicate with colleagues all over the world
creating their own personal learning networks, PLNs for short,
exchanging ideas and resources as well as discussing issues of interest to educators,
putting connectivist theory into their daily lives.
Let us begin with Facebook, which is perhaps
the most popular social networking site amongst teachers.
Many have started using it already to connect with friends and family.
It's very easy to join and use, and perhaps that's why it's so popular.
Once you get started, it's very easy to share links, photographs, videos,
and even documents with your friends.
You can also join facebook groups created by other teachers, by educational institutions
or any other group you share a common interest with.
And of course you can create your own pages and groups
for your own students or for sharing ideas with your colleagues.
On Facebook, teachers can join open as well as closed or even secret groups:
something which is very popular amongst educators who use it with their students.
One suggestion we would make is that
if you plan to use Facebook as a teacher for your professional development,
it is a very good idea to create a separate teacher account
and keep your personal account only for family and friends
private and separate from your teacher account.
Nings are also very popular amongst educators
especially because they are standalone networks,
with a very sharp focus on a common goal within each online community.
Nings are also highly user-friendly.
They are professional-looking platforms that allow sharing resources
and organizing online content and events.
Each Ning is separate and it can be made public or private,
allowing anyone or just invited individuals access to its content.
Once you are a member you get your own personal page
where you can upload documents, photographs and videos, write blog posts,
organize or participate in events,
take part in forum discussions
and easily invite your contacts.
You can even create special interest groups within the Ning,
or join existing ones created by colleagues
and share ideas and content or specific interests with them.
Last but not least: twitter, a major tool for continuous professional development
Twitter is excellent for the immediate sharing of ideas and opinions
as well as links to interesting resources.
Since it's only allows you 140 characters per tweet, as status updates are called,
what you write has to be brief and to the point.
This is what makes it ideal for the busy professional.
You can ask your colleagues a brief question and get a dozen answers within minutes.
Many users follow twitter in their browser
and you can also follow it on your mobile phone
but by using an application like tweetdeck
you can easily monitor different threads of discussion
usually beginning with the hashtag.
You can check your direct messages
and even share photographs, videos and documents with just a couple of clicks.
All you have to do is find teachers to follow -
something which will be an important focus of the mentoring process of the aPlaNet project.
Through participating in one or more of these social networks,
you will be able to learn when and where free online events are happening,
access useful links on language teaching, find great resources for your lessons
which are tweeted around the clock,
follow blog posts written by teachers for teachers
connect with inspiring and passionate educators who are keen on sharing,
find out about the latest web tools,
make your lessons more motivating,
connect your classes with students from around the world,
manage your professional development in an autonomous way.
To be in charge of your and professional development
is the major goal of aPlaNet, an EU-funded project whose ambition
is to give you the tools and knowledge to participate in all these exciting and informative conversations,
in order to become a connected teacher
It is up to each individual teacher to decide whether to use 1, 2
or all these social networking tools,
exercising choice and autonomy in their own development.
You can find more information about all three social networks in our teacher guide
as well as through joining our Ning and connecting with a mentor
who will help and guide you on hpw to use each tool.
both for your own professional development
as well as a teaching tool with your own foreign language students.
Thank you very much for listening and we look forward to meeting you in the aPlaNet Ning.