Proactive professional development: A connected educator

Reference Data: Proactive Professional Development: A Connected Educator Vanaja Nethi Nova Southeastern University Adam Murray Miyazaki International College Nethi, V. & Murray, A. (2015). Proactive professional development: A connected educator. In P. Clements, A. Krause, and H. Brown (Eds.), JALT2014 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT. Educators realize that they no longer have to wait for professional development opportunities. Although the idea of professional networking is not new to educators, advances in web technologies such as blogs, learning platforms, and social networks have enabled educators to form larger and more useful networks that would have been inconceivable even a decade ago. With these networks, called Professional Learning Networks, or PLNs, educators are able not only to find cutting edge information and resources but also to learn about opportunities for collaboration and professional development. This paper briefly describes PLNs and gives an overview of how educators in higher education are using Web 2.0 tools for professional development. A number of popular components that are used to construct PLNs are highlighted, along with specific examples. The paper concludes with practical suggestions and a list of resources that can be used when starting a PLN. 教育者はもう専門的な能力の開発機会を待つ必要がない。専門家同士のネットワーク作りは新しくはないが、ウェブテクノロ ジー（ブログ、学習プラットフォーム、ソーシャル（社会的な）ネットワーク）の進歩は、教育者が更に大きくそして以前より有効 な10年前には思いもよらないほどのネットワークを作ることを可能にしている。これらのネットワークは、プロフェッショナル 学習ネットワーク（PLNs）と呼ばれる。これらにより教育者は最先端の情報、教材、および授業計画を見つけることができる。 そしてまた、相互協力、専門的な能力の開発のための機会について学ぶことができる。本稿ではPLNsを説明し、高等教育の 教育者が、どのように専門的な能力の開発をWeb 2.0で行うかという概要についても述べる。PLNの構成に使われる人気のあ るいくつかの構成要素に焦点を当て、PLNsの具体例と共に示す。最後に、PLNを始める時に使える実用的な提案と教材のリス トを提供する。 G enerally, faculty in higher education are keenly aware of the needs for continuous learning and for updating their knowledge and skillsets. To do this, it is necessary to be proactive in seeking out a variety of professional development opportunities. For example, educators can join professional organizations and participate in conferences and professional development talks, seminars, and workshops. This allows them to meet old friends and make new ones—people they can network with, bounce ideas of, and learn new things from. This contact is critical to prevent stagnation or boredom from creeping in. However, how often do foreign language educators get opportunities to interact like this? The cost and the time away from teaching and other work-related duties make this a rather measured indulgence. Therefore, teachers need to ind other ways to keep current and refreshed in the ield in order to ensure that they teach in ways that keep their students excited and engaged. A proactive JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 070 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR educator can be engaged in continuous learning through various means, particularly those made possible via advances in technology called networking tools. By using these tools, an educator can set up his or her own professional learning network. Professional Learning Networks and Professional Development There is no clear, single deinition of a Professional Learning Network (PLN). However, most deinitions do have common elements. Trust (2012) describes a PLN as the connections and resources used for informal learning, collaboration, and the exchange of knowledge and ideas. A PLN can be used to locate resources and lesson plans, learn about technology (Klingen-Smith, 2009), or communicate with colleagues (Sakamoto, 2012). Advances in the World Wide Web, particularly what are referred to as Web 2.0 technologies, which “allow people to create their own web content (user-generated content)” (Duckworth, 2015), have made the Internet much more dynamic. Instead of only being consumers of content, it is now much easier for people to produce and share content. Also, Web 2.0 allows users to interact and collaborate with each other. In particular, social media, wikis, podcasts, and blogs have completely revolutionized the way that professionals, including foreign language educators, can continue professional development. Instead of relying on institutionally sponsored professional development sessions, they have a variety of options available, which makes a PLN, “a popular alternative to conventional models of professional development” (Visser, Evering, & Barrett, 2014, p. 396). To a great extent, individuals now have far more autonomy and lexibility, along with a range of strategies to choose from, when pursuing their professional development. JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE Figure 1. The networked teacher (Couros, 2008). Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA). In 2006, Couros introduced the idea of “The Networked Teacher”. As Figure 1 shows, the networked teacher has many resources at his or her disposal. For some, the sheer number of options available can be overwhelming, especially for those who are considering starting or have just started a PLN. Being a networked teacher includes both low-tech and hightech tools. Although many may not consider it to be networking, most educators do not work in isolation at their institutions. For example, shared curriculum documents such as syllabi and grading rubrics can serve as the basis for informal discussions among colleagues on various aspects of their teaching. Other low-tech sources for interaction are family and the general community. Print resources such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, THE  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 071 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR Journal and online sources like Inside Higher Ed can be excellent sources of news and information. Depending on the institution, there may also be additional print resources, as well as institutional access to a variety of academic journals. Clearly, however, the majority of the tools shown in Figure 1 are technology enabled. Some of these tools, such as video conferencing, have been available for decades, but advances in Internet technology, particularly software such as Skype, have made teleconferencing available to anyone with a device connected to the Internet. Also Web 2.0 tools such as chat/IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and microblogging (e.g., Twitter) have made it possible to communicate synchronously. Tools such as blogs, forums, and social networking (e.g., Facebook) aid in the formation and maintenance of online communities. Finally, digital photo sharing, social bookmarking, and wikis make it possible to share resources. As these technologyenabled communication tools become more and more ubiquitous, it is easier for educators to start PLNs. Technology-Enabled Resources Used by Higher Education Faculty In 2013, Pearson Learning Solutions and the Babson Survey Research Group conducted the Social Media in Higher Education Survey (Seaman & Tinti-Kane, 2013), which investigated how and to what extent American university faculty members utilize social media. To be speciic, the study focused on only the most well-known online sites and technology-enabled tools: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, wikis, blogs, and podcasts. The study sample of 7,969 participants was representative of higher education faculty in the United States across the various disciplines and age groups. LinkedIn, the largest networking site with 300 million registered users, was the resource most used by 32.8% of university educators. Blogs and wikis (25.3%) and Facebook (23.4%) followed closely and to a lesser extent, podcasts (14.3%) and Twitter (9.4%) were used. 70% of the participants reported using the technology resources for personal JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE use, as compared to 55% for professional use, and only 40% used it in their teaching. We infer “professional use” as being resources used for faculty professional growth and networking. The indings imply that some faculty members may have the technical skills, but lack the knowledge of speciic technology-enabled resources to start their own PLNs. Formal and Informal Branches in a PLN Advances in technology and innovative technology-enabled learning opportunities have changed what a networked educator’s PLN looks like. Instead of limiting a PLN to only technology-enabled resources (or social media as in the Pearson study), it can be argued that an efective PLN should have a balance of both informal and formal elements. Figure 2 shows The Connected Educator 2.0, which is the authors’ revised version of Couros’s The Networked Teacher (2008). On the left side are the ive informal components: (a) LinkedIn, (b) Academia.edu, (c) Facebook, (d) Twitter, and (e) Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and YouTube. These are informal because the educator can use them when and as needed and will not earn any form of recognition or certiication for mastery of these tools. On the right side are the formal components: innovative technology-enabled learning opportunities for which the connected educator will receive some form of recognition or certiication. MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses and a myriad of fully online or blended education degree programs fall into this category. Unlike the informal tools, MOOCs and continuing education programs have deined starting and ending dates, require sustained time commitments and, sometimes, inancial commitments over a period of time and will provide some form of certiication upon completion.  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 072 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR LANGUAGE-761057), which currently has over 57,000 members, and ELT Professionals Around the World (https://www.linkedin. com/groups/ELT-Professionals-Around-World-3460329). For language educators in Japan, the JALT group (https://www.linkedin. com/groups/JALT-Japan-Association-Language-Teaching-99764) may be a useful group. In each of these groups, members can start and participate in discussions on a wide range of relevant topics. Another networking community is Academia.edu (https://www. academia.edu/). As the name suggests, Academia.edu is a site speciically intended for educators and researchers. Like LinkedIn, educators can establish an online professional presence by uploading their curriculum vitae. In only a few minutes, a basic proile can be set up with professional ailiation(s) and research interests. Also, academic papers and conference handouts can be uploaded and labeled with keywords (called research interests), so that the research can be found by educators and researchers around the world. Like LinkedIn, connections can be made with other users who have Academia accounts. When a user logs into the site, a newsfeed of the activities of the people followed is generated. In addition to the Figure 2. The connected educator 2.0. updates, users are notiied when papers that have been marked with keywords that match their expressed research interests are uploaded to the site. To give an idea of the scope of this website, there Professional Networking are over 47,000 educators who have expressed a research interest in LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking website with second language education and links to over 4,000 documents. more than 300 million users. It can be used to ind jobs and business Although many people see Facebook as a site for personal opportunities. Each user makes a proile, which resembles a résumé, networking with friends and family, it is not limited to that. Like with sections on education and work history. Based on the informaLinkedIn, Facebook has open and closed groups, which can be an tion in the proile, the site will inform the user of which current and easy and efective way to expand a PLN. For example, the JALTpast colleagues are members of the site. These recommended users CALL Special Interest Group has a public group in which CALL-recan then be selected to form a network. In addition, LinkedIn prolated news, information, and resources are shared. Other groups are vides a platform for directly communicating with other like-minded closed such as the TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) professionals in the same ield. group that requires approval from one of the group administraFor example, there are numerous online communities for educators to join. These groups can range in size from hundreds (English tors such as the EFL-English as a Foreign Language community Teachers in Japan) to thousands (TESL-EJ: Teaching English as a (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/EFL-ENGLISH-AS-FOREIGNSecond or Foreign Language). JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 073 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR Online Communities Another way to become a member of the global audience is to participate in online communities. In addition to the public and closed groups on Facebook, there are websites such as Ning.com that are dedicated to hosting online communities. Of particular interest for those who wish to start or expand their PLN is The Educator’s PLN (http://edupln.com/), a community of educators with more than 17,000 members around the world. Twitter Unfortunately, many blogs are updated infrequently. For more timely information, microblogging (Twitter) is a popular way for educators to share information and resources. As of April 2015, there were approximately 288 million active Twitter users (About Twitter, n.d.). Twitter is an information network that allows users to send messages, called Tweets, up to 140 characters in length. These messages are accompanied by hashtags such as #elt which make it possible for the writer to ind an audience. An easy way to keep abreast of general trends, rather than speciic individuals, is to follow a speciic hashtag (e.g., #JALT or #elt) on the popular social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine. Without registering for each of the individual networks, it is possible to follow one hashtag on all of the popular social networks with a free account at #tagboard (https://tagboard.com/). Although messages can be written at any time, near-synchronous conversations, called Twitter chats, also take place. Typically, a Twitter chat is announced in advance and runs for a speciied duration of time. For example, #ELTChat hosts a weekly 1-hour discussion every Wednesday on a variety of topics such as feedback, motivation, and grammar (http://eltchat.org/wordpress/). Another way in which Twitter is used is live tweeting at conferences. Instead of a traditional presentation in which the typical audience is passively listening, live tweeting in the form of back- JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE channeling allows the audience to interact with the presenter and the audience in real time. For example, the presenter can conduct audience polls and audience members can share their thoughts not only with those physically present but also with colleagues around the world. Despite only 9.4% of educators in higher education using Twitter for professional development (Seaman & Tinti-Kane, 2013), researchers have found that Twitter could be a useful tool for professional development. The top ive ways K-16 educators used Twitter were (a) resource sharing/acquiring (96%), (b) collaboration (86%), (c) networking (79%), (d) Twitter chats (73%), and (e) backchanneling (30%) (Carpenter & Krutka, 2014). K-12 educators also use Twitter primarily for professional development and to discuss classroom practice (Visser et al., 2014). Blogs There are many useful blogs that are written by and for educators. Unlike popular education websites such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, most education blogs are maintained by individuals. For this reason, it can be diicult to ind good blogs that are updated regularly. One excellent source for inding quality education blogs is Teach100 (http://teach.com/teach100), a daily ranking of education-related blogs hosted by the University of Southern California. As of January 2015, 810 blogs were ranked using an aggregate score consisting of four components: (a) social (40%), (b) activity (20%), (c) authority (20%), and (d) teach score (20%). Wikis, Podcasts, YouTube Most educators are probably familiar with wikis, websites that allow the users to add, delete, and edit content. Because the focus of foreign language educators has been on the use of wikis for classroom use rather than on the sharing of resources and professional  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 074 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR development, wikis for teachers have not become popular. With the exception of TEFLpedia (http://www.telpedia.com/), there seems to be a noticeable absence of specialized wikis. Although it seems that the popularity of podcasts has waned in recent years, there are still relevant podcasts for language educators; however, it can be diicult to locate them. Apple’s podcast directory in iTunes has a large directory of both audio and video podcasts. For example, Two Teachers Talking and TEFLology: ‘Telologists’ Discussing TEFL may be of interest to language educators in Japan. YouTube, the enormous video-sharing website, has an education channel that features the most popular educational videos on the site (https://www.youtube.com/education). To make it user friendly, it is subdivided into subchannels: primary & secondary education, university, and lifelong learning. MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, are a relatively recent phenomenon resulting from advances in technology and online instruction. MOOC providers ofer a wide range of online courses for free. These are usually short courses, ranging from a few weeks to a few months, for which certiicates are awarded upon successful completion. However, these courses are not credit bearing and do not lead to a formal university degree. Two well-known MOOC providers, Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/) and EdX (https:// www.edx.org/), ofer courses such as University Teaching 101, Assessing and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms, and even speciic courses for second and foreign language educators such as Shaping the Way We Teach English. MOOCs have tremendous potential for focused, needs-based professional growth of educators but it is suspected that, given the discipline and commitment necessary to successfully complete these courses, they are currently underutilized for this purpose. Nethi and Murray (2014) provided a general description of MOOCs along with speciic examples for language learning and teaching. JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE Blended and Fully Online Doctoral Programs Faculty in higher education who have not achieved a terminal degree do at some point explore doctoral programs as a route to professional advancement. Recent advances in technology and online instruction have led to not only fully online doctoral programs but also innovative blended programs that combine online and onsite instruction for efective learning. For example, Nova Southeastern University ofers a blended Doctor of Education (http://www. ischlerschool.nova.edu/) that provides higher education faculty residing in Asia with a lexible option to earn a doctorate while working full-time. Pursuing a doctoral degree requires a much longer commitment in terms of time and a substantial inancial outlay. However, those who enter a doctoral degree program will agree that it quickly becomes a critical component of their PLN as it provides them with invaluable resources, knowledge, skills, and contacts for their professional growth. A Roadmap to Establishing Your Digital Footprint—Starting Your PLN The irst step in starting a PLN is to establish an online presence (for speciics, refer to the Appendix for useful resources and how-to guides). Depending on the user’s level of computer skills, there are several ways that this can be done, such as creating a professional homepage. However, the easiest and quickest way is to register on a professional networking site such as Academia.edu. The next step is to become aware of conversations between educators with similar teaching and research interests. In addition to reading the current news stories on the education websites, a good starting point is to regularly read highly ranked blogs on the Teach100 website. Also, join several online communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook. A inal way to keep abreast of the ield is to follow hashtags of interest on Twitter.  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 075 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR Adam Murray teaches at Miyazaki International College. He recently completed his EdD with a specialization in Instructional Technology & Distance Education at Nova Southeastern University. His research interests are listening instruction, materials development, and assessment. He can be reached at <amurray@edu. miyazaki-mic.ac.jp>. The next step is to become an active participant in the discussions. Instead of being a consumer who passively reads blog postings and discussion threads in the online communities, begin participating by leaving comments and asking and answering questions. At some point, the need or desire to initiate conversations may arise. Naturally, it is possible to create new discussion threads in existing online communities. Unfortunately, over time, discussion threads can become diicult to locate or even be deleted by community administrators. For this reason, an educator may be interested in maintaining a professional blog, which requires larger amounts of efort and commitment. Fortunately, there are a number of free hosting sites available that are suitable when irst starting out, such as Blogger (https://www.blogger.com/) and Wordpress.com (https://wordpress.com/). Another alternative platform is Edublogs (https://edublogs.org/), which has directories that will help bloggers ind their audience. References Conclusion Couros, A. (2008). Networked teacher diagram—Update. Retrieved from https://www.lickr.com/photos/courosa/2922421696/ In this paper we introduced our model of The Networked Educator 2.0, which has evolved from Couros’s (2008) model. We believe that the rapid advances in technology and online instruction should be harnessed to enable higher education faculty today to build sophisticated PLNs comprising of both formal and informal elements. And there is a need for empirical research to explore the extent and type of PLNs of faculty in diferent disciplines, for example among foreign language educators. It would also be interesting to replicate the 2013 Seaman and Tinti-Kane study in countries outside the US. Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2014). How and why educators use Twitter: A survey of the ield. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(4), 414-434. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15391523. 2014.925701 Couros, A. (2006). Examining the open movement: Possibilities and implications for education (Doctoral dissertation, University of Regina). Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/3363/Dissertation-Couros-FINAL-06-WebVersion Duckworth, S. (2015, March). Social media and Web 2.0 tools in the FSL class. Paper presented at the meeting of World Congress of Modern Languages, Niagara Falls, Canada. Klingen-Smith, K. (2009). PLN: Your personal learning network made easy. Retrieved from https://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/plnyour-personal-learning-network-made- easy Nethi, V., & Murray, A. (2014). Potential for MOOCs in foreign language teaching. In N. Sonda & A. Krause (Eds.), JALT2013 Conference Proceedings (pp. 659-667). Tokyo: JALT. Sakamoto, B. (2012). What is a PLN, anyway? [blog]. Retrieved from http:// www.teachingvillage.org/2012/01/03/what-is-a-pln-anyway/ Bio Data Vanaja Nethi (PhD, Cornell) is Program Professor/Regional Liaison for Asia with the Abraham S. Fischler School of Education, Nova Southeastern University in Florida, USA. She can be reached at <nethi@nova.edu>. JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS About Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://about.twitter.com/company ONLINE Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Retrieved from www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/higher-education/ social-media-survey.php Trust, T. (2012). Professional learning networks designed for teacher learning. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(4), 133-138.  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 076 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR Visser, R. D., Evering, L. & Barrett, D. E. (2014). #TwitterforTeachers: The implications of Twitter as a self-directed professional development tool for K-12 teachers, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(4), 396-413. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2014.925694 Appendix Some Useful Resources for Starting or Expanding a PLN Blogs note, Scoop.it etc), Webinars, and communities (e.g., Classroom 2.0). • Make a proile on Academia.edu (http://blog.impactstory.org/ impact-challenge-day-1-academia-edu/)—A blog posting with screenshots showing the basics of Academia.edu. • Teacher’s Guide To Twitter (http://www.edudemic.com/guides/ guide-to-twitter/)—A thorough guide with 100 tips for using Twitter for professional development and in classes. Also includes a list of popular hashtags for second and foreign language educators. Sources for recent news: • The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5) MOOCs • Inside Higher Ed (https://www.insidehighered.com/) These are some of the most popular providers with a wide range of oferings from well-known institutions around the world: • Rankings of education-related blogs: • Coursera (928 courses) (https://www.coursera.org/) • Teach100 (http://teach.com/teach100) • EdX (410 courses) (https://www.edx.org/) • Edublog Awards (http://edublogawards.com/) • FutureLearn (113) (https://www.futurelearn.com/) • OpenLearning (21) (https://www.openlearning.com/) Communities • Class Central (https://www.class-central.com/) The Educator’s PLN (http://edupln.ning.com/) • An excellent database for locating MOOCs from more than 40 MOOC providers. EFL Classroom 2.0 (http://community.elclassroom.com/) Classroom 2.0 (http://www.classroom20.com/) Podcasts How-to Guides These are some regularly updated oferings available on iTunes: • The Beginner’s Guide to LinkendIn (http://mashable. com/2012/05/23/linkedin-beginners/)—A detailed guide with screenshots that explains how to set up a LinkedIn account. • TedTalks Education • Edublogs Teacher Challenge (http://teacherchallenge.edublogs. org/pln-challenge-1-what-the-heck-is-a-pln/)—This guide covers Twitter, Twitter Chats, Blogs, Curation Tools (e.g., Diigo, Ever- For language educators in Japan, these Japan-based podcasts may be of interest: JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE • Trends & Issues in Instructional Design, Educational Technology, and Learning Sciences • Two Teachers Talking (http://twoteacherstalking.com/)  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 077 NETHI & MURRAY • PROACTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A CONNECTED EDUCATOR • TEFLology: ‘Telologists’ discussing TEFL (http://telology.libsyn. com/) Wikis • Telpedia (http://telpedia.com/) JALT2014 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ONLINE  PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE  FULL SCREEN 078