Teaching As a Solo Act VS. Connecting Classrooms
Learning analytics would leverage both my PLN and the modeling I do for students thinking about their own PLNs. Connecting to and collaborating with other teachers has the potential to expand the capacity of my teaching skills exponentially. Everyone, including myself, stands to benefit from analytics.
Statistics showing which posts are most popular and for which populations tells me who is reading, what they need, when they need it, and where they might be applying whatever it is I might have written about. It's like seeing what's going on behind the mirror. I know what I've written and when, but learning more about who reads what, when they read it, and where they are enables me to target my writing to the apparent needs of others in my PLN.
What if my students to create and use their own PLNs? Kids are constant consumers of popularity information. Who's wearing what? What are people saying? When are friends getting together? Why are certain connections being made and not others. I would like to hear what my students' interpretation of analytics information might sound like. What cues do they ignore, and to which do they pay the most attention.
It would be most interesting to observe teachers looking at their colleagues as a connection of learners as in a PLN.
Teaching is traditionally an isolated practice and our model has been consistent for over 50 years. Changing the landscape of how we teach might begin with creating and using PLNs to support the collaboration which takes teaching to the next level for our learners. Teachers are preparing students for a life in the 21st century with jobs that don't currently exist. PLNs will be essential to surviving in an ever-changing professional landscape.
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