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It seems clear that the best type of education centers on information discovery and processing, making connections, and collaboration and community. I read an informative piece by Will Richardson about the importance of building community as a precursor to the introduction of new learning tools. That is, unless I understand how to best use the tools within the context of a personal learning network, my understanding and internalization of concepts will not be as deep. Richardson:

It’s difficult to understand the impact that online learning networks and communities can bring (and their potential downsides) without being a part of them.

We need to do personally what we expect our students to do in the classroom; proper modeling cannot be underestimated. How will I inspire my students to do classroom blogs unless I cannot point them to the joy and fulfillment I find in blogging? How can I encourage them to collaborate if I cannot demonstrate how I collaborate in a variety of media? Richardson continues:

As Linda Darling-Hammond suggests, “…teachers need to learn the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job.”

Yet, I suspect that some of us educators are standing pat and not extending ourselves in this way.

Our continued emphasis on tools in pd misses that larger point, obviously, because the power of the Read/Write web is not the ability to publish; it’s the ability to connect. Broken record, I know, but tools are easy; connections are hard.

Image by D’Arcy Norman