Category: Thoughts

@Lightspeed: Supercharging Professional Learning Networks with Social Media

by slurpenglish, posted in Thoughts

Introduction

I have been teaching English to international adults at a school in Brisbane since 2008. The school provides high-quality professional development, and I work with a supportive teaching team. Using social media can further improve a professional learning network (PLN) by increasing the number and quality of connections. In this post, I will examine whether my PLN was enhanced by incorporating social media.

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An old phone

Put Your Phone Away!​​

by slurpenglish, posted in Thoughts

If you work in an office, do people ever come over to your desk and tell you to put your phone away? What about in meetings? How about when you are with friends in a cafe? With most people carrying phones in the early 21st Century, technology has become part of our lives and its place in schools continues to be a hotly-debated issue.

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Give Way: The Future of Learning in a Connected World

by slurpenglish, posted in Connected Learning, Thoughts

Introduction

Connection. It’s a defining factor in our relationship with this world. Without it, we can feel isolated from the things and people we love. It seems irrational to consider a world without connection, yet many young people feel disconnected from education.

We force society’s future artists, innovators and entrepreneurs into a one-size-fits-all education system for most of their school life (Mirra, 2014). Even though syllabi are brimming with content, many young learners feel marginalised and disconnected. However, we don’t need an education revolution. We need connection.

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Social Media Icons

My Professional Learning Network – Day 1

by slurpenglish, posted in Thoughts

I’ve been using Twitter since 2010 and mainly use it to find interesting ideas about teaching English to adult speakers of other languages (TESOL). As I got a bit braver, I started retweeting things that interested me, and I even tweeted a few links to some resources I made on my old website, slurpenglish.com. Continue reading “My Professional Learning Network – Day 1” →

False Starts – My Professional Learning Network History

by slurpenglish, posted in Thoughts

One of the reasons why I’m finding LCN600 Connected Learning fascinating is the way that it encourages you to examine the value of a learning network. I’ve started thinking about a website of teaching resources, SlurpEnglish, that I created a few years ago. Although I eventually took the site down, you can still see it courtesy of the Internet Archive Way Back Machine. How very useful!

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Starting my Professional Learning Network Journey

by slurpenglish, posted in Thoughts

Hi! My name is Rob. I teach English to adult speakers of other languages in Brisbane, Australia. I’m halfway through studying a Master of Education, with a focus on teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). This semester, I am studying the fascinating topic of Connected Learning.

Continue reading “Starting my Professional Learning Network Journey” →