Instructify

Is your school using a professional learning community? PLCs are great ways for educators to work together to ensure every student learns what he or she needs to.

If your school is about to take the plunge, or already has a PLC and wants to make it even better, you can get more out of your professional learning community by adding an online component.

Issue the First: How?

There are plenty of online tools you can use to set up a PLC, none of which should cost you a dime. The easiest solution would be to set it up with Yahoo! Groups or Google Groups. Both are functional, user-friendly, and free. You can start a new group in about five minutes, and can easily add members, carry on group discussions and upload files. This means you can collaborate with your fellow educators at any time. Yahoo! allows you to create online polls, so you can have group votes on various topics. Google lets you create wiki-style pages within your group, so members can collaboratively update information. And speaking of wikis, pbwiki is a good choice for this sort of group work, too.

If your school is already using tools like Moodle, Sakai or Blackboard, you’ve already got a powerful tool for online collaboration. Just set up a “course” for your PLC and you’re good to go.

Issue the Second: Why?

Add to the conversation at any time - even in your jammies

You’ve probably had an awesome, can’t-miss idea at two in the morning, in the shower, or some time other than when you can actually do something about it. Then when it was time to share your brilliant scheme, you either couldn’t remember it or gave rambling, unclear description. Your great idea fizzled, then died on the table.

You could schedule your meetings at your home in the wee hours of the morning (not recommended), or come up with a way to communicate your ideas in an appropriate setting at any time of day. That’s what an online PLC can do for you. Just log in and share your ideas while they’re fresh in your mind and glistening with epiphanic dew. Collaborating online takes away the pressure of everyone having to cram all their thoughts into a one hour weekly meeting. You may find that George the grouchy math teacher actually has some useful things to say when he’s not missing his lunch for a team meeting.

Keep the Ball Rolling

Ever feel really fired up during a meeting? You’re rearin’ to get out there and help out some struggling students. But once the gavel cracks to adjourn the meeting, you forget about it until next week. Having an online base of operations allows you to keep your group’s momentum going. In an online PLC, teachers can regularly interact with the group without the logistical headaches of frequent face-to-face meetings. Seeing daily progress from the rest of your team can also inspire you to get the lead out and get things done yourself.

Online PLCs: What they Can and Can’t Do

For most schools, starting a successful professional learning community requires a serious cultural shift. Working and sharing best practices as a group means relinquishing a little bit of authority within one’s own classroom. No piece of software will magically fix things if everyone doesn’t have a healthy attitude about this sort of change.

What an online PLC can do is make collaboration easier by enabling teachers to continue discussions outside of meeting rooms and to share practice ideas and class materials instantaneously. So whether you want to start a PLC or just make the one you’ve got run smoother, online is definitely the way to go. -BILL FERRIS

Photo Credit: tantek on flickr