Breaking away from the Industrial Revolution model of teaching isn't easy, but you don't have to do it alone. Find – and provide – curriculum advice, instructional guidance, and even social-emotional support with a professional learning network. Maybe that's on campus, but it doesn't have to be.

1. Building and
Sustaining a
PLN
by Eric E Castro
@eecastro

2. Why
How
What

3. Schools should offer
courses that are
• interdisciplinary
• hands-on
• focused on real-
world problems

4. –John Donne, Meditation XVII, 1624
“No man is an Island, entire of itself”

5. Curriculum advice, comparison, and inspiration

6. Instructional guidance

7. Social-emotional support

8. –Richard Tirendi, 1992
“If you’re the smartest one in the
room, you’re in the wrong room.”

9. Why
How
What

10. Too Big to Know:
Rethinking Knowledge
Now That the Facts
Aren't the Facts, Experts
Are Everywhere, and the
Smartest Person in the
Room Is the Room
Networked knowledge
systems include:
• Core technologies
• Critical
interdependencies
• Knowledge engines and
agents
• Performative actions

11. Metcalfe’s Law
the value of a telecommunications
network is proportional to the square of
the number of connected users of the
system

12. Analog • On-campus groups
• Regional networking opportunities
• Not: a mentorship

13. Digital • email listserv
• Social networks — but not just as
a lurker
• Blogging
• MOOCs

14. Why
How
What

15. On-campus
• Discipline- or level-specific teams
• Topic-based (SBG, 1:1 pilot)
• Cohort-based

16. Regional networking
• BAISNet, CUE, NAIS, CAIS, JSN, ad infinitum

17. Cohort-based

18. Email listserv
• BAISNet
• ISED
• College Board
• Discipline-specific email lists

19. Social networks
• Twitter (Follow, list, hashtag-based chats)
• Ning
• Google+

20. Blogging

21. MOOCs

22. What have
you done
that’s
worked well?

23. @eecastro
Eric E Castro
ecastro@siprep.org
St Ignatius College Prep