Several people within my PLN have written recently around the theme of Staff Professional Learning. (See works here by Margo and Edna)  Their articles, combined with conversations at Tweet Ups and Teach Meets (and time to think over the holidays!) have led me to reflect on how I deliver professional learning within my school and changes I would like to implement.

SO, WHAT WILL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING LOOK LIKE ?

In the last few weeks of term, we have been madly preparing community events like our Christmas Concert and Graduation. Naturally, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other family members want to remember and capture these events that feature their children through photographs or home movies.

As teachers and as schools we are required to fill in countless permission forms these days for even the most basic of things; including taking students photographs and detailing where they will be published. Yet, here were our parents and students taking photos and videos without us and of other students without us having any idea where they would end up.

We've all done it.

You know, when you sign up to that new account or you download the latest iTunes update and you are presented with pages upon pages of legal speak about what you will and won't do and what rights you are signing over to the creator of the program that the majority of the time we just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on that "I accept the terms and conditions" tick box.

Whilst this may be fine for personal use, how does the 'fine print' impact on our use of Web 2.0 tools within our classrooms and our schools?

As I've gone about researching information for the development of our school policies for eSmart, I was clicking my way through the eSmart Portal and the DEECD Learning OnLine site, I came across some details regarding Facebook. I was interested and wanted to know more as this has caused some issues in the past. As I work in a primary school, details regarding children under the age of 13 who have Facebook accounts took my interest.