Building Professional Learning Communities

Back in November I had answered a call from EdWeek about Professional Learning Communities and any questions I would like to pose in a chat. So I sent one in and I just found out that my question had been asked in the chat!

Question from Bethany Smith, Asst. Director of Learning Tech, NC State University College of Education: Have you investigated using any social network technologies (such as ELGG or ning) to facilitate a learning community?

Anne Jolly: You, know, Bethany, I'm actually doing something along that line now! I'm working with the Center for Teaching Quality and technology guru Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach to establish Virtual Learning Communities in a number of schools. I'm learning a lot about social networking, and it's the most exciting thing I've done in awhile. I constantly look forward to it. Right now I haven't jumped into ning, but if you're doing so, I hope you'll share your work far and wide!

Anne Jolly (according to her bio) is a former middle school science teacher and Alabama's Teacher of the Year in 1994, is the author of A Facilitator's Guide to Professional Learning Teams. She is currently the project director for professional learning teams at the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

I actually had a meeting with the Director of CTQ last semester about this very idea.

Tres cool....