I am always looking for opportunities to push myself to learn more. I find that becoming an active member of networks is a great way to do this. At the very least, it gets me to write and post more material. The OSSEMOOC is a great example of a network that has motivated me to post. It’s a little like the ‘publish or perish‘ notion. If your blog is publicized on other sites, but better keep writing!
Yesterday, I heard about another network that looks like it has potential – Google Educator Groups #GEG.
I took a look at where you can find GEGs and there are none in Canada! We need to do something about that.
The idea behind the GEGs sounds really interesting. From their site, GEG leaders benefit in the following ways:
- Meeting like minded people, breaking the walls of isolation
- Becoming well connected to people of similar passion
- Building learning management, event management, communication and organization skills as you hold events.
- Eligible to attend local GEG Leader summits hosted by Google
This is what is wonderful about social media and education, there are so many great networks that you can join that connects you to other educators. In the past year I have connected to ECOO (the BIT 2014 Conference), OSSEMOOC, DLMOOC (need to get back to that!), #SAVMP mentorship group via @gcouros, a terrific Edmodo book chat on Digital Leadership through #satchat, Learning Connections – Google + group run through #OCSB as well as a whole host of Twitter chats and Google + discussions.
Every day I learn through these great networks. At this point, I can’t imagine being an educator and not being connected, my networks are my own personal school. There are so many great initiatives and ideas out there that I would be totally in the dark without my learning partners.
Even worse, without my personal learning network I would be dependant on professional development delivered in the tradition method through our own district. This way of learning simply does not work anymore. We can complain about this or we can do something much more useful – make up your own learning network – get connected – today!
So next, time to get some GEGs into Canada – any volunteers?
Whole-Hearted 
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