Teachers’ self-initiated professional learning through Personal Learning Networks

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that to be able to teach language and literacy with digital technologies, teachers need to engage in relevant professional learning. Existing formal models of professional learning are often criticised for being ineffective. In contrast, informal and self-initiated forms of learning have been recently recognised as meaningful and relevant but little is known about these authentic learning experiences for professional purposes. This article investigates three teachers’ self-initiated professional learning about digital technologies through their Personal Learning Networks. The analysis identified that the participants’ everyday digital literacy practices provided opportunities for a range of professional practices that supported learning about digital technologies: information retrieval and resources aggregation, cooperation, collaboration, reflections and socialising. It also revealed that the teachers considered this form of learning as valuable. The article concludes by discussing how knowledge about self-initiated professional learning might be used to draw out some implications for teachers’ professional development.

Keywords:

• self-initiated learning
• Personal Learning Network
• PLN
• professional practice
• professional learning