Online Learning & DIY PD

I LOVE learning!  The process of exploring new information, developing new perspectives and

constructing knowledge is exciting.  I love hearing from other professionals and being inspired by their innovative ideas, so this was a natural extension of things that I make it a habit of doing.  I loved the idea from Joyce Valenza to create an infographic about my professional learning community to keep visible to remind myself and model for others.  I plan to laminate this and keep it next to my desk and use as the cover of my school binder.  Creating this also gave me the bonus opportunity to use The Noun Project website to download icons.
This year I have developed my Twitter community, using TweetDeck to better organize and curate my conversations.  I have also begun participating in Twitter Chats, and love these!!  I got started with the #2jennsbookclub first, and have since explored a variety of these chats moderated by organizations and people I follow, such as Future Ready Libraries, Jonathan Werner, and EdTech Teachers.
I am really excited about the offerings of BloomBoard.  I set up an account, saved multiple collections, and have started working through some of these.  The design of their Micro-Credentials program has also given me a lot of food for thought, and I am going to incorporate some of the structure they use in the Professional Learning courses I am offering at our school.

Webinars are another great way to expand learning opportunities, and there are so many to choose from out there!  I participated in one last night, hosted by the Future Ready Schools, on Hacking PBL.  There were some great, practical ideas shared.  I especially appreciated the conversation about assessment of projects and the tool they shared, called the "Progress Assessment Tool".  It is such a simple concept, but as I am currently wrestling with the place of grades and developing better models of feedback, this was very timely.
That's what I love about online learning and DIY PD, there is always something new to inspire us and take us to the next step in our thinking.