October is Connected Educator Month

Join in on Connected Educator Month this October..

• Getting Started
• Five Ways to Connect
• Do-It-Yourself Professional Development
• More Resources From Edutopia
• Additional Resources on the Web

Connected Educator Month (CEM) is a celebration of online communities of practice originally developed by the U.S. Department of Education with partners. As with previous years, October 2015 includes an array of rich opportunities for informal professional development, both for educators with established professional learning networks (PLNs) and for those just getting started. 

Whether you participate formally in the month or not, consider using some of the resources below to engage in do-it-yourself professional development all year long.

Getting Started

Visit CEM: Getting Started and consider downloading the Connected Educator Starter Kit by Powerful Learning Practice, a guide with 31 days of online activities — including relevant tips, tutorials, and ideas — that will help you along your professional-learning journey, no matter where you’re starting from. As you build your PLN, make sure to click the +Follow button on Edutopia’s Personal Learning Network page to receive email updates about additional guidance and tips. Linked from that page, “My Journey Into Connectedness,” by Rafranz Davis, and “How Do I Get a PLN?” by Tom Whitby, are two great places to start.

Visit the CEM calendar to pick and choose among the events that are most meaningful for you. In addition, you might want to consider attending an edcamp. Why? In “Why Edcamp?” Kristen Swanson discusses how these educator-driven “unconferences” present invaluable opportunities for learning, growing, connecting, and sharing. You can find the complete edcamp calendar on the edcamp website or on Edutopia’s events page, updated weekly.

If you miss one of the hundreds of events during CEM 2015, visit the CEM Archives for access to recordings, transcripts, and other professional-development resources from October. The archived events are searchable by audience, event type, and topic. The Connected Educators website also maintains a showcase of opportunities for sustained professional development in the form of courses, classes, and clubs.