I am a social studies teacher in the middle of my fourth year of teaching. If you are looking to read a blog that has “authority” on Technorati then please move on. According to Feedburner I have five subscribers. Do I find this discouraging? Not really. I consider my blog to be my little slice of the Web. It gives me a place to write, reflect, or vent. I am thrilled each time anyone responds to my posts because it gives me a chance to discuss what is on my mind.

About a month ago someone I follow on Twitter inquired as to what percent of our PD is formal (officially provided by school) and what percent is informal (from our PLN’s). I said that about 95% of my PD is informal. The honest answer is that about 100% of the new things I learn come from my PLN. I don’t know if those numbers are true for everyone who is part of a learning network, but I have a hunch that it is.

Why is this? Why do we turn to blogs, Nings, and Twitter to learn? If you have ever sat through an inservice that had absolutely no meaning to you then you already know the answer to that question. When we are part of a network we get to pick who we learn from and we get to pick the topics that we want to learn more about. It is like a cafeteria! I follow about 130 people on Twitter.  I have a nice blend of “top dogs” in education, educational technologists, Moodlers, and regular teachers like myself. I have Twitterfox set to update every five minutes. I see literally hundreds of tweets a day. About 75% are educational in nature while the rest are personal. Are the personal ones still valuable? Of course they are. It reminds me that the people I am following have families and lives outside of education and the Twitterverse. I get a great deal of satisfaction from being part of an online network. Even though I may never meet the vast majority of my PLN in person, I still feel a connection to them because we have things in common. I don’t always have things in common with the people that I work with each day.

If it is possible to gain good and useful information in an informal way then why do schools try so hard to discourage teachers from participation in a PLN? Some schools go so far as to tell teachers that they cannot even use Facebook on their own time. I guess I can count myself amongst the lucky. While my principal is not a blogger and not incredibly active online, he is very aware of the benefits of PLN’s.  We are encouraged to be active in our PLN during the school day. (Keep in mind that I only spend half of the day with “live” students. I teach online the other half of the day.)  ALL teachers have planning time and where do you suppose most of them end up? Yes…….in the teachers lounge! Imagine a school where teachers have the option of using that block of time to reach out to other teachers in their PLN. Maybe that teacher updates their Facebook or Ning pages. Maybe they write a blog post. Maybe they catch up on reading their favorite blogs. Maybe they get on Skype and set up a interactive video conference with a classroom on the other side of the world.

By blocking access to social networking sites schools are depriving teachers of legitimate opportunities to grow and become better educators. Administrators are concerned that teachers might spend class time on these sites. If there is a clear policy in place that stipulates when teachers can be on these sites then this should NOT be an issue.

There are amazing educators from around the world who have so much to offer, but their voices will never be heard because the sites where they are active are blocked. This needs to change…………..but how?

I put a lot of thought into naming my blog. In fact, it took me longer to name my blog than it did to name my second child. I wanted it to represent how I feel about my role in education so I decided to call it Nebraska Change Agent. In retrospect, maybe adding “Nebraska” to the title was not such a great idea. People from Nebraska are not usually leading the charge to large scale change. When naming my blog I also took into consideration a message from fellow educator, Howi DIBlasi. He said that only one in ten educators are truly dedicated to changing education. Over the last few months I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the implications of that and I have come to some conclusions.

I became an active participant in the edublogosphere late in the spring of 2008. After I discovered the NECC 2008 and Classroom 2.0 Nings I was hooked! It was not long before people from my PLN turned me on to Twitter. Between Twitter, blogs, and nings I am able to keep up on everything related to my job.

The thing that comes up over and over again within the edublogging community is how to get more teachers involved. How do we get teachers to invest themselves in education? How do we encourage teachers to start collaborating with their colleagues?

I believed so much in the power of PLN’s that I set up a ning for Nebraska educators. As of yesterday there were 26 members. TWENTY-SIX!!!! I sent out 1200 emails announcing the network! Would you like to venture a guess as to how many of my coworkers have joined? One. If it were not for Josh Allen agreeing to be a co-coordinator the Ning would be dead!

The question I have been grappling with for several months now is what makes me different from other teachers? Why do I care so much about networking with people from my PLN? Are teachers who do not embrace technology and push for change not as good as those of us who do?

For what it is worth this is what I think. I believe that for a teacher to be well-rounded they must do everything they can to not only master their subject, but also teacher 21st century skills in the process. Teachers have to step up and become 21st century educators. They have to master the necessary tools. Ignorance is no longer an acceptable excuse. Teachers who only use computers to track grades and check emails need to be ashamed of themselves. I understand that tight budgets and Nazi-like IT departments can hinder the process, but that does not excuse teachers from learning how to use the tools to communicate with their colleagues.

Training does not happen overnight and it does not just happen without a plan. Schools have to set aside time to train teachers and teacher education programs must begin training future teachers. Teachers must be shown how different tools can enhance their curriculum. Until this happens I am afraid we are going to keep preaching to the same choir!