Summer Vacation Starting and the Learning Continues...

I had taken a week off to go on vacation down to Vegas and while sitting at the pool refreshing myself, I realized that here I was on vacation the first week of my summer holidays as a teacher and what was I doing?  Reading "Learning by Doing" by the DuFours, Eaker, and Many, a handbook for creating Professional Learning Communities.  My husband threatened me, stating if I took my computer, I could go out to dinner with it and not him.  Needless to say, the computer stayed home, but not the learning.  I think most teachers need, like a fix or addiction, to continue to learn, to evolve almost.

A couple of days ago I went for a long hike with a friend, then we sat in a park and had a picnic.  The conversation came around to how much I was enjoying Twitter, how much I was learning from this new network of people who had so much to share .  The information coming through this social media tool is astounding.  The articles sited, the Web 2.0 tools explained, the videos and conferences discussed have and continue to help me grow professionally to no end.  When I suggested to my friend to get on this tool to help stimulate her work in Social Studies (A great site was listed a while before that I was explaining to her), she said no thanks.  She wanted to take a break from work and this summer she wanted to do nothing.  She didn't want to learn.  After I picked up my jaw off the ground, I told her I couldn't believe I heard those words from her mouth.  Learning was not work if you enjoyed what you were doing, and it was fun to discover so much, while making new friends from all over the world.  There was a whole new world out there that others were showing me, and the trip was so exciting and refreshing, it was rejuvenated me, not making me more tired.  

This technology grant that our school has won will be tiring but still, it will be exciting, and rejuvenating as well.  This summer is the prep time to get ready for it and although it is my free time, I am happy to continue learning to improve myself, improve the manner in which I teach, and continue to explore how to help my students learn to the best of their ability.

As for my friend, I'll give her some time to relax, and then I'll start showing her what she can do, what is out there. There are ways to entice others into your PLN  ;)

p.s. - she just called - she's coming over Friday to get set up on Twitter.  Passion wins again!