Professional Development 2.0

It's been over a month since my last post, and my only excuse is that it's been a busy semester. I've sat down more than once to write about how my experiment with Just in Time teaching is going in my Educational Psychology class or how my IPT 286 students are reacting to learning contracts and personal learning networks, but I think I've deleted every post I've attempted. I must be superstitious and feel that by prematurely blogging about my successes, I'll doom myself to failure.

What's prompted me to write this time is my first conference presentation. I chose a local conference, UCET, for my first venture into the public realm of academia and I find that I am very nervous. I don't know whether I'm more nervous that lots of people will come or that no one will come (the conference presentation most aligned with my topic, a presentation titled "Open Professional Development", is in the same time slot as mine, so no one coming is a very real possibility.)

My conference presentation is called Professional Development 2.0, and it focuses on creating Personal Learning Networks to guide professional development. I felt qualified to give this presentation when I submitted the proposal. After all, I use my PLN daily and have found it highly beneficial. This semester, I have made it a component of the technology class that I teach. I'm familiar with a variety of tools and I've made valuable connections with other professionals through my network. So what's my problem?