Welcome to LifeLongLearningTeachers !
a community for teachers' professional development, based on one belief:
if we work together, we can be each other's experts.
And together, we can grow.
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| Laura Maffei - Blog Administrator |
It was at the time a rather uncommon use of eTwinning, being the very first project aimed at teachers, not students, working together. We wanted to create a sort of web 2.0 cafè for European teachers, where we could share passions, ideas, issues and hopefully solutions about our job. I'm afraid I didn't know anything about Communities of Practice at the time, but that's exactly what we were building, without knowing any theories first. And that's what we got in the end: lots of engaged teachers exchanging ideas, creating projects, sharing tips and hints, chatting, or just lurking around.
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| Monika Kiss |
Later on, when I eventually got to know about Etienne Wenger (blushing) I was shocked to see how perfectly reality resembled theories: I could re-read LLT and its evolution in time through Wenger's papers. And I suddenly understood we had built something that was going to last.
More than 70 schools, from all over Europe, joined in the LLT adventure - we enjoyed a couple of fantastic, exciting and restless years. We got lots of national Quality Labels, the European Quality Label, different National excellence awards, we were invited to speak about the project at the 2010 eTwinning Conference in Seville, and eventually received more requests than we could deal with.
That's when we reached the point where Twinning, and the TwinSpace tools, got too narrow for us.
So in October 2009 we created this blog which became our official meeting point. We kept using LLT TwinSpace as an archive and moved here our chatting and sharing.
So in October 2009 we created this blog which became our official meeting point. We kept using LLT TwinSpace as an archive and moved here our chatting and sharing.
Almost at the same time, it became too stressing for me to manage so many people with so many different needs. I quickly reached what my husband called the "no-real-life stage", spending 80% of my life on line (and 20% sleeping!).
Our original idea was to create a very flexible and light web - no musts, no fixed rules in our community, just common passions (pupils, sharing, teaching) and common sense. Members had always been free to come and go and to contribute when and if they wanted. We eventually realized we had gone beyond the project. We closed LLT, as an eTwinning project, at the end of 2010.
But the community was not dead: just as any living being, it was evolving to a different stage. That's why it didn't dissolve, but widened instead. We went on meeting here, and we met lots of new teachers, from all over the world. Beyond the project first, beyond the European dimension then. Maybe it's because being a teacher is so special and exciting all over the world. And because teachers need each other.
That's in short the story behind this blog. We went from LifeLongLearningTeachers to The Next Generation of LifelongLearningTeachers when we became eTwinning Ambassadors and Teachers' Advisors.
We needed then another space where to "play" with trainees, have them familiarize with edu tech, meet in a safe place and, once again, we took advantage of the TwinSpace to share materials, lesson plans, documents etc. Together with Monika, we believe being a teacher can be a great adventure, and lots of fun - and the learning process itself can be a great adventure ad lots of fun, for both teachers and students.
Now you know where you are.
No super-experts here, just teachers feeling lucky to do the job they love and trying to improve by sharing.
Feel free to read, comment, contribute, give and take, or just have a look. That's why we are here.
PS thanks to all of the great people that made LLT, the great writers in this blog, and the great friends who keep coming. And welcome to all the others!
