Google+ CommunitiesEducators are flocking to Google+ for news, ideas and interaction. It’s a great sounding board for your ideas, and an awesome place to share great ideas. Whether you are interested in educational technology, the future of learning, or looking for ideas to support your subject area, there is a community for you to join. I think everyone should add a few communities to their professional learning arsenal. A great place to start would be to take a look at those of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The DPI has quite a few Professional Learning Communities that it has established on the Google+ Community Platform. Some of these are “public” and you can just click on “join,” while others are “private” where you will click on “join” and then wait for the moderator’s approval. Here are some from the DPI that you can join:

There are also many other Google+ communities that you can join that are a part of national or international groups of educators gathered together for sharing and discussions.

Didn’t find a community that interests you in my list?  You can always search for groups and find one that will.  You could even search for ones on a personal interest level.  I have several of those I am a part of too.  Once you have joined, make sure you decide how you want to be notified of updates to the community.  The default is usually showing posts on your Google+ homepage and notifications are off.  If this is a group you want to keep up on, I would suggest that you click on the notifications and mark it as notifications on. You can also click on the wheel/cog in that same area and choose that you see more, standard, or fewer posts.  If you find the community isn’t for you, or that you are getting too many notifications, you can always update your options for that community by clicking on that same wheel/cog.

I encourage you to go out and join a Google+ community. I’ve found them a very powerful resource and integral to my personal professional development. If you still have questions on Google+ communities, here is a Google+ communities for education video that you can watch for more information.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhGMDSGgPFw#t=217]

 

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