LAN: Learning is Social

I was intrigued by the title LAN: Learning is Social since I teach social skills. Since the acronym LAN usually refers to Local Area Network, I was curious to view and discover what the presenter, Bryan Hughes, had to say. About five minutes into the presentation they stated that LAN stood for Learning At Night, yet at the same time this learning group was forming a learning community of colleagues who had the opportunity to connect with a network of educators around the world. The goal of this initiative was to provide a sustainable and useful learning environment. They desired to be flexible while taking risk to provide something unexpectedly unique. Three aspects, conversation, ideas and food, were going to be included as a group of colleagues joined together to view and discuss the presentations. A note of mystery was injected as it was advertised as a party from 5:00 until 7:00. As people arrived they were provided with a menu of possible presentations to view and then they broke into groups to view the selected presentation. After viewing the presentation, opportunity to speak with the presentation was made available via Skype. Then they ate dinner and discussed the presentation. I was eager to hear the result of this initiative, yet due to technological difficulties I was unable to hear the the last half of the presentation. I will attempt to finish this presentation at at later date. It seems as if this model has great potential for a unique professional development experience.