Autonomous ‘Personal learning Networks’ for Language Teachers (aPLaNet) Project Launch Conference
Conference venue: Yeditepe University
Date: 22 September, 2012

Speakers: aPLaNet Project Partners: Burcu Akyol-İstek Schools, Turkey, Graham Stanley-British Council, Spain, Joel Josephson-University of West of Scotland, UK, Lenka Kroupova-Language School Pelikan, Czech Republic, Marisa Constantinides, CELT Athens, Greece, Monica Vlad-EuroED, Romania, Nina Tsvetkova-Sofia University, Bulgaria.

Today I attended project launch conference of PLaNet in Yeditepe University. This is a very inspiring EU funded project with the aim of providing language teachers in Europe with chances of professional development and in the first plenary keynote project members explained different aspects of the Project and the on-line resources that are created.

In aPLaNet project language teachers are assisted in their professional development by aPLaNet mentoring programme. Participating teachers can become mentees and mentors assist them in using social networks and online tools for professional development and building their own personal learning network (PLN).

Project members talked about aims of the project, mentor guides, mentee guides, methodology guide, case studies and results of the project briefly in the plenary keynote. Here is the link to the project’s self-access webquest for Twitter, Facebook and Ning that outlines numerous useful links.

This project is a living proof of the role of on-line Community of Practice (COP) for enhancing professional development of language teachers.

Asli Saglam for British Council Roving Reporters Team.