And now? How can I carry on my own professional development?

Whenever we are in the end of a course we start wondering what we are going to do next. How what we have studied will contribute to our professional life and how not to forget what we have learnt.
And the answer is simple: carry on!
Carry on studying and putting into practice what you have learnt, otherwise you will forget it and lose part of your time and investment.

In our knowledge society, lifelong learning is an essential skill. We have to be able to continue learning throughout our lives.
Face it: learning is something that never ceases. Be it in a formal course or informally, you must never stop searching for new things and learning opportunities.

Here are some suggestions to help you in this path of lifelong learning (at least for now, after you finish your graduate course):

Formal learning

There are many interesting courses (both online and face-to-face one). Here are just a few:

Especialização (pós-graduação lato-sensu) em Inovação em Tecnologias Educacionais

Apoio ao Professor

MOOCs for teachers

Coursera: courses on professional development for teachers

You should also consider applying for a master's degree. But remember this will demand greater effort and dedication:

Programa Interdisciplinar de Linguística Aplicada - UFRJ

Lingnet



Informal learning

Books on technologies and education

Web 2.0 e Redes Sociais na Educação

Educa@r: a (r)evolução digital na educação


Journals

Revista Educaonline

Revista Hipertextus


Webinars

There are great webinars happening every week. The great thing about webinars are that they are online and most of them are FREE! In order to learn about them, you should be connected to publishers such as Oxford and Pearson and also to your PLN. They will always provide you with lots of useful information on great webinars to attend. Here are some webinars that will be happening soon:

Using technology in teaching: principles in practice

The future of education

TESOL classroom - Shelly Terrell (every Friday at 5 p.m.)

American Tesol Webinars (past ones)


Seminars & Congresses

There are also many interesting seminars and congresses happening all over Brazil, but most of the times you have to pay a fee to participate, but it's a great opportunity to learn about the state of the art of technologies and teaching and also to expand your network. Here are some that will take place soon:

Evento Conecta (to see what happened in previous editions click here)

Jornada EAD: o futuro da arte (this is about the 2013 edition)


Enhancing your PLE and PLN

As we have seen in this course, web 2.0 tools enable us to get in contact, share content, communicate, collaborate and learn from each other. It's essential that we become connected in the 21st century. Connected to people, to information, so that we can create knowledge and collective inteligence.

So, first of all, you should become a connected educator and share what you have learned with others.

Connected educator starter kit

And don't forget Bernard Shaw's quote!

It's been a pleasure teaching and learning with you @ll! Let's keep connected! =)


More on professional development:

http://www.pinterest.com/cintiarabello/professional-development/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/258176277623388/

https://www.facebook.com/EnsinandoEAprendendoComTiCs

http://www.scoop.it/t/masselor

http://www.scoop.it/t/ensino-aprendizagem-tecnologia