My initial thoughts:

Student success is directly linked to teacher quality. Many teachers aren’t fully comfortable in a classroom until their experience level reaches between five and seven years. If school districts are to retain quality instructors within the field of education, then they need to develop meaningful, continuous, engaging forms of professional development; a critical aspect of school reform. Teachers need to connect with other teachers.   Unfortunately, teaching is a profession of isolation where you go to your classroom and spend the day teaching; interaction with peers and other professionals is limited. Current models of professional development within many school districts are disconnected. Teachers are often given one dose of a prescription with no follow-up time for exploration or continuity. This is not effective, often resulting in poor use of time, disengaged participants, and no application.
Teacher networks and professional learning communities have been shown to be very effective models for encouraging teacher professional development.  These networks are successful due to the relationships teachers build, exposure to inquiry based research and the continuity of the professional development projects.  Now there is a new phenomenon: the use of technology to enhance the notion of developing a personal learning network. Technology, in particular social networks, empower teachers to connect with other professionals who have the same interests and issues in a continual learning environment. The digital environment allows for customization of professional development in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner.
Here is a snapshot: An author releases a text to Heinemann, The Digital Writing Workshop.  The author has created a social network via a free collaborative website,www.ning.com.  In this environment, the author provides links to all the digital references in the book, develops discussion forums for each chapter and provides links to videos that support the philosophies behind digital teaching and learning.  He (and his colleagues) promote the book and the companion website via social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.  A webinar is held via the National Council for the Teachers of English and a series of podcasts are created in conjunction with the National Writing Project involving the teachers highlighted in the book.  These projects are archived and accessible to teachers who purchase the book and/or those that join the Ning.  The digital connections teachers are able to make through the purchase of this text are abundant.  A very different process than just purchasing a text and reading it in isolation.

Critics may ask:
Where will the time and money will come from to train people?
What will happen if we give teachers access to these tools? Will they abuse the privileges?
Are teachers able to develop the concepts needed to learn within the digital environments?

Questions

• In what ways can social networking and other online collaborative technologies enable teachers to develop effective professional development programs or personal learning networks?

• Creating a sense of community through a teacher network provides an environment where teachers feel connected and comfortable and want to contribute.  How can this be enacted through online technologies?
• In what ways could this help teachers create their own personal networks and then translate these ideas to students?
• If we help teachers to create these social learning networks within their schools and they see the power in connecting with others, in what ways will that transform into a paradigm shift and allow them to see teaching and learning in a different way?