Connected techdout

Living and Learning in a Global CommunityInnovative Schools Virtual University

6 Trends for the digital age

Analogue Digital

Tethered Mobile

Closed Open

Isolated Connected

Generic Personal

Consuming Creating

Source: David Wiley: Openness and the disaggregated future of higher education

“For the first time we are preparing students for a future we cannot clearly describe.” - David Warlick

http://communications.nottingham.ac.uk/podcasts/

“...multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and

interpretation.”

Rhizomatic learning

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http://archbold-station.org

What does it mean to be a connected learner?

How is it different from the way you learned in school?

Photo credit: Alec Couros

Talk to the person next to you.How would you describe a connected learner or connected learning?

Inclination toward being open minded

Dedication to the ongoing development of expertise

Creation of a culture of collegiality- believing that "None of us is as good as all of us" and that the contributions of all can lead to improved individual practice

Willingness to be a co-learner, co-creator, and co-leader

Willingness to leaving one's comfort zone to experiment with new strategies and taking on new responsibilities

Dispositions and Values

Commitment to understanding gained through listening and asking good questions related to practice

Perseverance toward deep thought by exploring ideas and concepts, rethinking, revising, and continual repacking and unpacking, resisting urges to finish prematurely

Courage and initiative to engage in discussions on difficult topics

Alacrity to share and contribute

Desire to be transparent in thinking

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solvingPerformance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discoverySimulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processesAppropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media contentMultitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities.

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goalJudgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sourcesTransmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalitiesNetworking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate informationNegotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms..

Digital literacies

• Social networking

• Transliteracy

• Privacy maintenance

• Identity management

• Creating content

• Organising content

• Reusing/repurposing content

• Filtering and selecting

• Self presenting

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http://www.mopocket.com/

Media provide selected access to the world rather than direct access to it.

Source: Buckingham, D. (2003) Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. cc

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Filtering/Selecting

http://fotosa.ru

‘Transliteracy’

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write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality, through handwriting to digital social networks.

Image source: unknown

“Delicious is like a virtual fieldtrip through a library built by the recommendations of others.”

– Chris Sessums

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Social tagging

http://1.bp.blogspot.com

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal” - Pablo Picasso

Reuse/remix as an art form

Source: Martin Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk

http://blog.leniwiener.com

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What does it mean to work in a participatory 2.0 world?

PLP takes a 3-pronged approach to PD

- Professional Learning Communities- Global Communities of Practice or Inquiry- Personal Learning Networks

PLCs = local, f2f, collectiveCoPs = online, deep, collectivePLNs= online, nodes, individual

Knowledge Building Should be…PassiveReflectiveActive

Building Relationships

A Definition of Community

Communities are quite simply, collections of individuals who are bound together by natural will and a set of shared ideas and ideals.

“A system in which people can enter into relations that are determined by problems or shared ambitions rather than by rules or structure.”

(Heckscher, 1994, p. 24).

The process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. (Wikipedia)

Virtual CommunityA virtual space supported by computer-based information technology, centered upon communication and interaction of participants to generate member-driven content, resulting in relationships being built up. (Lee & Vogel, 2003)

A Definition of NetworksFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Networks are created through publishing and sharing ideas and connecting with others who share passions around those ideas who learn from each other. Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining connections with people and information, and communicating in such a way so as to support one another's learning.

Connectivism (theory of learning in networks) is the use of a network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for learning. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node: information, data, feelings, images. Learning is the process of creating connections and developing a network.

Making connections

In connectivism, learning involves creating connections and developing a network. It is a

theory for the digital age drawing upon chaos, emergent properties, and self

organised learning.

(It’s not what you know, or who you know- but do you know what who

you know- knows? )Source: Wikipedia

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http://www.pestproducts.com

“Understanding how networks work is one of the most important literacies of the 21st Century.”

- Howard Rheingold

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

If ... information is recognized as useful to the community ... it can be counted as knowledge. The community, then, has the power to create knowledge within a given context and leave that knowledge as a new node connected to the rest of the network’.

– Dave Cormier (2008)

Open Networks

Practitioners’ knowledge = content & context

The driving engine of the collaborative culture of a PLC is the team. They work together in an ongoing effort to discover best practices and to expand their professional expertise.

PLCs are our best hope for reculturing schools. We want to focus on shifting from a culture of teacher isolation to a culture of deep and meaningful collaboration.

Professional Learning Communities

FOCUS: Local , F2F, Job-embedded- in Real Time

Communities of Practice

FOCUS: Situated, Synchronous, Asynchronous- Online and Walled Garden

Personal Learning Networks

FOCUS: Individual, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources and People – Social Network Driven

CommunitiesOf Practice

PersonalLearningNetworks

F2F Teams

DIY-PD

Do it Yourself PD as Self Directed Connected Learners

"Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise, DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge for him/herself." (Wikipedia, n.d.)

Community is the New Professional Development

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) describe three ways of knowing and constructing knowledge that align closely with PLP's philosophy and are worth mentioning here.

Knowledge for Practice is often reflected in traditional PD efforts when a trainer shares with teachers information produced by educational researchers. This knowledge presumes a commonly accepted degree of correctness about what is being shared. The learner is typically passive in this kind of "sit and get" experience. This kind of knowledge is difficult for teachers to transfer to classrooms without support and follow through. After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind, pressures and isolation of teaching.

Community is the New Professional Development

Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of teacher experience and practical knowledge in improving classroom practice. As a teacher tests out new strategies and assimilates them into teaching routines they construct knowledge in practice. They learn by doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teachers reflect and share with one another lessons learned during specific teaching sessions and describe the tacit knowledge embedded in their experiences. 

Community is the New Professional Development

Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where teachers create knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying their own classroom teaching practices collaboratively, allows educators to construct knowledge of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of classroom practice to a more systemic view of learning.

We believe that by attending to the development of knowledge for, in and of practice, we can enhance professional growth that leads to real change.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999a). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teaching learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249-305.

Passive, active, and reflective knowledge building in local (PLC), global (CoP) and contextual (PLN) learning spaces.

Dynamics of Different Network TypesCommunity of Practice

Project Teams Informal networks

Purpose Learning SharingCreating Knowledge

Accomplish specific task

Communication flows

Boundary Knowledge domain

Assigned projector task

Networking, resource building and establishing relationships

Connections Common application or discovery- innovation

Commitment to goal

Interpersonal acquaintances

Membership Semi - permanent Constant for a fixed period

Links made based on needs of the individual

Time scale As long as it adds value to the its members

Fixed ends when project deliverables have been accomplished

No pre-engineered end

Tech Enhanced Learninghttp://techenhancedlearning.wikispaces.com/ 21st Century Teaching and Learninghttp://abpc.wikispaces.com/

What tools are you currently using in your teaching role to support student learning?

Strengths?Weaknesses?Possibilities?

User Generated

Content

Celebration

Connection

Communication

Collaboration

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Creative Commons

Ultimately: Freedom to openly access, use, copy, modify and share content

The New Third Place?

“All great societies provide informal meeting places, like the Forum in ancient Rome or a contemporary English pub. But since World War II, America has ceased doing so. The neighborhood tavern hasn't followed the middle class out to the suburbs...” -- Ray Oldenburg

“Twitter and blogs ... contribute an entirely new dimension of what it means to be a part of a tribe. The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.”

Internet tribes

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“A tribe needs a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

“The internet eliminates geography. This means that there are now more tribes: smaller tribes, influential tribes, and tribes that could never have existed before.” ~ Seth Godin

http://nedgrace.files.wordpress.com

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Tribes

www.newmediamusings.com

Is learning simply about gaining knowledge...? cc

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... or making connections?

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Motivations

• Social connectedness

• Psychological well-being

• Gratification

• Collective Efficacy

The Social Web is built here, from love and esteem

Connected Learning Communities provide the personal learning environment (PLE) to do the nudging

Levels of engagementL

evel

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enga

gem

ent

Type of engagement

Browse, search, learn(Anonymously)

Comment(with attribution)

Ask a question(with attribution)

Write a blogBecome a mentor

Become an expert

RegisterComment

(Anonymously)

Waxing and Waning Interest

Degrees of Transparency and Trust

Join our list Join our forum Join our community

Increasing collaboration and transparency of process

Characteristics of a healthy community

What is PLP?YEAR 1: Learning in the 21st Century: Networks and Communities Focus: Understanding the global changes created by online social technologies and the implications for teaching and learning; provoking deep thinking about professional and personal learning practice; understanding practical and pedagogical implications for classrooms; conducting action research that is aligned to school improvement goals; initiating district-wide conversations and planning around long-term change and the scaling of these ideas and technologies.

Lots of PLP Experiences Available

Our basic experimental design… Seek out 20 schools/districts

willing to invest some time in exploring the challenge of 21st Century Learning.

Ask the schools to identify small teams of 5-6 educators who are ready for this exploration.

With the support of our PLP Community Founders, Directors of Community Development, Cohort Community Leaders, Cognitive Coaches, PLP Fellows, Experienced Voices, and team leaders we begin that exploration together.

Two all day workshops that build capacity, community and develop 21st Century skills.

WorkshopsLive meetings where teams meet, listen and then reflect in small groups.

ElluminateWhere we deepen understanding, network, share resources and grow as a community of practice.

VLC

Professional Learning Teams

Job embedded teams who meet f2f and work towards scale and alignment of 21st C skills with school improvement goals

Powerful Learning Practice Delivery Model

Collaborative Tools Wikispaces

Del.icio.us and Diigo

Twitter

Elluminate

NING

Facebook

Slideshare

Flickr

YouTube

Evernote

“Collaboration with others in my district and learning new tools was the best part

of PLP. Connecting with other teachers in my district for new ideas and connecting with other schools for new ideas made PLP the best PD ever!”

~ Science teacher in WNY

Organic Collaboration School Teams meet face-to-face

Experienced Voices from around the globe

Virtual Academies- cross cohort

Leadership Boot Camps

Critical Friends

Legacy Projects

PLP Live Events Speaker Series

Open Mic

“I enjoyed meeting with other schools from around the world, hearing and sharing what they are doing in their districts and regions. It opened my eyes to what we are not doing in my buildings and what needs to be done in the future.”

~Garry Stone,WNY Superintendent

Team Action Research Projects

Your team will work as a Professional Learning Team to co-create a project:

Develop a creative PD plan to share what you have learned over the past year with the rest of your school or district.

Develop a 21st Century curriculum project that is constructivist in nature and leverages the potential of emerging technologies.

Action Research

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence. It is to act with yesterday's logic." - Peter Drucker

http://pixdaus.com

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