Collaborating Internationally to Develop Innovative and Challenging K-20

Opportunities for Learning

CENIC 2011 - Irvine, California March 7, 2011

Beth Yeager, Center for Literacy and Inquiry in Networking Communities (LINC), University of California, Santa BarbaraJudith Green, Center for Literacy & Inquiry in Networking Communities (LINC), University of California, Santa BarbaraJohn Puglisi, Mesa Union School District, Somis, CAJarkko Myllari, University of Helsinki, FinlandMikael Kivela, University of Helsinki, FinlandRyan Howatt, Mesa School, Somis, CAEsko Huhta, Aalto University, Finland

An Overview

Foundation for International Partnerships

LINC Center – Research on 21st century

technology-enabled opportunities for learning (building intergenerational

learning communities)

Inno School & OPTEK – Interdisciplinary

research & development looking

at 21st century education & communities

Mesa Union School District – Exploring

innovative 21st century opportunities for

learning

Shared principle of practice: Common task, uncommon take up

• Building partnerships that draw on multiple perspectives

• Taking time for planning & developing with and across all partners

• Finding common ground that all can agree to

Creating common conceptual base for researcher-researcher, teacher-teacher, students-students collaborations

• Drawing on model of shared and/or distributed expertise

• Taking both local & global perspectives on research, learning and building learning communities

• Studying and thinking about how opportunities for learning happen – for whom, when, where, how, for what purposes, with what consequences for students, teachers, etc. – not simply that they happen

• Understanding technology as enabling and/or enhancing, not driving, the collaboration

Questions We Ask

• What factors support and/or constrain models for building and engaging in international collaborative opportunities for learning?

• What are the multiple layers of work necessary for students, with their teachers & others, to actively engage with complex ideas,

problems and issues in these technology-enabled, inquiry-based contexts?

In order to understand

Thinking

creating

interpreting

making links

solving problems

communicating about what they are doing?

How we can study – and support - students, teachers, community members, families, and others as they co-construct collaborative , technology-enabled, learning communities in which members are

LINC’s Perspective: Theoretical/Methodological Framework for Research and Action

Interactional Ethnographic Perspective (e.g., Green,

Dixon & Zaharlick, 2001; Dixon & Green, 2005)

• Complemented by interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1986)

• Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992; Ivanic, 1994, 1998)

• Based on at least 4 decades of ethnographic research in classrooms and community settings

Enabling us to look from multiple angles of vision engage in multi-layered examination of what occurs

- when, where, how, under what conditions, for what purposes, and with what potential consequences for participants

What we’ve identified: Four guiding principles of practice for over time collaboration for research and learning

• Preparing the mind and building a repertoire for action

• Engaging in and/or with (e.g., content, challenge-based investigation, more and/or differently-knowledgeable others, technology tools)

• Taking action from what is learned for self and/or others

• Going public to share what is learned

Examples of technologies used for our collaborations

• Broadband interactive video conferencing (i.e. H323 based) (e.g., via Internet 2)

• Web-based synchronous video conferencing• Web-based synchronous and asynchronous

communications (e.g., synchronous editing of knowledge maps, chats, forums, email)

• Video documentation (analog and digital analysis)

Two Telling Cases for Collaborative Research & Action

• Wings at Work/Day in My Life Mesa School Mantymaki School University of Helsinki LINC Center• Global School - Building collaborations (Aalto University, Univ of Helsinki, Mesa School, LINC Center and. . .)

Wings at Work/Day in the Life: 4th-6th grade students, with teachers, constructing online knowledge maps and jointly collecting and sharing data

• Dr. John Puglisi – Mesa Union School District and technology-enabled collaborations

• Jarkko Myllari & Mikael Kivela – Finnish perspective including software development • Ryan Howatt – Teacher, Mesa School – Teacher’s perspective, including what needed to be in place for the project to work for students

Global School: Innovative collaborations between schools and business sectors – New possibilities

• Esko Huhta – Aalto University – What is Global School and what are the possibilities?