Living and Learning in a Global CommunityInnovative Schools Virtual University

Housekeeping

Paperless handouts- coming http://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com/

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Co-Founder & CEO Powerful Learning Practice, LLChttp://plpnetwork.comsheryl@plpnetwork.com

President21st Century Collaborative, LLChttp://21stcenturycollabrative.com

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

What does it mean to be a connected learner?

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

Let’s list adjectives that describe a connected learner and networked learning. (in backchannel) Photo credit: Alec Couros

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

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

Define Community

Define Networks

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)

Community......has been defined as a group of interacting

people living in a common location.

http://www.psfk.com

In the digital age, common location is not as important as

common interest.

What are the characteristics of distributed learning

communities?

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.

“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)

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Open Networks

http://inperspire.blogspot.com

My community work

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

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.

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.

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

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)

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

Looking Closely at Learning Community Design

4L Model (Linking, Lurking, Learning, and Leading) inspired by John Seeley Brown

http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2006/06/roles-in-cops.html

This model is developed around the roles and interactions members of a community have as participants in that community.

Webb/Butterfield/Smith Model

Based on Matt Webb, Stewart Butterfield’s and Gene Smith’s writings

CelebrationCelebration

Connection

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Communication

Collaboration

http://idirekt.cz/soubory/t-mobile_dance2.png

User Generated

Content

Celebration

Connection

Communication

Collaboration

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Creative Commons

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

Community of Practice

CoPs are not about bringing knowledge into the organization but about helping to grow the knowledge that we need internally within our organizations.

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

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

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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

Strategizea communityexercise

Presence

Conversations

Sharing

Relationships

Groups

Reputation

Identity

“Strategy is knowing what not to do”Michael Porter

Presence

Conversations

Sharing

Relationships

Groups

Reputation

Identity

Self

Community

Activity

Rules & Repercussions

Purpose/Passion?

Co-Creation?

Planning?

Caretakers?CollectivelyRate?

Publish?

Degrees of Transparency and Trust

Join our list Join our forum Join our community

Increasing collaboration and transparency of process

Groups

Groups• Norms

- Vilification - Veneration - Rules

• Jargon & In-Jokes• Collective Choices

NormsMissing block?

Conversations

You have to find a way to spare the

group from scale. Scale alone kills conversations,

because conversations

require dense two-way conversations.

[Dunbar] found that the MAXIMUM number of people that a person could

keep up with socially at any given time, gossip maintenance, was 150. This doesn't mean that people don't

have 150 people in their social network, but that they only keep tabs

on 150 people max at any given point.

Simple (hard) Steps

• Have a compelling idea• Seed• Someone must live on the site

– Community manager or you• Make the rules clear (and short)

– Tools not rules• Punish swiftly and nicely• Reward contributions- celebrate often• Spread the work out• Collective Norms• Apologize publicly, swiftly and frequently• Community platform and Web 2.0 spaces

A Good Facilitator/Coordinator?

Community Leader

Facilitation and Coordination of a CoP includes:

• monitoring activity

• encouraging participation (facilitation techniques)

• felxible action plan

• reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations

• monitoring success criteria and impact

• behind the scenes

• managing CoP events

A Facilitator/Coordinator A Facilitator/Coordinator cultivates the communitycultivates the community

Metrics

Building an environment to support collaborative workingFind and connect with experts

Find and connect with your peers

Threaded discussion forums, wikis, blogs, document repository

News feeds Event calendar

News and Newsletters

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

Your community’s life-cycle

Plan

Start-up

Grow

Sustain/Renew

Close

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TimeDiscover/imagine

Incubate/ deliver value

Focus/ expand

Ownership/ openness

Let go/ remember

From: Cultivating Communities of Practice by Wenger, McDermot and Snyder

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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