• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Housekeeping
Get close to someone
Paperless handoutshttp://plpwiki.com
Back Channel Chathttp://todaysmeet.com/uindy
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Co-Founder & CEO Powerful Learning Practice, LLChttp://[email protected]
Website and blog21st Century Collaborativehttp://21stcenturycollaborative.com
@snbeach on Twitter
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Things do not change; we change. —Henry David Thoreau
What are you doing to contextualize and mobilize what you are learning?
How will you leverage, how will you enable your students or those you work with to leverage- collective intelligence?
Native American Proverb“He who learns from one who is learning, drinks from a flowing river.”
Sarah Brown Wessling2010 National Teacher of the YearDescribes her classroom as a place where the teacher is the “lead learner” and “the classroom walls are boundless.”
Lead Learner
Learner First---Professional SecondIt is a shift and requires us to rethink who we are as an educator, student, or professional. It requires us to redefine ourselves.
Think AboutEmerson and Thoreau reunited would ask-“What has become clearer to you since we last met?”Share with someone near you.. What have you learned recently?
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATORThe Disconnect“Every time I go to school, I have to power down.” --a high school student
6 Trends for the digital age
Analogue DigitalTethered MobileClosed OpenIsolated ConnectedGeneric Personal Consuming Creating
Source: David Wiley: Openness and the disaggregated future of higher education
Are you Ready for Learning and Leading
in the 21st Century
It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And organizations who aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant.
Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0
We are living in a new economy – powered by technology, fueled by information, and driven by knowledge.
-- Futureworks: Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century
By the year 2012 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds – Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn
It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes of unique new information
will be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
Knowledge Creation
For students starting a four-year technical or higher education degree, this means that . . .
half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.
Defining the Connected Learner
Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads. —Herman Melville
Do it Yourself PDA revolution in technology has transformed the way we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to create knowledge as connected learners.
What are connected learners? Learners who collaborate online; learners who use social media to connect with others around the globe; learners who engage in conversations in safe online spaces; learners who bring what they learn online back to their classrooms, schools, and districts.
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
What does it mean to be a connected learner with a well developed network?
What are the advantages or drawbacks?
How is it a game changer?
Dedication to the ongoing development of expertise
Shares and contributes
Engages in strength-based approachesand appreciative inquiry
Demonstrates mindfulness
Willingness to leaving one's comfort zone to experiment with new strategies and taking on new responsibilities
Dispositions and ValuesCommitment to understanding asking good questions
Explores ideas and concepts, rethinking, revising, and continuously repacks and unpacks, resisting urges to finish prematurely
Co-learner, Co-leader, Co-creator
Self directed, open minded
Commits to deep reflection
Transparent in thinking
Values and engages in a culture of collegiality
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATORProfessional development needs to change. We know this.
A revolution in technology has transformed the way we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to create knowledge as connected learners.
Define Community
Define Networks
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.
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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)
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 connectionsIn 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
“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
Netw
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Com
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Connected Learning
The computer connects the learner to the rest of the worldLearning occurs through connections with other learnersLearning is based on conversation and interaction
Stephen Downes
Connected Learner Scale
Share (Publish & Participate) –
Connect (Comment and Cooperate) –
Remixing (building on the ideas of others) –
Collaborate (Co-construction of knowledge and meaning) –
Collective Action (Social Justice, Activism, Service Learning) –
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face connections among members of a committed group—a professional learning community (PLC)
2. Global network: Individually chosen, online connections with a diverse collection of people and resources from around the world—a personal learning network (PLN)
3. Bounded community: A committed, collective, and often global group of individuals who have overlapping interests and recognize a need for connections that go deeper than the personal learning network or the professional learning community can provide—a community of practice or inquiry (CoP)
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.
We want to focus on shifting from a culture of isolation to a culture of deep and meaningful collaboration.
Professional Learning Communities
FOCUS: Local , F2F, Job-embedded- in Real Time
FOCUS: Situated, Synchronous, Asynchronous- Online and Walled Garden
Communities of Practice
CelebrationCelebration
Connection
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Communication
Collaboration
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User Generated Co-created
Content
Celebration
Connection
Communication
Collaboration
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Personal Learning Networks
FOCUS: Individual, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources and People – Social Network Driven
responsiveresponsive
personalized
investing in collaborations
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…
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.
I 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
Change is hard
Connected learners are more effective change agents
Let’s just admit it…
You are an agent of change!
Now. Always. And now you have the tools to leverage your ideas.
An effective change agent is someone who isn’t afraid to change course.
Let’s look at some examples…
Real Question is this:Are we willing to change- to risk change
Can you accept that Change (with a “big” C) is sometimes a messy process and that learning new things together is going to require some tolerance for ambiguity.
Last Generation
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