• 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://plpnetwork.comsheryl@plpnetwork.com

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half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.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

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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