• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Housekeeping

Get close to someone

Paperless handoutshttp://plpwiki.com

Back Channel Chathttp://todaysmeet.com/clc

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Lani Ritter Hall

Community LeaderPowerful Learning Practice, LLChttp://plpnetwork.comlani@plpnetwork.com

Website and blog http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com

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

Website and blog21st Century Collaborativehttp://21stcenturycollabrative.com

Goals for Today1. Tell you a little about our book and how

it is unique.2. Give you some insight into what the

next generation of PLCs will look like.3. Discuss what it means to be a

connected learner4. Share your learning with each other.

What’s Different About This Book?

• Learner first- Educator second• Next generation PLCs: Connected Learning Communities (CLCs)• DIY PD• You become a connectedlearner

• 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 teachers or your students 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---Educator SecondIt is a shift and requires us to rethink who we are as an educator. It requires us to redefine ourselves.

Think About• What have you learned? One take away.• Share with someone near you

• 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 schools who aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant in preparing students for the future.

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Defining the Connected Educator

Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads. —Herman Melville

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

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

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.

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) –

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

- Howard Rheingold

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

Knowledge Construction

Practitioners’ knowledge = content & context

Netw

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Com

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ity

• 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.

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

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

Communities of Practice

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

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 educators 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.

Real Question is this:Are we willing to change- to risk change- to meet the needs of the precious folks we serve?

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