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

AuthorThe Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

ChairConnected Educator Month

Board MemberISTE Executive Board

Follow me on Twitter @snbeach

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Housekeeping

Get close to someone

Paperless handoutshttp://plpwiki.com

Back Channel Chat https://todaysmeet.com/rrrcyfair

Mantra for today’s keynote…

We are stronger together than apart.

None of us is as smart, creative, good or interesting as all of us.

• 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 colleagues, your students or your own children to leverage- collective intelligence?

Learner First- Teacher Second

Talk about (in 2 min or less) the most recent or compelling use of technology you have seen or used in your work with children or in your own learning.

Emerson and Thoreau reunited would ask-

“What has become clearer to you since we last met?”

The world is changing...

 

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

“We are tethered to our always on/ always on us communication devices and the people and things we reach through them.”

~ Sherry Turkle

By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds – Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn

Libraries 2.0Management 2.0 Education 2.0Warfare 2.0Government 2.0Vatican 2.0

Credit: Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid

Everything 2.0

Tech is Changing the World

Photo credit: http://smeitexpo2011.blogspot.com/2010/11/era-of-technological-revolution.html

Photo credit: http://cradlepoint.com/sites/default/files/uploads/Internet_of_Things.jpg

• The Internet of Things is a technological system, a suite of products and services that will make life a bit more comfortable.

• It is more than the Internet we know — it goes beyond empowering people to communicate and collaborate.

• The Internet of Things can connect any product or service. And it automatically links what might emerge as a result of this collaboration — interact even without human intervention.

Internet of Things & Services 

Are you Ready for Learning and Leading in the 21st

Century?

It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And professionals who aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant in preparing children for the future that awaits them. (Reflect)

“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”

--Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition

21

Free range learners

Almost from birth today’s children have free range access to knowledge.

The potential exists for all kiddos to learn what they want – when they want.

The pace of change is accelerating

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 college students starting a four-year 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.

Where does that put you in your field?

We have to change school/learning culture…

-- change behaviors-- experience success-- creates faith-- creates hope-- changes beliefs, values, dispositions

From: AzharSent: 2013-10-04 11:03 AMTo: DaddySubject: Our teacher fell asleep

What is ….

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

.

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms..

Shifts focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.

Students become producers, notjust consumersof knowledge.

Shifts focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.

Connected Learning

The computer connects the student 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) –

Professional development needs to change. We know this.

-----Do it Yourself PD

A revolution in technology has transformed the way we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to create knowledge as 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 organizations, schools, and families.

They are DIY, self-directed learners.

What are connected learners?

What is Do -It- Yourself Learning ?

• Letting go of control• Willing to unlearn & relearn• Mindset of discovery• Reversed mentorship• Co-learning and co-creating• Messy, ground zero, risk taking

http://bit.ly/QSqfjI

Maybe a first change step could be developing your own Manifesto around changed practice in your learning environment.

What strong assertions do you or others who serve with you, have (believe) about the culture?

All of OctoberFree professional learning

Free for you– free for your staff

http://connectededucators.org/

Wonder is both a sense of awe and capacity for contemplation.

Wonderment begins with curiosity but then goes deeper beyond the surface to a place of possibility. A place we look for patterns and testing of ideas we had closed to our more reasonable mind.

Wonder is to leave aside our taken-for-granted assumptions, peel away our biases, and to willing explore aspects and angles we wouldn't have seen before.

What do you wonder?

• About connected learning and how it will help you grow as an educator?

• How do you define the terms?

• Let’s build a common language in our back channel chat.

• Examples

It also helps to ask yourself questions like:

1) Why am I planning to do this? 2) How will I initiate this change? 3) Who can I connect with online in my network that can help me? 4) How will I measure my progress? Or how will I know if I am learning?5) Am I using various social media tools for different purposes?

Networks are very “me” oriented. You intentionally with purpose pick and choose who is in your network to learn from and why.

Learning with networks happens through BOTH social and cognitive presence.

Personal Learning Networks

FOCUS: Individuals, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources and People – Social Network Driven

responsiveresponsive

personalized

Connected Learning has the potential to takes us deeper

“The interconnected, interactive nature of social learning exponentially amplifies the rate at which critical content can be shared and questions can be answered.”

From:  Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age in The Chronicle of Higher Education 

Cathy Davidson, professor at Duke University

Connected sometimes trumps F2F with deep learning…

Via Marc Andreessen’s blog, the findings of researchers as related by Frans Johansson in The Medici Effect:

Diversity of thoughtAllows for Greater Innovation

Frans Johansson explores one simple yet profound insight about innovation: in the intersection of different fields, disciplines and cultures, there’s an abundance of extraordinary new ideas to be explored.

“Twitter and blogs ... contribute an entirely new dimension of what it means to be a part of a tribe. The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.”

Internet tribes

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“A tribe needs a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

Leveraging Tribe as a means to

Self Actualization 

Photo Credit: http://newdriven.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/how-to-leverage-the-power-of-the-tribe/

• Humans have a natural propensity to tribe.

• Social learning is a part of our DNA

• We all have basic needs- including the need to belong

• Collaborative Inquiry produces a higher level of cognition

Developing Your Tribe

A group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, connected to an idea

Need two things:

1) Shared interest (mission)

2) A way to communicate

Share

Cooperate

Collaborate

Collective Action

According to Clay Shirky, there are four steps on a ladder to mastering the connected world: sharing, cooperating, collaborating, and collective action.

From his book- “Here Comes Everybody”

Personal Learning Networks (building of your tribe)

Are you mobilizing and contextualizing what you are learning? Can I find you and learn from you?

It’s out of networks that community falls. ~ Nancy White

Whatis community, really?

Very “we” oriented. We do not choose who is part of our community. We make a commitment to grow together and improve at the art and science of teaching and learning. It is more collegial than congenial. It is more collaborative than cooperative.

A Place to Build Trust and Relationships

A Domain of Interest

A Place to Meet

A Place to Construct Knowledge Collaboratively

CelebrationCelebration

A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas.

• puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers

• allows you to share your experiences and learn from others

• allows you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes

• accelerates your learning

• Improves student achievement

• validates and builds on existing knowledge and good practice

• provides the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas

• Examples

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

Use a 3-pronged Approach

CLE example

• 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 CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Professional Learning Communities

Personal Learning Networks

Communities of Practice

Method Often organized for professionals

Do-it-yourself Professionals organize it themselves

Purpose To collaborate in a learning area or in teams around tasks

For individuals to gather info for personal knowledge construction and to bring back info to the community

Collective knowledge building around shared interests and goals.

Structure Team/groupF2f

Individual, face to face, and online

Collective, face to face, or online

Focus Student achievement Personal growth Systemic improvement

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.

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“ Do you know what who you know knows?” H. Rheingold

Critical friends: Form a professional learning team who come together voluntarily at least once a month. Have members commit to improving their practice through collaborative learning. Use protocols to examine each other’s teaching or leadership activities and share both warm and cool feedback in respectful ways.

Curriculum review or mapping groups: Meet regularly in teams to review what team members are teaching, to reflect together on the impact of assumptions that underlie the curriculum, and to make collaborative decisions. Teams often study lesson plans together.

Action research groups: Do active, collaborative research focused on improvement around a possibility or problem in a classroom, school, district, or state.

Book study groups: Collaboratively read and discuss a book in an online space.

Case studies: Analyze in detail specific situations and their relationship to current thinking and pedagogy. Write, discuss, and reflect on cases using a 21st century lens to produce collaborative reflection and improve practice.

Instructional rounds: Adopt a process through which educators develop a shared practice of observing each other, analyzing learning and teaching from a research perspective, and sharing expertise.

Connected coaching: Assign a connected coach to individuals on teams who will discuss and share teaching practices in order to promote collegiality and help educators think about how the new literacies inform current teaching practices.

"Imagine an organization with an employee who can accurately see the truth, understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various decisions. And now imagine that this person is able to make something happen." ~ Seth Godin.

Change is hard

Connected learners are more effective change agents

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.

We have a choice: A choice to be powerful or pitiful. A choice to allow ourselves to become victims of all that is wrong in education- or to become advocates on behalf of children.

Activists who set their own course. Who resist the urge to quit prematurely. DIY change agents who choose to be powerful learners on behalfof the children they serve.

Last Generation