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This research is an indication from a librarian at the amount of communication at a university. The primary preferred tool for undergraduate students was facebook.

The author suggests that learning is a process of connecting information sources. What better place to connect information than online, where a world of information is at our fingertips. The author discusses Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, social networking, and virtual gaming environments to name a few) and how they've impacted learning and helped to shape the idea of connectivism.

This is a short little slide share on the basics of connectivism learning theory as proposed by George Siemens. It's very basic and straight forward. I like the metaphor used for learning. I also like the images of the different social networks on the first slide.

A slide show production on connectivism, including definitions and comparisons/contrasts with constructivism.

I appreciate the example that John Brown lays out in his paper "Growing Up Digital". He speaks about the Xerox company sending in anthropologists to study how tech reps fix broken machines. They learned it is all about the communication and storytelling, never do reps use the manual. After developing an online presence for tech reps (CoP) to communicate, Xerox saves $100 million a year while the learning curve of the reps has grown by 300%. This is a great case study to get a better understanding of a CoP analyzed and at work today.

Harold Jarche offers a look at the concept of organizations moving from hierarchies to wirearchies. An argument that communities of practice prove more able to get things done in the real work--a-day world and offer a safe place for members to do highy concentrated work. My college still puts out an org chart every year showing the heirarchy of the organization. But everyone knows who the real people are that you need to connect with to get anything done.

I thought this article provided new insight in how to combine social networks and communities of practice into the workplace. Ideally, the workplace should be collaborative and cooperative, but I think most traditional organizations still operate on a hierarchy structure. I thought the term introduced in the article of "wirearchy was extremely creative.

This video provides the importance and opportunity of connecting using social networking and building up educators through connecting with each other. There are many examples of how being connected has worked for different teachers.

Educators have always been connected and new tools help them get connected easier to other knowledge sources. Like the interviewed people say in the video, how do we know that we are doing well if we are not connected and get feedback? I completely agree with the idea of the need of being connected to students, colleagues, parents, community...to be a 21st century educator.

Learn about creating classroom rules for diverse groups. This two-week online course helps participants learn how Thinkfinity's social network can benefit educators. (one graduate credit) Iron Worker's Hard Hat, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Experience the events of September 11, 2001.

This has some quick ideas and directions for creating a voice thread.

This article is from Ebscohost and does require users to log into Albertson's Library before accessing. This paper looks at shared social capital and what it means for teachers. It also looks at the difference and the benefits for teachers using online vs offline professional development resources as it relates to Facebook.

This article examines PLEs with a working definition of "a combination of social media-enabled systems, applications, and services which help learners to take control of their learning by aggregating, manipulating, and creating digital contents and learning artifacts, and sharing them with others." It advocates for an atmosphere of learning that is far different than the traditional sense; one that is driven by student-led activities and exploration.

This is another resource that requires you to log into Albertson's Library using your MyBoiseState credentials. This article's focus is on middle school teachers and looks at the MSP2 Math and Science Pathways project. The project was focused on providing connected online experiences for math and science through the use of technology. It discusses how they used Ning and Wikis for collaboration and also presents some of the findings from the MSP2 project.

The author discusses what happened when he created a PLN during the summer. He focuses on the qualitative data he collected from participants. He describes the two many barriers most participants shared which were a limited amount of time to develop and learn from their PLN's and also the information overload associated with connecting your PLN to social media. He also describes how the participants used the different tools.

As someone that tries to read everything in my own PLN, I appreciate the authors recommendations on ways to not become overwhelmed. Starting out by only using one or two tools and setting aside a few minutes every couple days is great advice.

Statistics on Teens and Technology from Pew Research Center.

A social networking site for classrooms. Teachers can create class groups where students can safely share post and share. This can also be used by teachers to give and collect assignments and give quizzes.