Group items tagged

This article discusses communities of practice from a business perspective, which I found interesting because CoPs truly to exist in all professions; they aren't strictly and education trend. The merit of CoPs, according to the author, is that people share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to solving problems. They discuss the various benefits of CoPs and then examine why they aren't more prevalent, concluding that though the concept has been around for centuries, it hasn't been widely accepted yet and therefore companies (and education) haven't spent a long time cultivating them and helping people learn to effectively develop them. They refer to CoPs as the new frontier and predict that they will become a more and more important part of knowledge acquisition for professionals in the future.

This is a great resource that focuses specifically on the use of communities of practice in business environments. However, the information is easily transferred to other areas of industry or academia. It addresses the fact that CoPs are different than the traditional approach of working in teams in that their success and usefulness can be difficult to measure. The author gives tips for how to evaluate the success of a CoP through the sytematic gathering of anecdotal evidence.

This is a great resource for businesses to gain insights into the use of Communities of Practice. In this article, Wenger and Snyder discuss Communities of Practice and their value for organizations.

In this article Attwell begins to discuss the importance of continuing education within the professional field. Attwell highlights that as the learning environment is changing so too must the educational world in how people acquire knowledge. As we are all well aware that gaining an education online is very adaptable, so too must schools recognize the value in allowing educators to gain knowledge through PLN's. Attwell identifies that as PLN's continue to grow so to will the informal and formal acquisition of knowledge.

Great article Kristin! I really like how the article states that it's lifelong learning when it comes to PLEs and not just temporary if done correctly!

This paper explores the Personal Learning Environment and considers why PLEs might be useful to learning in the future. The author looks at the changing face of education and the ways the net generation is using technology for learning. The idea of a Personal Learning Environment understands that learning is ongoing and wants to provide tools to support that learning and help the learner organize his own learning. The article also looks at changing technology, and the development of social software, and it's impacts on education today.

Connectivism overview outlining major principles of the theory, includes George Siemens video. Excellent quote from George Siemens (video) "We can not, not learn"

Stacie, Good site to define connectivism. I especially like the diagram graphic and the two video clips with George Siemens, one of the gurus of this technology. The two slide shares are great too. We have one of those slides in our resources for this module.

A great article and resource on George Siemen's principles of connectivism. This includes excellent alternate resources including links to other supporting pages and video links to help understand the connectivism theory.

This project has students examining statistics using blogs. For this project, the teacher gave her class data from a survey given to students from the year prior. The classes goal was to tell a story of the prior years class using statistics. Students had to find tools online to create visual representations of their data. They used their class blog as a hub for exchanging good resources and ideas. When they finished creating their visuals and summarizing the data, they finalized their work in a personal blog entry. Then students shared their blog posts and were given time to read and comment on other students interpretations. This a great project because it gives students an opportunity to write about math which doesn't happen as often as it should. It also gives students insight into all the different ways a set of data can be perceived. I like extending this idea of blogging to being a hub where students finalize and reflect on all of their projects during the year. As an English teacher, I value writing. I really value and chance I can to incorporate writing into my math class.

This software allows students another opportunity, beyond Excel, to investigate, analyze, and represent data and information in dynamic graphs and charts. It fosters critical thinking, analytic skills, and data literacy.

Wordpress & Internet Marketing resource community for Real Estate Professionals.  Provides a consolidated source for data, tools, and market information for agents.

Wolfram|Alpha is more than a search engine. It gives you access to the world's facts and data and calculates answers across a range of topics, including science, nutrition, history, geography, engineering, mathematics, linguistics, sports, finance, music... This is a great review site for students. I tend to use it as a refresher for algebra for my physics students. Care must be taken however that they don't use it as a cheating shortcut for math courses.

Wolfram|Alpha is more than a search engine. It gives you access to the world's facts and data and calculates answers across a range of topics, including science, nutrition, history, geography, engineering, mathematics, linguistics, sports, finance, music...

Presents a rather critical approach to Youtube as an educational tool. Explains that online video library is mostly maintained by a fan base as opposed to deliberate or intentional facilitation. This reduces its credibility as a teaching tool and lacks cohesive curriculum. It is asserted that if learning is encountering what you don't know, then Youtube is not effective for learning as users search their existing interests and for entertainment. Another noted disadvantage is that viewing and commenting on Youtube videos may provide marketing data and potentially undermines student privacy.

This slide share touches on what social learning is.  It suggests that people learn a great deal of information on their own and in their own manners--sometimes just by talking to others.  It focuses on the need for a tool or web software that promotes social and informal learning but still takes into account data privacy and security.   

Social media environments change rapidly, presenting challenges to researchers and academics. "Social media practices" refer to those persistent characteristics of social media which can be used to define new theories explaining learning in such environments. Authors present some specific persistent characteristics of social media (or social media practices) and discuss various factors related to persistent data.

The authors conducted a study of two groups of students (ages 13-17) with two mentors in a teacher education program at Brigham Young University. The study examined how interaction within the two study groups contributed to social construction of shared knowledge. Group A had social interactions previous to the six-week online project, while group B had no previous social interactions. The researchers examined a variety of data including email exchanges, chat room transcripts, electronic logs, and discussion board entries. The conclusions suggested the effectiveness of an online mentor whose role helps establish social interaction, a supportive climate for the exploration of ideas, consensual decision-making, and open discussion. The strength of the study involves using two groups for comparison, as well as a variety of authentic data resources. Limitations include whether results can be generalized and limited ability to analyze students' prior social interactions as factors in the results.

The edtech 541 textbook mentions CIESE collaborative projects, but they also have some neat options where students work with real-time data, mostly focused on earth science topics

Diigo has clear advantages to the individual that needs to store and recall important information. But how can it be used in the classroom? This blog post shares a few options for using Diigo in the classroom. One common problem of student computer use in schools is access to student work from home. Using Diigo, students can bookmark important websites and access them from school, home, the library or any internet-connected computer. Students will always have access to this data. Teachers and students can use the group and list features of Diigo to organize bookmarks on themes or topics. Classes can also collaborate and discuss information within Diigo.

6 Ways to collect data using a Google Form Have students conduct experiment in classroom and one member goes to teacher's computer to enter data for that group Have students create surveys using Google forms and display on own computer; students travel from machine to machine to fill out the

Although I'm usually a bit skeptical when reading anything commissioned by a for-profit publisher like Pearson, this survey reflects responses from almost 8000 higher ed faculty with some interesting results in the data. The faculty voices section at the end is always interesting and sometimes hard to read.

The study in the paper was interesting as it looked at K-12 educators and their use of Twitter to research, relate and form PLNs. Twitter and other social medias have allowed teachers to form networks that are specific to their needs and wants in terms of their own professional growth. In the "End of Isolation" the researchers findings touched on the fact that "over 82% of the time, the educators in this study chose to follow other educators or content experts related to their field of teaching so they were able to create a personal learning network meaningful to their professional needs." Now I just need to work with teachers at my school site to help them realize the individualized professional potential!

This study underscored the benefits of Twitter for the educational community. The article shared the advantages to new teachers in particular, where one participant stated it changed her vision and practice in the classroom. Very powerful!

Of all the resources I have read thus far on PLNs, this particular article forced me to think deeper and reconsider my interpretation of this concept. First of all, I found that the article provided a picture of the quality of interaction that can occur within Twitter. The data collected by researchers provides an in depth look at Twitter as a PLN - a feat that few other resources I have read have accomplished. By detailing the amount, quality, and type of interactions and connections, a tangible conception of a PLN emerges, even for someone who has little to no experience with Twitter. Of the 10 surveyed, a majority of their connections and tweets were professionally related. According to Nussbaum-Beach (video I posted), the difference between a PLN and a CoP is the familiarity of the people and the connection to an idea or problem. However, this study provides a different perception of a PLN that is largely professionally based with strong two-way connections. These conclusions made me wonder if it is possible for facets of a PLN on Twitter to transform into a CoP. Further, at what point can one argue that a PLN has successfully transform into a virtual CoP? Thanks for sharing. This was an excellent read!

This is a great summary of some excellent Multimedia Principles for presentations from Harvard.