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I found this visual to be an interesting model of what happens below the surface in a collaborative setting. Networking and building up a PLN certainly seem to be core activities, but as Berg mentions, it's often not recognized or valued.

I like how this source provided a unique way to look at collaboration. Collaboration is a skill that I am always trying to instill in my students. I also enjoyed that they included the graphic to help the reader understand the concept as well.

Renee, I appreciate you including this blog post with our Diigo collection of resources. This idea of the iceberg makes so much sense. It remembers me a lot of research surrounding language learning as well. There is so much below the surface that is hard to articulate or appreciate. This visual will be very helpful as I work with my teachers and admin next year. It is important that professionals understand that within PLNs there is a lot that happens that cannot be seen, yet it is these powerful connections and interactions that will most effective a teacher's practice

The author discusses the paradigm shift of collaborative learning networks from school organized meeting to less formal communities of practices gathering through social media networks. Additionally, he discusses the need to remain connected for the benefit of the students.

This is an interesting article about how teachers used to work with one another such as going to conferences and having meeting with others in their field. Then it moves on to how they can get the same information from there PLN. This is a way to save time and money for a school district since it is all done virtual. But it also talks about how since we as teacher learned in a time without PLN we are more likely to shy away from them.

This article delivered clear and concise benefits of PLN's. These benefits included customized learning, improved online collaboration and lack of geographic barriers.

A PLN or Professional/Personal Learning Network is a tool that uses digital information like social networks to collect, communicate, collaborate, and create with similarly minded people all over the world at any time. PLNs aren't being widely used because of the challenge to navigate the resources. PLN's do drive collaboration and technology is the tool that fuels it. They are a way to connect with people to share and discuss things the people share interest in. You can start a PLN by getting online and joining blogs, twitter, and message boards about what you are interest in. 

According to this sites definition of a Personal Learning Network, this Diigo group meets the definition ("a tool that uses social media and technology to collect, communicate, collaborate and create with connected colleagues anywhere at any time"). The article continues by stating that each member becomes "a source of information," which leads us back to connectivism, making connections, and learning.

This website defines and discusses PLNs as used by educators specifically. This article talks about how to start or get involved in a PLN, barriers educators face in using PLNs, and benefits of using PLNs.

I really like this article. Gives so many examples of free collaboration/sharing tools in the classroom. I appreciated the use of not only social media sites, but so many interactive sites that include collaboration tools - Even game-based learning ideas. Thanks for sharing! Matt

I have to try more of these tools out. It's great that this resource is found and can help our learners stay connected and that we have these kinds of resources to allow them to digitally create and collaborate on projects, and ideas.

What a fabulous find! I will definitely be taking a closer look at some of these! Nice job finding this incredible resource.

One of the articles in the resources for Module 2 mentioned collaborative learning vs. cooperative learning, so I wanted to read this article about the differences. This article details cooperative, collaborative and problem based learning in these areas: origins of the approach, definitions, essential features, goals, specific strategies and techniques and research that supports it. While there are multiple definitions, the authors say that "cooperative learning combines active and social learning via peer interaction in small groups," but that this also applies to collaborative learning. In contrast, cooperative learning emphasizes interdependence, where collaborative learning focuses more on discovery, understanding and producing knowledge. Collaborative learning also involves the teacher as well, working together with students to learn. In problem based learning, students work in small groups to solve a problem, often a real world problem. This type of learning does also involve cooperation and collaboration. There is a table on page 33 that summarizes the 3 approaches.

Throughout this website, Etienne Wenger describes Communities of Practice as "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." It strongly conveys the importance of working together and emphasizes teamwork as a vital component for success. I could not agree more.

This short summary did a really good job of making this concept simple to understand. It explains that you need three things for a COP: a domain, a community and practice. Great short explanation

This article is an overview of CoPs. The highlight for me is that it must be a collaboration over time, not a one-time Professional Development.

This article describes the features in communities of practice and provides a real life example of how it is used and what it looks like in an educational setting. The article also shows how communities of practice can be extended through the use of new technologies.

This article really captivated me, especially how it started with the vignette about the English teachers collaborating over how to mark their students' papers. I am an English faculty at a university and I have sat through collaborations on such things. I appreciated how such a simple paragraph on this collaboration could embody the three tenets of communities of practice.

The National Council of Teachers of English wrote this briefing with the intent of helping not just English teachers but any educator understand the alignment, implementation, and instructional support of a CoP. The comprehensive but short article is an easy read to get a basic outline of communities of practice.

This Edutopia article explains what a PLN is, how they develop through thought, that PLNs are collaborative, what PLNs can do for you, and how to build a PLN. The article brings up three deterrents of PLNs for educators: PLN is a mindset, there is an overwhelming amount of techno-babble, and requires more digital literacy than a Google search. A good quote from this article is, "We must remember that lifelong learning requires effort." The article ends with a list of resources on PLNs.

Edutopia's article defines PLN and provides concrete ways for educators to establish one. While it addresses the barriers for mass adoption of PLN, the focus is to highlight the collaborative nature of PLN. It is this collaboration that allows for personal and professional growth.

This is yet another great and practical article. I especially like how the author outlined how we can each develop a PLN in 20 min/ day and gave some great suggestions for what we should do with those 20 minutes. 20 min/day feels very doable, even to someone new to PLNs or social media.

PBworks looks like a Learning Management System that can be used for free, however the collaborative parts require a subscription. For $99/ year you get security, control over who sees your pages, storage space, and the collaborative perks.

50 Free Collaboration Tools That Are Awesome for Education

I love this book! It was written as an experiment in online participatory, collaborative scholarship. It looks at how learning institutions can become as flexible and collaborative as social networking sites. Personal learning networks are highlighted in several examples. The leads on the project are Cathy Davidson (see earlier bookmark) and David Theo Goldberg.

STEM faculty members who are working in educational research are participating in communities of practice. The communities of practice were used to increase capacity, engagement, and collaboration amongst the members. Communities of practice can be differentiated depending on the needs to the members participating in the learning community. A vital part in communities of practice is that it's members need to share a common goal or vision and work collaboratively to contribute to the learning community.

Summary: Connectivism often features student choice, personalization, and varied paces. Social connections and collaboration are highlighted in this theory. A librarian at Wichita State University implemented connectivist ideals in a research class to make the course more meaningful and useful in the future. She asked students to comment digitally on student created research guides that could be used in the future with other students. This professors success came with strong plans and deliberate use of collaboration among students.

Connectivism is presented as the latest theory in library education. It combines elements of cognitivism and constructivism. As librarians engage in traditional 50 minute instruction periods they often miss the individualized instruction that produces the best results. In this article a librarian at Wichita State was looking for ways to take her intruction to the next level. Fortunately she got that opportunity while working with an upper-level English course. Students made connections between sources and among each other by completing a course research guide. At the end of the article the author offered several tips for improving library instruction. Librarians must have a detailed lesson plan in place, strong faculty collaboration, and include fun active learning exercises.

To make the most out of this link, you'll want to explore beyond the first page because the entire website is a product. This website seems to stress the importance of doing cooperative learning that has much more structure than collaborative learning. In emphasizing the role structure plays in group dynamics, I am starting to see the differences between these "C" words more clearly.

Melissa, You are right, going into the links made this post even more interesting. I found value in the difference between this theory and other learning techniques being the fact that students work together. I love this! When my students work together they learn so much more. Kids have a way of explaining things to each other that is amazing. I found the link about using it in conjunction with other techniques a little vague. Maybe I should sign up for the workshop. I know I could use the information. Thanks for sharing.

This is an amazing resource! The videos and transcripts in the demonstration section are really good referents to define what specific behaviors we're looking for in terms of student collaboration. The exploration creates some guidance about how to look at and discuss the topics - I can totally imagine using this resource to work with a group of teachers on designing lessons that take advantage of cooperative groups.

This article is helping me see how if I were to create a Venn diagram of these two concepts, there would be some overlap. Keep in mind, the article was crafted in 1996, which I think adds strength to it because it is not clouded with current conventional ways of communication. I can see the points Panitz brings out where cooperative learning is much like how I was taught to teach science. We have groups, most likely created by me, and each member of the group plays a role. In more recent years (like the last 15 or so), there has been more of a push for inquiry which emphasizes putting control in the students' hands. Let the students decide the outcome (collaborative) as opposed to the teacher knowing what the outcome will be (cooperative). In my later years of teaching I was striving toward bringing in as much inquiry as possible, but even in 2010 I found students still molded into vessels who thought the job of the teacher was to fill them.

This article discusses computer-supportive collaborative learning and the learning theory of connectivism. It discusses the pros and cons of connectivism and how it supports a collaborative learning environment. It also discusses how a course should be designed when integrating collaborative technologies.

Authors present communities of practice (CoP) as groups with a common desire for change, as providing opportunities for collaboration and reflection, and as catalysts for development of societal products and tools. They note that CoP transcend traditional barriers/demographics and reach groups formed by individual selection. CoP, while also focused on collaboration and dialogue as well as the development desired outcomes, are more open to sharing with the broader community than other collaborative models. Discussion of use of CoP in context of early childhood intervention.

Students take collaborative notes in Today's Meet. This way they get some of the things they may have missed and are able to ask clarifying questions. Students can use Today's Meet as a backchannel discussion for in class discussions, small group discussions, collaboration, etc, and then download the transcript as a more permanent record.

I don't know if this link will actually work- I'm trying to bookmark #organellewars because this brilliant teacher set up a way for his students to collaborate with real scientists who work on organelles. Together the scientists and students collaborate via twitter. The conversations are amazing. If nothing else, put #organellewars in a Twitter search.

While this article does delve somewhat into the nuts-and-bolts of beginning a blog (and how to use a blog to connect with other learners in your community of practice), the real emphasis is on collaboration within communities of practice through sharing your knowledge with interested colleagues. Well-written!