Group items tagged

Communities of Practice are becoming an important focus in organiation development because of the learning and collaboratiave aspects of CoP. Theory and practice of CoP's are reviewed. The model of situated learning is reflected upon as CoP's are viewed as a process of engagement.

This is an article that dives deeper into the theory and practice of communities of practice. The article hits the main components of domain, community, and practice but dives deeper into the thinking of the researchers Lave and Wenger. I appreciated how the article dives deeper into the process of these communities and how many of us join COPs as periphery learners and then as we gain competence through out interactions with the COP we move to full participation. The cornerstone of the theory being that learning not is solely acquisitional but rather a process of social participation. There are extended quotes from the researchers that provide a deeper context to their theory and more is discussed about the processes of their research.

This article provides a great overview of the writings of Wenger and Lave on communities of practice. Their basic points are that we are all involved in communities of practice and they are valuable tools to become better educators. They also explain how our learning never ends as education continues to change. We constantly need to adapt and change our methods to fit our learners.

Upon doing my research for CoP I stumbled across this site that stresses the right way to effectively use technology for online communities of practice. It emphasizes that many CoP's can lose their purpose by metamorphosing into something entirely different than what was originally intended.

Suggests that understanding how members of a learning community converse is an important component of understanding connectivism. The tone of the interactions in a forum rely on the design and management of the space. Furthermore, learning depends on sharing in conversations and interactions which themselves can be meaningful activities. During communication among learners, there is a balance of what is good for each individual and the ability to move towards a common purpose.

In this article, Andrew Ravenscroft explores a "dialogue rich view of connectivism" and how we can develop learners that can "think, reason and analyse." He takes inspiration from social constructivist theory to focus on dialogue as a vehicle for learning. Ravenscroft begins by detailing Siemens 8 principles of connectivism. He then asks 3 questions: how can we understand the dialogue processes of a networked world, what dialogue features make for quality connections and how do we design to promote quality connections. He starts to explore the questions with Socrates and the Socratic method. This method has applications for 21st century learning. He reviews Hegel's dialectic as well. Ravenscroft maps these positions to connectivism because dialectic helps refine knowledge from a diversity of opinions, supports the capacity to know more, consideration of alternative viewpoints, fosters a constant evolution of knowledge, and promotes critical and collaborative dialogue. Then he discusses dialogic processes and how they map to connectivism. Dialectic and dialogic can work, not in opposition, but together in different aspects. Dialectic focuses on the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of learning, while dialogic focuses more on emotional and interpersonal aspects. The author then details dialogue game interactions and how they can foster learning. To be successful they need to balance orchestration and openness. This article proposes that language and dialogue remain a "most powerful semiotic system."

What a fascinating article. Ravenscroft's discussion of a scaffolded system to build a learner's dialogic skills reminds me of research I did for my EdTech504 class on self-regulated learning. Roger Azevedo is developing and experimenting with a similar game, MetaTutor, which scaffolds student learning as well. I think self-regulation is complex and difficult to teach in the classroom, and am amazed that researchers are creating software to build self-efficacy!

Here is the link to my Google Docs for my EDTECH 543 Top Ten Digital Footprint assignment.

Doing my assignment this week in EDTECH 541 on interactive presentations led me to this article. Wow! How right he is and the fact that it was written 9 years ago and things haven't really changed since then is amazing!

Learning Forward notes that learning communities are those in which "Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment."

Greetings Molly, Thank you for sharing this article. I especially liked the video. In a perfect world all grades and subjects would be aligned. I think most schools attempt continual improvement by evaluating student data. I hope. I like the idea of owning students in such a way as to be responsible for all student learning. Good article.

Bookmarked from Molly on EdTech SN

This is my plan for a positive digital footprint.

For EdTech 543 - a compilation of the top 10 strategies for building and maintaining a professional digital footprint.

EdTech 543 Online Reputation Management Assignment: Here is the link to my Google doc with a list of 10 strategies for creating and maintaing a positive professional presence online.

The link to my Positive Digital Footprint Plan. References: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10HnuvY_Ib97d5MYfKVH0mW7j7am2e3BhliBuvEYSZdA/edit?usp=sharing

Relevant advice for the beginning of a new school year

My PLE reflection and depictions for EdTech543

This article condenses the main goals/steps an educator should keep in mind when integrating technology in a learning environment. The content reflects aspects of the TIP (Technology Integration Planning Model) framework and is a good resource for a brief overview of integration strategies.

Cool site that provides educators with Educational Technology resources including tutorials, apps, webinars and links to professional development opportunity. The site is run by educators.

Summary: Although the paper identifies three challenges to Connectivist Learning (self-directed, presence and critical literacies) the findings, based on Kop's research, suggest that social networked learning does work. The paper includes students responses, both positive and negative, about their learning experiences. I found that aspect of the paper fascinating.

This paper highlights current theories of learning and gives a critical analysis of connectivism ""within the context of its predecessors" in a attempt to establish whether this theory is indeed anything new to offer for teaching and learning in the digital era.

This article looks at the challenges that could be faced by using PLEs and Connectivisim in social networking. The article breaks down the challenges to Connectivist learning and then explains the research methodology behind their findings.

This article gives a brief overview of PLNs but then gives tips on developing your own.

The author provides tips for educators to network and grow their PLNs. He likes to ask educators to consider the following questions:Who is in your learning network? Who do you learn from on a regular basis? Who do you turn to for your own professional development? He provides some great ideas to expand your learning base.

As I begin to develop a PLN, reflecting on these three questions will be helpful. Including suggestions to expanding the network are equally helpful.

Feedly is my favorite website. I use it every day for entertainment, news, and professional items online. Thanks to the work I did in EdTech 502, I added educational technology resources and have really expanded what I use Feedly for. I have different feeds set up to keep it all separate. This is my most-used website thanks to its powerful features and excellent iOS apps.