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This article talks about the benefits of virtual field trips. It also talks about a specific school near Pittsburgh that took a virtual field trip through videoconferencing. The students did an e-Mission to learn about earth Science.

An excellent resource from scholastic for the Thanksgiving holiday. With teacher registration, you are granted access to the following: *Video tours of Wampanoag dwellings, canoe construction, and daily life *Replay of webcast including interviews with interpreters from the Plimoth Plantation *Series of classroom emails from a Pilgrim girl and a Wampanoag boy *Reminder emails for virtual field trips and webcast replay Interested in integrating technology into holiday lessons? This is an excellent place to start for Thanksgiving!

The multinational organization TÜV Rheinland has recently announced the creation of their first Blockchain certifications in association with Blockchain Council, aimed for the consultants, developers, and experts in the field of Blockchain.

Skype virtual field trips let teachers and students "visit" some awesome sites and places! You have to register and sign in to be able to do Skype virtual field trips with your class. This is a fantastic way to get outside experts to visit your class on a variety of topics.

This is a great article about social networking in schools.

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/06/16/03networking.h03.html M. Gottlieb Day School in Jacksonville, Fla. Ms. Tolisano launched her "Around the World With 80 Schools" project with a goal to introduce her school's students to peers in countries around the globe. She built a social-networking site using Ning for teachers from all countries who wanted to participate. Tolisano sets up meetings between classes using Skype, students prepare a list of questions and chat with students in Canada, Finland, New Zealand, and Spain, among a long list of others.

New Milford High School in New Jesrsey has embraced the use of social media. One example of use had students blogging daily during a field trip to Europe to visit Holocaust sites.

"Studies have concluded that social engagement can benefit retention efforts, and schools and teachers are successfully pursuing this tactic with the help of social media applications." This is an article that points to studies indicating that just as social interaction can help with student retention, both in the field of study and at the school, so to can social media fill this need. 

An article on what COPs are, where they are being used, and what they look like.

This Intro to CoP felt like a great start to my search. This article provides not only a simple overview of the CoP concept but also gives the history of of communities of practice. Additionally, the author provides examples of a variety of settings and terminology used to represent communities of practices in a wide range of fields.

In this article, Wenger gives an overview of Communities of Practice including its definition, characteristics, and its application in a variety of fields. This article helped me better understand the basics of Communities of Practice.

This article from Minnesota State University talks about the half life of information and how today information is growing and doubling at such a fast rate that no one can be as knowledgeable in there field as they were 50 years ago. By using connectivity it allows people to better keep up in there knowledge field.

This is a really interesting article. I never thought about it, but it is a compelling notion that one person cannot be an expert at anything any longer, simply because everyone can be an expert with a device in their hands.

This article gives you the standard overview of connectivism; however, the point about knowledge growing as more nodes are established is a great point. I would agree with Chris Denny. Can anyone (sometimes even the teacher) be the expert any longer without prescribing to connectivist theory?

A blog created by art teachers for art teachers that shares tons of ideas to help make your classroom better. It focuses on technology integration in the art room and has information to keep art teachers up to date on things going on in the field currently. 

By: Eitenne C. Wenger and William M. Snyder Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard business review, 78(1), 139-146. The first article I started with was a Harvard Business review entry regarding communities of practice within organizations. While my other articles focused on the education world and describe actions within the social environment, this article took a different approach in explaining the inner workings CofP's play in the office. The fundamental meaning communities of practice represent go unchanged, but it is interesting that this article puts a table and explanation for the differences other office groups represent, such as an informal network, project team, and formal work group. This distinction allows for other varied communities of practice to be represented. Such as the education field and social psychology. Wenger and Snyder then take the article one step further by explaining the uses of CoPs for management and how to facilitate their growth for strong company cultures.

This article is great that CoPs and PLNs (PLEs) build upon one another to drive a foundational strategy. The primary group might only be a few people but will continue to build to the point that the entire organization is involved. I also think it is important to discuss how this is utilized not only in education but also in business (or other fields). Great pick Jason!

I liked some of the real world examples for benefits of CoP's. The story of the technician who came up with the pneumatic tube idea that was ulitmately adopted because of support from his fellow technicians was really cool to hear.

This detailed paper presents a model for creating a personal learning network based on an investigation using a literature review, semi-structure interviews and survey and includes an extensive reference list. Three stages of the networking process- building, maintaining and activating- are described and the nine factors influencing decisions in each of these areas are outlined. The authors schematically represent a personal professional networking model.

I really like how this article focused on research results and the factors that emerged for the researchers during their study. It made understanding how the theory of PLN's has become relevant. The three stages of networking model also helped drive home the concept. Establish, maintain and activity was a great visual representation. Quality find!

This article discusses the importance of personal learning networks. It defines them as finding and connecting with others that are a part of your field. These interactions with others can promote life-long learning; which is beneficial in any working field.

Great online virtual field trip opportunities to museums connected to Art

This brief article, while focused primarily on online communities of practice in healthcare, has clear implications for learners in other fields as well. One key quote about the value of online CoPs: "an OCoP provides a safew engagement space to enhance knowledge development, strengthen social ties, and build social capital...OCoPs can develop from knowledge networks as relationships strengthen, and motivation to work together on common problems increases." Who wouldn't want to be part of this?

The primary focus of this article is on the way blogs, wikis, and RSS can be used to create personal learning networks and communities of practice in the field of public affairs education. There are useful definitions of both PLNs and CoPs and an overview of how connectivism is contributing to collaboration within the classroom environment.

Bonnie Stewart makes connections between Boyer's four components of scholarship and network participation. She contends that networked engagement fits Boyer's model for scholarship, and broadens scholarship, building connection, collaboration, and curation between individuals rather than roles or institutions.

A very interesting article! Even though the word "connectivism" isn't used (that I could find), what the author describes is essentially that. I especially liked this quote from the article: "Twitter served as a space for thinking aloud, sharing expertise, and raising investigative conversations. Participants appeared to carve out regular areas of discussion and investigation for which they become known, in their Twitter circles; peers would then send them links on those topics due to their expressed interests, and signal them into conversations in those areas, thereby extending participants' network reach and visibility." Sounds like connectivism in action!