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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.

I wanted to know more about the difference between a personal learning network and a personal learning environment. This article does a great job of breaking down the differences even though they obviously work hand in hand.

What I love about this source is the section that discusses why PLEs are significant - I love how it talks about how it is student-driven. It is up to the learner to be in charge of their own learning path and provides authentic learning opportunities. With the creation of 2.0 tools, educators are able to differentiate to different learners with the creations of these tools and pairing students that are in the same skill-set or have similar interests for them to learn information and assist in making connections.

I like this source and how it explains PLEs, why they are important, who they are for, and even the downsides to them. It makes it an easy read and easy to find the information you are looking for. I also like how it includes a case study to align with the information that is given.

I know, I know. Wikipedia. In an educational context. I have been a Wikipedia editor since 2012 and I have found it to be a rewarding experience. More than my anecdotal experience, there is increasing evidence of Wikipedia's increasing acceptance in academia. There are even Wikipedians in residence at major universities. This article on connectivism is a great overview and a good starting point for understanding the concept and some of its intellectual underpinnings.

Educreations is a community where anyone can teach what they know and learn what they don't. Our software turns any iPad or web browser into a recordable, interactive whiteboard, making it easy for teachers and experts to create engaging video lessons and share them on the web. Students can replay these lessons any time, any place, on any connected device. We're on a mission to dramatically improve student achievement by extending the reach of great teaching.

Educreations is a community where anyone can teach what they know and learn what they don't. Educreations software turns any iPad or web browser into a recordable, interactive whiteboard, making it easy for teachers and experts to create engaging video lessons and share them on the web. Students can also use Educreations to create videos.

Move over, Facebook - if you teach middle or high schoolers, you know that Instagram is one of the most popular social media channels for teens and tweens today. And while it may not seem like it at first, there are many applications for Instagram in the classroom.

In this video, George Siemens lectures on connectivism and its importance in education. Current education structures do not provide meaningful learning. Connectivism is a way of learning that is interactive, participatory, and under an individual's control. The social learning is a method of "connectedness" that provides deeper connections with learning strengths.

"The formal learning process is irrelevant." One example he gives of this is that we don't know our students well enough to personalize the process to them. He says we force content on them without taking them into consideration. I disagree. Students tell you what they want to learn by declaring a major or signing up for a class. I agree that the system could be better, but he goes a bit too far.

What a great speaker! Siemens' speech is so thought provoking. It is important to know our children before we teach them.

I adore Rita Pierson! I can't decide if I wish she was my teacher, my colleague or my administrator...one thing I know for sure, I wish she were my friend! This is my go to video when I need a reminder about why I do what I do. I hope you enjoy her as much as I do.

I have used this with my staff before. She is amazing, inspirational. She is talking directly about my students at my school. She is so right about how students don't learn from people they don't like. When you empower a student they will soar. School is all about building relationships, not just lessons and standards.

Every teach should start their day with this. What a great video. I liked the comment..."We know why kids drop out". Thank you for sharing this great resource!

"When we process our learning by showing, retelling, and expressing, it reinforces our understanding. And, we just might inform and entertain an audience while we're at it!"

Some additional features in Google Slides I did not know about.

Want to know why integrate Technology In The Classroom? Check the benefits of Integrating Technology In The Classroom and 24 edTech tools! 

This is a great project where students get to demonstrate what they know about Quadrilaterals. For this assignment, students selected a quadrilateral to make an Instagram account for. They are to create an account that contained correct information about the shape and use an appropriate username. They also had to include at least 5 pictures of their shape. All of the posts used the class hashtag so they could easily be sorted on Instagram. When people finished their account page they had to go to other pages and check their peers quality of work. Questions, comments, and concerns were addressed by the students in the form of comments and likes. This particular example made use of a lot of poster paper and physical models. It would be easy to go all digital with this project and have students take or find pictures of their shape in the real world. This gives students another way to express what they know and interact with their peers.

This article is written on the challenges people face by using the connectivist learning theory. It states that it will work for some students, but like all theories, not all students will benefit with this theory. Knowing your students and being flexible is key in having a successful class.

The Purdue University Online Writing Lab serves writers from around the world and the Purdue University Writing Lab helps writers on Purdue's campus.

This is an excellent resource when you have to cite resources. I know that I struggle to cite the resources correctly, so I wanted to share the resource with others.

Purdue OWL has been a life-saver through out the MET program

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.

This speaker does an excellent job showcasing that our students are totally capable of being part of a learning network before they can even recognize what it is they're doing. Things have changed intensely since the rise of networked connections between people. School needs to adapt and use these tools that professional educators are using to improve meeting the many "standards" that Mr. Regur talks about. "We have standards just to write standards…" We need to avoid the closed off island that is being a teacher… There is no longer an excuse to be stuck in this single-player version of education.

We all create personal learning networks in everything we do. Using this in education is extremely important so that students a) know how to connect with others, and b) know how to benefit from connecting with others. I like how he called the "teacher the most important activator".

Two is a meeting, Three is a network. Steve had some great "real" advice and reasons for why we should all join PLN for a variety of different reasons to create a stronger and more educated world.

Great short clip that explains communities of practice for educators.

This brief but detailed summary of Wegner's 1998 idea of Community of Practice gives a basic understanding of the idea. The videos included can be useful for seeing how the idea can be helpful in education.

This resource explains what CoP is and when the theory was developed. The concept of CoP was developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. The author uses quotes directly from their book to explain CoP. There is a video that illustrates how CoP can be used in a K-12 classroom and another video that shows how CoP can be applied in other fields. The article also differentiates between Communities of Practice and Team members. The categories include objective, membership, organization, termination, value proposition, and management. My take away from the chart was that the major difference between CoP and being a team member is this: what will be the outcome of the participant?