Group items tagged

Defines CoP's and reinforces that CoP's focus on sharing knowledge and developing best practices. Identifies CoP's as a model for connecting people for learning, knowledge sharing, collaboration and organizational development. Provides great key questions for growth of a CoP.

This is a great guide from Educause on the "nuts and bolts" of establishing a PLN. This resource provides a step-by-step guide to establishing a CoP.

This article is really helpful since it gives practical there are some things you can do. My favorite is "Design." You can not just set up spaces and expect people to interact. You have to drive purpose and there has to be meaning there.

This article explains activity theory model as a good tool for understanding the interpretations and conceptualizations of personal learning environments. I like the graphical representation of the elements of PLE. I like the set of questions researchers leave at the end of the article; some of them I already had in mind.

This site provides a paper written about the connections between personal learning environments and information literacy. It outlines how information literacy intersects with the goals of personal learning environments.

Position learners in active, participatory roles with authentic learning opportunities. The research paper assignment has failed to keep up with modern literacies. A PLE is informal learning and learner driven. The learner makes choices.

Breakdown of the theory of Connectivism, distinctions between groups and networks and learning about the history & application of Connectivism in education

This article talks about the importance of networks and the difference between a group emphasis and a network emphasis. The author discusses the importance of information running through a network of human and non-humans. He additionally outlines Siemen's principles of Connectivism. Further, he discusses the implications for using the principles of Connectivism by educators and within higher education.

Kelsey, thanks for sharing. I found the article relevant to my own practice as a higher ed librarian, where we are increasingly encouraging students to be producers of information and to participate in the scholarly conversation.

Shea Homes is the first national homebuilder to offer an application for the iPhone. Potential buyers can use the app to find information on each model, see prices, and get GPS directions to each home for sale.

A 3d interactive model of the human body that provides complex interaction that would be near impossible to access outside medical school laboratories. Note: Requires a browser that supports HTML5 and WebGL.

A comprehensive resource to visually explore the systems of the human body in highly vivid detail. vAnatomy is your comprehensive resource to study the entire human body. With over 3000 highly detailed diagrams and descriptions- vAnatomy has the most comprehensive human anatomical study information available!

This article discusses how communities of practice benefit from technology, particularly in social work contexts. To start, it talks about how groups such as Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous are communities of practice (this was good for me to see as I have certainly been basing them on more "tech based" models). A key part of communities of practice, according to the article, is becoming a practitioner and not simply acquiring knowledge about practice. Page 593 also had a useful "stage" description to see communities of practice along a continuum.

This article discusses the University of Tazmania's drive to emphasize and encourage peer learning and communities of practice to help their students achieve more and be prepared for a life time of learning. The article explains that a CoP is a community of people with the same interest working together to learn and build knowledge.The article discusses how this strategy for learning can help in the higher Ed. The article also includes a worksheet to help brainstorm ways to start a new CoP.

Summary: This is a site that provides a community of practice startup kit. This site walks through with detail the process of starting a community of practice. The visuals are great, and there is a ton of valuable resources provided. The page is a bit old, "2000" but much of the information is still pertinent today.

Todd - What an AWESOME find. I am just not sure just how current all the information is. Many times the article references the "Winding Down" of CoPs, mainly because this seems to be more of a corporate-type CoP model. As educators come and go from a CoP, I am not convinced it would wind down. Also, this article references the value of the telephone and Convergence since 2000 has increased the values of Podcasts, SKYPE, Google Hangouts, blogs, glogs, Facebook, Twitter, and online chat as nearly replacing the phone. The guidelines posted in the article have a great deal of value. The Venn diagram on page 9 and the indicators of a successful CoP on pp. 9-10 resonated with me. I will be interested to see how they mesh with our coursework.

Questions whether learning theories reflect the needs of learners of the future. Identifies that school systems haven't developed a connectivist model for curriculum instruction because educators aren't sure of all the possibilities technology is able to offer. Author feels that connectivism is an important part of developing theories but shouldn't be considered a learning theory, on its own.

Connectivism This article defines the important role of connectivism in developing of new pedagogies where power is being taken over by the autonomous student.

I love this article. The article briefly describes the learning theory of Connectivism. The article also reviews learning theories of the past. The main point this article works to answer is whether Connectivism has a place as a learning theory for today's learners. Should Connectivism be the new learning theory that replaces older theories because they no longer address the needs of today's learners.

The National Education Technology Plan is the flagship educational technology policy document for the United States. The 2016 Plan, Future Ready Learning: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Education, articulates a vision of equity, active use, and collaborative leadership to make everywhere, all-the-time learning possible. This recently published plan provides guidance and recommendations for use of technology in education. The report is separated in sections, with the Teaching section being a wonderful place to start for teachers looking for ways to learn, as well as innovative models from other teacher-leaders.

The Big6 model is designed to help build information problem-solving and decision making skills, and is "completely transferable to any grade level, subject area, or workplace."

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.

Seven teachers in six cities participated in the development of this report on teacher's experiences with professional learning systems & documents teachers' on-the-ground experiences with professional learning networks. Focus is on how professional learning communities (PLC's) as seen in the US model needs to change the way that teachers develop professionally changes over time with the advancements of Web 2.0.

This article explains how Online Multiplayer Games are the new model for communities of practice and how we as teachers should incorporate technology into our classrooms to utilize this networking capability.

MMOGs are a very interesting phenomenon to me. I took Dr. Haskell's GameBased learning course last semester. What a great way to engage students within COP and PLN.

This video made by Brandy explains how much easier it is for students to engage with content and others when they have a digital space. Brandy goes on to talk about how easy it is to reach out to experts in a community. It goes beyond just the basic classroom interaction. She connects all of these concepts together nicely, whether she intended to or not. Students are in their own PLNs too, whether they're calling it that or not.

This short video includes visual images to accompany an overview of what connectivism is and what this learning theory looks like both in classrooms and the real-world. This video can provide a foundation to build upon as more research and understanding is conducted to further understand the theory.

I found this video to be very informative and a great resource to explain connectivism.

This resources gives a easy to understand definition of connectivism. It also discusses not only how connectivism can be used with teachers, but also with students through guidance. The article describes the massive open online course (MOOC) phenomenon which is something I had never heard of before.

Here is a very short, but simple to understand explanation of connectivism. I had to read through this one before I really had a basic understanding of the concept even though I had read a couple other articles first. This one cleared it up quickly.

A brief summary of connectivism. Connectivism was developed to account for the Internet and technological advancements and the roles they play in knowledge and learning.