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This excerpt from an interview with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, PLP founder, captures critical points for PD online. "Will and I agreed that we would only work with teams of school-based educators because the research made it clear that it was collaborative teams within in a school, working together, that really brought about sustainable improvement. That would give us what we needed to anchor the virtual experience in a local context. We also wanted participants to experience a global community of practice-to be able to have conversations with people very different than themselves, with fresh perspectives. Our thinking was that if we put teams of educators who had different ideologies, different geography, different purposes and challenges, all together in the same space, then they could each bring what they did well to the table and people could learn from that. Ultimately that would mean public, private, Catholic, and other kinds of schools; educators teaching well-to-do, middle-class, and poor kids; educators in different states and nations, at different grade levels, and in different content areas and roles. What ultimately grew out of our brainstorming was a three-pronged model of professional development that emphasizes (1) local learning communities at the school/district level; (2) an online community of practice that's both global and deep; and (3) a third prong that is more personal-the idea of a personal learning network that each educator develops as a mega-resource for ideas and information about their particular interests and areas of practice. (These three prongs are described in depth in a new book, The Connected Educator, where PLP community leader Lani Ritter Hall and I tell the story of the evolution of our model and the very solid research base behind it.)

Survey by Seth Kahan of 135 executives of trade associations and professional societies among others. Listed innovation priorities for future: educational offerings mentioned 101 times (135 survey participants), member experience--78, meetings--65, ...technology--56 Interesting innovations identified by survey participants on page 17 starting with this one: identifying a unique way of delivering women's leadership programming. Many organizations do it, most for their internal staff development, but don't do it well. We want to drop anchor in a crowded ocean and dive deep below the surface for our reach. Another one: creating an institute to advance the profession: research, human capital and practice management. Yet another: practice Portal www.asha.org/practice-portal/

Wonderful explanation of the power of pull and its exploration in books written by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown (Social Life of Information author among many other foundational books), and Lang Davison (former director of Deloitte Center for the Edge and editor-in-chief of the McKinsey Quarterly). Endorses community of practice and "socially embedded practice in driving knowledge creation and performance improvement." From April 9, 2010

Excellent blog post by Mindy Jackson on why less is needed more than ever before in terms of content, July 7, 2014. She explains why practice is more important than content. She writes in a less is more manner, too. Found her via Jane Hart's blog. excerpt: Just-in-time knowledge resources combined with a self-service model is the answer to course content glut. Text is a resource. Practice is instruction. Focus online learning programs on practice rather than knowledge acquisition. Create a risk-free tryout environment, contextualized to performance needs. Enable learners to sip from the fountains of knowledge, rather than to drown by a fire-hose of information. Knowledge is readily accessed. But experience is earned.

Stephen Downes's keynote to the World Congress on Continuing Professional Development, San Diego, CA from May 19, 2016 He begins with the assertion that learning is personal - based on personal practice - then put into practice in a learning network. Progress and evaluation through practice is based on performance in authentic communities. Contains slides, audio, and video

Patrick Allan from Lifehacker proposes this simple journal template to reflect each day. In the Challenge course with Jane Hart, we are using this at the end of our day as a daily reflection, and then will report via our discussion group about our learning, and respond to others. It is a nice ritual to practice. Part of the exercise at the end of the week is to discuss how we will continue the practice after the 15 weeks are over.

Blog post by Chris Collison on 2.26.13, that discusses reciprocity in fostering a learning atmosphere and adoption of best practice in an organization. Excerpt: "Reciprocity is an important principle for knowledge management, and one which underpins the idea of Offers and Requests. Offers and Requests was a simple approach, introduced to make it easier for Operations Engineers at BP to ask for help, and to share good practice with their peers. The idea was for each business unit to self-assess their level of operational excellence using a maturity model, and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses. In order to overcome barriers like "tall poppy syndrome", or a reluctance to ask for help ("real men don't ask directions"), a process was put in place whereby every business unit would be asked to offer three areas which they felt proud of, and three areas which they wanted help with. The resulting marketplace for matching offers and requests was successful because: i) The principle of offering a strength at the same time as requesting help was non-threatening and reciprocal - it was implicitly fair. ii) The fact that every business unit was making their offers and requests at the same time meant that it felt like a balanced and safe process."

This paper written by George Siemens in 2008 on Learning in Networks raises issues very similar to those we are raising in our discussion at CPSquare. This paper also has implications for how the Women's Learning Studio is launched into practice in its discussion of teacher as learning atelier, concierge, etc. Google Scholar, Scopus, and open access journals offer increased access to academic resources; an extension to more informal approaches such as regular internet search and Wikipedia. Social software (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, instant messaging, Skype, Ning) provide opportunities for learners to create, dialogue about, and disseminate information. But what becomes of the teacher? How do the practices of the educator change in networked environments, where information is readily accessible? How do we design learning when learners may adopt multiple paths and approaches to content and curriculum? How can we achieve centralized learning aims in decentralized environments? This paper will explore the shifting role of educators in networked learning, with particular emphasis on curatorial, atelier, concierge, and networked roles of educators, in order to assist learners in forming diverse personal learning networks for deep understanding of complex fields.

Once again, Jarche comes through for me. Tuesday, January 14, 2014 "The keys to motivation at work are for each person to have a sense of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. This is a network management responsibility." Could we do a play on RAMP-R-----Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose in the Studio? Another excerpt that I buy to a point--I don't think networks are the new companies but short of that, I agree with his premise: Most management practices today still focus on 20th century models, such as Henry Fayol's six functions of management [look familiar?]. forecasting planning organizing commanding coordinating controlling I heard these same functions discussed by a workplace issues consultant on the radio as recently as yesterday morning. Notice that there is no function for enhancing serendipity, or increasing innovation, or inspiring people. The core of management practice today has not changed since the days of Fayol, who died ninety years ago. "But the new reality is that networks are the new companies. The company no longer offers the stability it once did as innovative disruption comes from all corners. Economic value is getting redistributed to creative workers and then diffused through networks. Knowledge networks differ from company hierarchies. One major difference is that cooperation, not collaboration, is the optimal behaviour in a knowledge network. In networks, cooperation trumps collaboration."

Beth Kanter's Pinterest page on social media tips and best practices--full of infographics and incredible links as usual

"Of the array of skills that comprise leadership, the ability to craft and communicate strategic vision is simultaneously the most valuable and least well-practiced. The value part is obvious; leaders adept at inspiring their teams achieve high-impact business results faster, more easily, and more compassionately. But, why do so many leaders struggle with building shared vision? In this article, I'll outline three root causes and suggest ways to address them based on best practices from TED Talks."

Great short YouTube video via twitter on the joy of trying something new, the joy of failure, and the joy of practice = learning. Mike Wesch does a handstand for his students to show he is learning how to do them, then shows his young son George learning to climb down a stair step. Fun, yet gets the point across that failure is a big part of learning, as is practice.

Principles of Feminist Social Work Process by Jenny Gilmore. These principles mesh well with the work on systems leaders, as really all that is written about systems leaders are found in these principles which have been practiced since the 1960's by feminist leaders.

This is a chapter from a book written by the Ed Techie guy Martin Weller. What is interesting is how he detailed the new methods he used to write his most recent book. Many of the sources and practices that he engaged in for writing the second book did not even exist six years before when he finished writing his first book. These new aids include ready e-journal access, Delicious/social bookmarking, blogs, Youtube, Wikipedia, Slideshare, Scribd, Cloudwords and other sites, his own blog, social network especially twitter, Google alerts, etc. I am not sure how this relates to MOOCs and open landscape learning except he has so much more to manage, and gain from, in having a well developed dashboard of tools for seeking, sensing, and sharing.

Twitter tips from Powerful Learning Practice.

Free PLP (Professional Learning Practice) options at PLP Network

blog post by Kurt Mackey at MongoHQ, a distributed company, on working remotely and how hard it is to come up with an effective system for engaging workers. It is a work in progress. Need firewalls between personal life and work life--sound has to be managed for one thing. Mentions the blending of in-office staff and remote staff and a 'standard' for everyone to use the same collaboration tools, be available via the same channels, and produce documentation of interactions that are important to share. Has a whole section on the practical (and the tools they use to communicate) prefer async communications! Have a central work tool (Compose to record what is being produced each day); day to day communication in Hipchat, use pre-reads to meetings on a Wiki that get updated on Hackpad during the meeting, open mailing lists, Sqwiggle for face time, and Google Hangouts, too. Final recommendation is to "keep iterating" to build a remote friendly culture.

A Guide to New Theories, Methods, and Practices for Open Peer Teaching and Learning, written by the 21st Century Collective, which includes Cathy Davidson. Includes contributions organized by Motivations, Provocations, Invitations

A Guide to New Theories, Methods, and Practices for Open Peer Teaching and Learning, written by the 21st Century Collective, which includes Cathy Davidson. Includes contributions organized by Motivations, Provocations, Invitations

Love this video by the two instructors of this course by Stanford/Online for explaining how and what this course is all about for practitioners in the arts. Is both structured and informal. Video format and content are instructional for WLStudio learning facilitators.

three phases--pre-meeting; online meeting; post-meeting. Is tied to Mikogo meeting technology but has some good ideas for more traditional presentation/Q & A online sessions.