Techlearning blog

Sheryl, this is just so timely. I think those of us using virtual communities are using the free form ways of interacting. However, I believe that the next wave of folks joining will need some parameters to jump start their existence in the virtual conversation. In my summer workshops I am advocating for folks to read one blog a day, different ones each day, and leave a comment on that blog. Then each participant must create their own blog and post a reflection. Other participants must comment on a peer's blog. This experiment will have some data in a couple of weeks. I'll be back.

Thanks for your insights Cheryl. I hope you will share the outcomes of your "blog a day" assignments. I look forward to the data.

Typically, I use both types of virtual communities for differing purposes.

Most recent example, in a two-year pilot project I co-led with the Alabama Best Practices Center, we sought to maximize available resources by adopting a “champion-building” approach to spreading awareness and interest in 21st Century teaching strategies.

We asked each principal in our 40 participating schools to select a five-teacher team to join our 21st Century Schools virtual learning community. Each team agreed to share what they learned with their own faculties, including the rationale behind the urgency for change, and the exciting possibilities of technology-infused learning.

Our goal was not to train teachers to use technology (a massive undertaking far beyond our means)but to create “aha” moments among creative, forward-thinking teachers by introducing them to the concepts of “Classroom 2.0”

I had hoped they would be intrigued by—and ultimately be champions for—the potential of blogs, wikis and other social networking tools to engage students in higher order
learning experiences.

Did it work? In the majority of schools, it did, to varying degrees- but the one constant was the power of the virtual community in having a viral effect in spreading the concepts beyond the team to the rest of the school.

I am deep in the analysis of the evaluation materials but will share the report when I get it done. In the meantime- check out the various artifacts that the teachers created as a direct result from the discussions and exchanges that took place in our VLC.

http://del.icio.us/abpcjohn
(John Norton is my partner in this project)

Excellent, timely post Sheryl. As I rethink how best to develop the type of community most effective for my teachers, it is obvious that this community must extend beyond the brick and mortar of the school system to a blended learning and networking environment.

With Web 2.0 and Web 3D, this type of environment is no longer just a passing thought. It is a realistic option.

Sheryl, as Cheryl says this is a timely intervention, causing us to stop and think about where we have come from, where we are, where and how we are going to move forward.
The web2.0 family is indeed growing by the day which is a testament to it's usefullness and how it fits a new way of teaching (embedding ICT into the school curriculum).
It does as you suggest give us a problem and opportunity to build a series of learning communities around which educators can congregate.
To enable teachers to keep a handle on the communities they belong to I think that in addition to VLE's and Social Networks such as Ning, teachers will need to make use of RSS feeds and aggregators.
I agree with your supposition that it does fall on the network co-ordinator to ensure that their community remains relevant to those who are using it ( no easy matter!!).
I believe that what we will see more and more is the growth of collaborative projects worlwide such as the 'flat school project' as teachers use networking to link with others.
It is the job of those of us who have been invloved for some time and are giving thought to this issue, to be proactive in giving new users help ( a little like the docent helpers at ISTE in 2nd life - who volunteer to show newbies around).
It is and will remain a vibrant community as long as it is relevant to its users. Exciting times ahead I feel.
Paul

Hi Sheryl,
I think you have done an excellent job of outlining the parameters for a successful online/virtual learning community, so if some of my answers echo yours, it is simply in agreement.
Participating in several educators listserves has afforded me the opportunity to network with educators across the globe. Together we share lessons, research, compare notes on student/teacher/parent/adminstrator relationships and how to foster those, design and share collaborative projects for students, and learn about how our schools and classrooms are alike and yet, so very different.
I have learned an immeasurable amount from participating in two excellent listserves for educators. One of these is the Teacher Leaders Network which brings together educators across the country who work to bring about positive educational reform in their own areas. This professional group of like minded educators join together regularly in various discussions around educational topics which stretch from classroom issues to how to best inform policy makers of how to effectively educate all children.
Another such professional listserve is dedicated to middle level educators: Middle Talk, which is sponsored by the National Middle School Association, brings together middle school folks to talk about the uniqueness of their students in a professional arena.
Groups such as these, and many others out there, are guided by a core of "regulars" who keep conversations going and self-monitor these discussions. It is like bringing the best of the best into one room on a daily basis to challenge each others' thinking about education.
Thanks for bringing this issue to this forum for reflection Sheryl!
Cossondra

Sheryl,
Your post was, as usual, right on point. Your reflection questions are important and I am looking forward to learning the views of the many who will read and share their thoughts.

Building strong and trusting relationships is so vital to a vibrant community -- whether it is a virtual one or one that is school-based.

It is particularly exciting when one is involved in a virtual community with people who they would not be able to interact with otherwise. So many of your virtual friends and colleagues have contributed to and enriched our work in Alabama. It is truly exciting to think about the future!

I hope we'll hear from many of the participants in Alabama's project as well!

Very timely Sheryl

There is so much information out there that focuses on the TOOLS. This article provides a much needed coverage of the topic that goes beyond the tools.

I'm just finished the initial infrastructure on my firt NING community for a group of media literacy educators;
http://media20.ning.com/
now time to train them on how to use the tool to build community that extends from the extensive sharing and sense of community that happens in their face to face summer institutes. This article will be the perfect springboard to this next phase.

I'm remembering the early days of a website called CommunityZero ( a long time ago) and having since participated and/or organized groups using tools like Drupal, Moodle, Google Groups, I'm thinking that we have reached a point where the tools are developed enough and accessible enough to enter a new phase of virtual communities. Perfect timing!

Great post Sheryl - very useful summary and intro to the topic. Your last question linking change with participation in communities is an interesting one. The traditional view of communities as groups of like-minded people share a concern or interest relating to their practice (loosely taken from Wenger) leads to a strengthening and affirmation of these ideas and practices, forging a community identity and sense of belonging and purpose etc. BUT, as Wenger also points out, after a while , such communities can also become very intro-spective and protective of their identity, leading to a resistance to change. This is where I see the virtual world, in particular the web2.0 technologies, creating some great opportunities. At the 2004 NECC conference Malcolm Gladwell spoke about the importance of the 'mavins' and 'connectors' in the emerging world - noting the importance of people with the ability to make links between ideas and people, and who are good at 'gathering' up important pieces of the puzzle and making sense of them. Wenger refers to the idea of "boundary workers" - those who work in the boundaries between established communities - asserting that these are the people who are essentially change agents, refreshing and introducing new ideas to the communities they move between.
In the Web2.0-enabled online envrionments we now inhabit, those who are the mavins and connectors, and those who are the boundary workers, are provided with a range of tools and opportunities that make it easier and more effective to carry out these roles. An RSS aggregator, for instance, enables a single person to monitor and contribute to a wide range of communities in a fraction of the time it may have taken previously.
So - I see these two great advantages of virtual communities:
(a) linking people with common purpose and practice in a way that they can support each other and grow in depth in their understandings and practice. and
(b) enabling connections and sharing ideas across and between communities, leading to transformation of ideas and understandings, and eventually practice.

Sheryl,
Your insights have proven to be valuable and thought-provoking once again. I agree that participation in virtual learning communities as an educator can foster implementation of Web 2.0 strategies in the classroom. I also have discovered that this implementation takes tremendous amounts of hard work and dedication to make it successful. As an Alabama Best Practices Fellow, I was challenged in the virtual learning community you created and became excited about the possibililties for implementation in my classroom. This excitement translated itself into online projects and virtual learning communities created for use in my classroom. I cannot envision a return to the pre-virtual learning days at this point. We have to continue to engage other teachers with staff development demonstrating the benefits of Web 2.0 in order to expand its use. Students will also create change as they participate in engaging educational online projects and demand that other teachers change to meet the challenge of 21st century learning.
Thanks for your continuing efforts to further this change. Take heart, your converts are scattered across the globe and the message is spreading.

Hi Sheryl,

As I read your article I was able to relate it to a project I have participated in this year with other eLearning facilitators that are involved in the same work as myself but for different organisations around New Zealand. We have collaborated spasmodically over the past few years due to our geographical spread (OK I know this is NZ… ;-) However as I read your article I was mentally ticking off what has made our project successful…an organiser, a core group, participation and importantly a range of web tools including Skype, a wiki and SMS. While we have had flexibility within the collaboration that has fostered ‘just in time’ learning, as you highlighted, evaluation and intentional roles have also been crucial to success.
This is still a very new way of working for us all, however the online communities that I find myself participating in at all levels help to challenge as well as clarify my thinking…more questions than ever…but that’s good.

Thanks Sheryl, I will forward your post to my colleagues.

Ryan- I agree with you 100% about the bricks and mortar. If we want school-wide implementation we really have to get teachers using the tools and one sure fire way to do that is through building a community that connects them with experts from around the world.

I would love to hear more about your blended PD plans.
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Paul,

I see the two (communities and RSS/aggregators) as meeting two very different needs. VLCs are relationship-based and help folks move a long a developmental continuum in terms of knowledge- shared just like being in a family, close knit neighborhood, or small school does. RSS keeps me connected with ideas and new folks that aren't in my community yet. Tools like Twitter add the inbetween layer, they are good for relationship building and RSSable too.

Hope you will stop back by- love your ideas.
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Cossondra,

So nice to see you! Yeah, when I spoke of having the opportunity to see some of the best VLCs in action my mind immediately went to TLN. In fact, much of my thinking about what works in a VLC was shaped by the Teacher Leaders Network- not to mention my educational paradigm as a whole.

I hope you will be a regular here to push my thinking and help me grow.

Lucie deLaBruere,

I identify with your concern over the tools. I struggled with the same thing awhile back. In the Alabama work everyone was so taken with the tools at first it was as if we lost sight of the learning. Then it occured to me- we are just like a bunch of 4th graders who have to play and explore with the math manipulatives a bit before we can get down to the business of learning with them.

Tools are tangible. Teachers like tangible when in unfamilar territory. Community building, social networking, and such are more abstract concepts and teachers are out of their comfort zone when thinking about them, so the natural thing to do is be focused on the tangible. That is why the community organizer is so important. Knowing when to stop the tool focus and start the modeling and stretching of participants to focus rather on the learning and the content is an important part of their role, just like we do with kids in the classroom. Moving community members up Bloom's Taxonomy to not just being tool savvy, but look intentionally at what it is we can do and accomplish with the tool to help students be successful in their future.

Let me know if you want to chat sometime as you work with your community. Stop back by and let us know how things progress!
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Derek Wenmoth,

Man- I love your comment! You are right-- my post was a very basic intro into this topic. I plan on expanding on it for the next couple weeks and I hope you will come back and add your vast wisdom/experience to my ideas.

From my view, part of the community organizer's responsibility in the beginning is to identify Gladwell's 'mavins' and 'connectors' in the participants and to encourage them to be active in their area of strength for the good of the community.

You said...
So - I see these two great advantages of virtual communities:
(a) linking people with common purpose and practice in a way that they can support each other and grow in depth in their understandings and practice. and
(b) enabling connections and sharing ideas across and between communities, leading to transformation of ideas and understandings, and eventually practice.

I really saw this in action with the mentor community I created that had my preservice teachers collaborating with seasoned educators from around the world. We all grew from the conversations that ensued. It has been my experience that the more diverse the make-up of the community, the more innovation that surfaces.

As I read your a. & b. above I see a clear path to buy-in for implementation of 21st Century skills and the needed culture change in schools.

I hope to see you back!
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Scarlett,

You said...
Students will also create change as they participate in engaging educational online projects and demand that other teachers change to meet the challenge of 21st century learning.

How wise is that? As students start to realize what school could be (by those of us who are balancing rigour with student passion and creating learning ecologies in our classrooms) they will expect more of the same from their other teachers in the school.
The end result will be adapt or perish! Maybe the secret is to focus on helping students see why teaching and learning has to change and then let them put the pressure on. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I know your students will certainly have higher expectations of their future teachers from all you have given them in your classes.

I hope you come back by again and again!
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Fiona Grant,

Thanks for your comment. I love it when my thinking is confirmed by others, especially when they are working in education from another side of the planet! It really is a "flat world." (smile)

You are right- "This is still a very new way of working for us all" - it isn't business as usual, it is business as unusal. But I do believe that as edges of the virtual and real worlds start gray and blend we will see just how valuable community IQ will become. I look forward to you helping to shape my thinking about this powerful collaboration/knowledge transmission strategy as we figure all this out.

Sheryl,
I'm very interested in this topic even as it applies to creating an online community within a school system. Paul mentioned the increased need for rss. Somehow aggregating feeds has to become even easier for the new user. I find that people can't get their heads around exactly how to make this work, including me. I use technorati to aggregate my edtech feeds, but how can I insert a feed aggregater into my school website? If the mechanics could become less important and the utility more turn key, I think the success of creating and sustaining online communities would increase. Right now there are too many steps involved for the average teacher-would-be-subscriber to join an online community. Right now online communities are too esoteric for most teachers. We need to move it from the abstract to the concrete. How?

Sheryl-
As a participant in the Alabama project you mentioned, I cannot brag enough about the value of virtual learning communities. Teachers can get such a narrow view of the world in their own schools, with little contact with other forward thinking professionals. It is so important to be in contact with those that challenge your ways of thinking and open your mind to new ideas and techniques! THE BEST PD!!!!

Kathy Shields,

Powerful comments and excellent questions.

You said...
"...online community within a school system. Right now online communities are too esoteric for most teachers. We need to move it from the abstract to the concrete. How?"

I believe the best way to model use of the global community and help teachers understand how these connections are useful to their own professional growth and in preparing their students for what is to come is by having them start where they are comfortable.

The way I have done that is with simplistic approach that gradually builds in sophistication as their self-efficacy increases. I typically set the community up using combination of 3 tools: threaded discussion format, (listserv works or Tapped In) a synchronous tool, (Elluminate or Skype) and a wiki or Moodle for a portal and archive space.

Within the context of the work the community members create their own blogs and wikis but they have the behind the scenes community to ask "just in time" questions on "how to" needs, as well as participate in the more provocative discussion of implementation, strategy, and theory.

The adoption has to be sequential and well thought out as you move your teachers through the change project.

It will take all of us working together to make this happen. Thanks for being such an important piece of the conversation.

Sheryl, What a terrific article that brings to light so many of the issues we are thinking about and facing!!!!

My thinking was especially piqued by the section on Capacity Building. For it is here that I see a big opportunity. VLCs as you call them (a new set of initials to add to my evergrowing list) have many benefits to someone like me. First they link you to likeminded colleagues...freeing you from the constraints of geography and a narrowed interest within your profession. Secondly, they allow you to be who you are without fear. I'm not a fool who doesn't believe there are ramifications to what I say in cyberspace. Rather I think you have the chance to be who you are at the moment...not the reputation you've built for years, good or bad...and people take you for what you say. (I guess in someways that can be bad, too...but I've found it to be only work for good in my case.) And last, you gain an appreciation of issues, topics, concerns, victories that you never imagined because you could only talk to people nearby.

I know I pined for likeminded colleagues...you know, the ones who are sort of passionate about the nuisances of teaching math, science and incorporating technology. Not every teacher you meet is interested!!! Here's where I think your question..."The burning question in most of our minds is how can we accelerate the adoption and full integration of 21st Century teaching and learning strategies in schools today?" comes into play. These virtual meeting places will help accelerate adoption/integration faster than without them. is it fast enough to suit us? Probably not, but it significantly better/efficient than the old models of cultural reform.

I also think about being allowed to stretch and be who you are at the moment is huge. Since I certified as a NBCT in science, people have expectations of who I am and what I'll think. Online I am not hindered by those expectations. I am allowed to be uninformed and in need of learning....I can be the lifelong learner I think I am.

And I believe that you develop colleagial friendships with people you'll never meet. Those friendships either help you think in new ways or teach you new things....unlike what you can find in your own community. I know that's been true of my time with the Teacher Leaders Network. Most of these people teach in places 180 degrees different than where I teach. hopefully they've learned something from me...and I KNOW that I've learned radicially different things from them. I couldn't be who I am today without their influence, thinking, proding and support.

Capacity building springs from trust. It isn't fast work, but it is the thing that will sustain us in bringing about a cultural revolution within schools.

Sheryl - my this discussion is really starting to buzz with ideas and thoughts, quite obviously the timing of the debate is spot on - I somewhat agree with Kathy Shields that we need to make the steps for new colleagues coming into Web 2.0 simpler and more relevant to 'where they want to/need to be' in developmental terms. many of us have found links/friends by actively going out and finding them - we can't expect others to do this.
In the UK there is the need to have 'New Tech advocates' such as Ewan McIntosh in Scotland as a tailsman through which new ideas and ways of working and communicating can flow. It is beginning I was very heartened recently to be at a seminar by Ewan at University of Glamorgan where they have a blended learning program which is not only teaching the use of collaborative tools but more importantly has them built into the course itself - much like you Ed Tech I guess.
The bottom line has to be that the information has to be easily accessible at the correct level for colleagues to take it up. I have started in my school with spreading the word on blogging as a means of communication - to get the discussion going... I think we need to capitalise on the wonderful and helpful people that are operating in Web 2.0 to assist the newcomers.
That's from a UK perspective anyway :)
Paul

Marsha said...
"And I believe that you develop colleagial friendships with people you'll never meet. Those friendships either help you think in new ways or teach you new things....unlike what you can find in your own community."

Yes, this is the beauty of electronic communication. Back in 1993, I was part of several bulletin boards that were just starting to play with the idea of building community online. I made several good friends (noneducators that lived overseas.) We have never met f2f and yet we still are friends today. We have celebrated our children's accomplishments as they have grown, cried with each other when life has thrown a curve, and generally enjoyed each other throughout the years. I have grown so much from having known them via our virtual interactions. Today's Web 2.0 tools make similar types of connections painless.

Visionaries and early adopters rarely get to usher in the change. Rather it is the methodical follow through of those community champions that will see real fruit from those efforts; one plants, another harvests- so it is with change.

Thanks Marsha, please stop by again.

Hi Sheryl,
It's great to have something stimulating to get into back at my desk after 4 weeks of overseas holiday :->>

As you know, developing online community and bringing teachers into the 21st century with student learning ate matters near and dear to my heart. I fully agree with all of the above that developing community is much more than creating the place or space for interaction. Particularly so with teachers, and where we aim to use it as a means of professional development. Online communities developed as part of courses of study struggle enough with getting participation, but where the online environment is another avenue for professional development, and not a compulsory part of a teacher's work, there are even bigger hills to climb.

We have found with our online conferences in NZ, that we get great participation from those who are already sold on the online environment and using it well with their classes, but the great majority who most need to develop their awareness and facility with the opportunities presented for student engagement and learning, are those least likely to visit, let alone contribute to discussion. Many of these teachers are not yet comfortable with the technology, let alone putting their ideas out in an unknown and perceived to be, very public forum.

One of the ideas that we tried in our recent online conference for teachers, was to get groups to organise face to face social occasions, to jointly view the material, hold discussions, and then contribute their ideas as a group to overcome this fear of making a fool of oneself. the feedback I have received so far, is that the group component certainly overcame the fear of accessing the environment, and promoted some good discussion within the groups, but the flow through to active online participation was still not evident.

I believe that it is going to take time to reach the majority of teachers in this medium, but it is a task that we must not give up on simply because the results are not clearly visible. I try now to build online activity and resourcing into all of my face to face workshops and discussions with teachers. I create a wiki space during every workshop session to demonstrate the ease of the process, and to make resources available easily to attendees and others who are interested. I believe in this way that I will gradually shift teachers in their attitude towards the online environment. they will see it not as another thing to have to get to grips with in a busy day, but as a living breathing opportunity for their own development, for accessing new ideas and resources, for making contacts with other teachers, and hopefully also, as a wonderful medium to engage their students and make the learning more global, more thoughtful and more relevant to the ways in which today's learners learn.

I would be interested in hearing ways that others have managed to humanise and personalise the online environment for teacher professional development.

Cheers,
Jill

Hi Jill.

Welcome home. One tip related to discussion threads like you had in the NZ Online Conference is to have 4 or 5 behind the scenes folks to help you get your community off the ground. Have them ask questions and personal info. When you put a prompt out-
ask folks behind the scenes to respond with their ideas.

This gets the conversation going. After folks get use to posting the behind the scenes folks are not needed as often.

How about the rest of you? How do you get things stirred up when just getting started?

Sheryl,

You asked, "Does part of the answer to meaningful change and implementation of 21st Century skills and dispositions in schools lie in the collaboration that occurs in virtual learning environments? "

I think that collaboration is a key to understanding for many teachers. You can wax eloquent about the benefits of the tools, about what it's like to have readers from outside your school, or learn about assignments going on in other countries, but the global and local opportunities don't really become clear until you venture in the waters yourself.

So I think that is a very important piece.

I do think the grass roots nature of virtual communities are also key to their success. Having people spontaneously come together makes a big difference in the "buy-in."

Thanks for outlining these practical and philosophical questions behind virtual communities!

Carolyn said...
I do think the grass roots nature of virtual communities are also key to their success. Having people spontaneously come together makes a big difference in the "buy-in."

I so agree about the personal experience. The reason for change becomes real and meaningful once you get involved.

I also agree in the power of organic development. But the party has already started so if the goal is school-wide adoption of 21st Century strategies, how can we afford to wait on spontaneity?

Sheryl,

It seems by nurturing your school community offline, sharing articles, talking and as Joyce Valenza says, watering the flowers, not the rocks--that we can help invite people in and create that spontaneity?

Our campus started a Vision committee to focus on the future, rather than problems of the present. That has really helped us facilitate some of these discussions.

I think a few invitational people on a campus can gradually make a difference, but it does take time.

The idea of a virtual learning community is a powerful one. You did a nice job laying out what it takes for a virtual community to work. The ability of collaboration, involvement, and connection are all there. What seems to be missing from schools is taking that step to do it. So, as I was reading your article the thing that stuck out in my mind is, how do we foster a culture of risk-taking?

Glenn said...
"So, as I was reading your article the thing that stuck out in my mind is, how do we foster a culture of risk-taking?"

I think it starts with baby steps, hand holding, modeling, and trust building.

A while back I led a group of teachers in my school into technology adoption measured by being second in a district of then 87 schools to be 100% compliant on a technology standards proficiency test that measured digital literacy as defined by NETs at the time.

Education World did a piece on it called "Traveling the Techno Trail: Training Teachers to Use Technology" check it out sometime. In that piece I describe how I fostered a culture of risk taking over a two-year period.

Ownership of the concepts and ideology is what frees teachers to be risk takers I think. It happens over time if the champions of the community are consistent and provide multiple supports.

I know you have made great strides at your school in terms of awareness, adoption and your teachers developing multiliteracies. How have you inspired them to take risks?

Who else has a strategy for fostering a culture of risk taking?

Sheryl:
Great article! Thanks for laying out some thoughtful questions. I am setting up a graduate course for teachers and will have this as an assignment for them to comment on.
I am also interested in comments about a risk taking environment in a school. I think we have to continually model for teachers how we take our own risks with technology. Those teachers who feel comfortable enough in their ability to "teach" and are not afraid to make changes in front of and with their students, seem to be willing to take the risk of using the collaborative tools. But fostering a comfortable risk taking environment is hard. It rarely exisits for our students, let alone the teachers.

Alice and Glenn both bring some interesting points to the table in relation to creating a "risk taking" environment for our students.

Since as educators we all want our students to be informed risk takers let's examine how we create an environment that nurtures risk taking.

I'll go first-

Abraham Zaleznik in the Harvard Business Review suggests that risk taking is a distinguishing factor of good verses great teachers. So why won't more of us take risks? Is it a teacher leadership issue?

One major factor that impedes change is a fear of taking risks. Behind this fear lies issues of control, issues of embarrassment, and a fear of failure. We all get afraid when we are out of our comfort zone and I believe it is because of how failure is preceived in our culture.

In my classroom of preservice teachers, I let them know right off that some of them will know more about various topics than I do. I explain that I value each of their areas of expertise.

The goal of our classroom is for each person to share their expertise with the group. We use the quote, "None of us are as good as all of us" as our class mantra. And if we do not have expertise in an area we are studying, we each choose an area in which to become the class expert.

As teachers it seems the more command, familiarity, and comfort we have with a topic the less fearful we are of being embarrassed and the more willing we are to take risks.

I tell children if it wasnt ok to make mistakes they wouldn't have invented the eraser. I share how Edison went through 99 mistakes in choosing the correct material for filament for the light bulb. Part of the new learning ecology has to be letting go of the fear of failure and rather reinstill that sense of wonderment and experimentation from our early childhood years.

As a teacher we have to buy-in to the idea that in the 21st Century knowing the answers isn't nearly as important as knowing how to find the answers. Networking online gives us all access to the content and content experts we need.

So how about you guys? What is your take? Any of you have ideas for helping teachers and our students in blossoming into risk takers?

Sheryl -- There must be a dozen conversation threads leading out of your excellent post. You won't be surprised to hear that I'm especially eager to stress the "human resources" piece. I so agree, from my own experience supporting several virtual professional networks, that the "community organizer" component is essential.

Your paragraph beginning "Typically, the community organizer..." perfectly defines the complex and nuanced role of a good virtual community builder, which includes the skills required to grow the virtual group's sense of community and scaffold self-sufficiency over time.

I'm convinced that the failure to adequately support this component is the #1 reason why online groups fail to develop into robust virtual communities in which all active members learn and grow.

John said...

Your paragraph beginning "Typically, the community organizer..." perfectly defines the complex and nuanced role of a good virtual community builder, which includes the skills required to grow the virtual group's sense of community and scaffold self-sufficiency over time."

It occured to me as I read your comment, that a 21st Century skill for Teacher 2.0-- (which should be taught in teacher prep courses)is that of community organizer.

Thanks for stopping by--I hope you will return often and add to the conversations here.

It's good to cross paths with another "project-based constructivist at heart". Thanks for link to your other article.

"Our students were becoming producers, rather than consumers, in the way they approached learning." That's my goal. My primary focus behind student success.

Your article was a great read and inspiring. :)

As far as my school goes, we've got the technology in place. Every teacher and every student has a computer of their own to use. The technology varies, as slightly more than 25% of our students are on dial-up, but the vast majority are on broadband using WindowsXP and Pentium 4 processors. Our teacher are at varying levels of comfort and expertise, but all are users.

Over the past several years most of the teachers have stepped out of THEIR box, but not outside of THE box. "Ownership of the concepts and ideology is what frees teachers to be risk takers I think", May be the key and it's something that I'm going to focus on.

I'll blog about how it goes. :)

In the past teaching has been an isolated kind of work-the days are spent with the children, content is highly specific, the opportunities for in depth collegial conversations few. But Sheryl introduced me to virtual professional communities and they have changed who I am and how I work as an educator.

Teacher Leaders Network has expanded my horizons by allowing me build relationships and discuss policy and practice with some of the brightest most creative teachers in the country. While it is unlikely that I would have ever encountered these people without virtual communication, they have become a part of my daily life, have enriched my understanding of my work more than any other experience I have had, and together we are becoming a change agent in education policy.

Geographic differences are not the only barrier virtual communication removes. The Virginia Teacher Forum allows teachers here in Virginia to address unique to Virginia, but from their diverse perspectives of locality, grade level, and school settings. They are gaining a "big picture" understanding of what teaching and learning looks like in our state and are becoming resources to each other, and to higher ed, and to policymakers.

Perhaps one of the most gratifying ways in which virtual communities support teachers for me personally is through the on-line mentoring I've done for the College of William and Mary and the University of Connecticut. Often pre-service and novice teachers get conflicting signals from teacher prep faculty, their cooperating teacher, and their personal experience. They feel isolated and overwhelmed and a virtual community gives them a place to bring their concerns, ask scary questions, and receive feedback from multiple voices.

Accessibility to collegial conversations is critical, but I think that virtual communication offers another advantage: Writing may well improve the quality of the discourse. We refine our thinking when we write and one can take time to consider and reflect before engaging when the message is hanging in cyberspace waiting for a response. It occurs to me that at the turn of the beginning of the 20th century, we began to move from a world of written communication to auditory communication. I'm not sure the phone, the radio, and the television that often controls when and what we hear don't encourage reaction rather than thoughtful response. Perhaps the virtual communities of the 21st century may provide us with the quality of discourse from the 19th century with the accessibility of communication of the 20th. I suppose it will depend on us and how we choose to implement virtual communities

This was just announced this week and promotes a great sense of community:

CSTA Launches Nation’s Largest Online Database for Computer Science Teachers
Resources Help Teachers Stay Up to Date on Latest Innovations

Computer science teachers now have access to the largest collection of K-12 computer science teaching materials in the country, thanks to the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). The organization today launched its Source web repository and is offering the resource free of charge to its members through its Web site at www.csta.acm.org.

CSTA’s Source web repository offers more than 75 resources in a searchable, downloadable collection, including lesson plans, learning modules, code segments, presentations, and even complete course descriptions. Educators can also access information about how to promote their computing courses.

“The Source