Chapter Presentation for EME4406

1. Community Building with Technology
Karine, Rebecca and Holly

2. Learning Communities
• In general, what makes a community?
• What makes a learning community?
1. Membership and responsibility
2. Respectful and affirming feedback
3. Common purpose

3. What makes a community succeed?
Dynamic Learning Community

4. Knowledge Building Theory (KB)
• Created by Carl Bereiter and Marlene
Scardamalia in 2003
• Sharing, group discussions and synthesis
of ideas to create collective knowledge
• Teacher=guide
Idea=medium
Technology=platform
Students= learners and teachers

5. Dialectical Process
• Thesis, Antithesis, synthesis
– Drinking Age
– Knowledge Forum

6. Knowledge Building Communities
Learning Communities
+
Knowledge Building Theory
=
Knowledge Building Communities

7. Knowledge Building Communities
Rise above
Improvable Ideas
Diversity of ideas
Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2003)
Epistemic agency
Pervasive knowledge
Collective Knowledge
Democratizing knowledge
Authentic problems and ideas
Knowledge Building Discourse
Symmetric knowledge advancement
Constructive Use of Authoritative Sources
Concurrent, embedded and transformative Assessment
(

8. E-pals
• www.epals.com
• “My contact in Israel has not only become a very valuable educational
resource, but the teacher there and her students have become dear, dear friends.
Through this website, children around the world are getting to personally know and
appreciate each other. Differences in faith, culture and traditions are being
appreciated, not feared.”
Debbie B.
St. Peter Celestine Catholic School in Cherry Hill, USA
• Cross cultural
• Class-to-class projects
• Safe and free
• No software

9. Geo Literacy Project
• E-pals video
How do the knowledge building principles
relate to both the Danville and Australian
classrooms?

10. Classroom Resources
Blogs and Wikis
International Communities
Broaden Perspective- Expand Thinking- Complex Mental
Models

11. International Communities
Learning Circles online projects-outcome is document or
collection
-iearn Learning Circles http://www.iearn.org/circles/
My Hero Bakrajo Agricultural High School
school #4 Novosibirsk
Mr. Kramer’s Class

12. International Communities cont’d
Global Schoolhouse collaborative projects sharing
information with schools from other parts of the world
Letters to Santa
Epals.com safely connect, collaborate,
and learn using leading email and blog
solutions for schools and districts
Dhruv
Kriti
Megan

13. Teacher Communities
• Teachade.com

14. Why?
“Learning does not happen when students are unable to express their
ideas, emotions, confusions, ignorance and prejudices…Only when the
teacher, the students and the subject can be woven together into the
fabric of a community will it have the chance to happen” Parker Palmer
(The Courage to Teach)
• Increased Commitment in school
• Less behavior issues
• Increased positive school climate
• Improved attendance
• Increased mastery of subject material
(Hawkins, 1999; Malecki and Elliot, 2002)
“No significant learning occurs without a significant relationships”
Dr. James Comer (Leave No Child Behind)