Connected Learners.. not just educators

2. Housekeeping
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Get close to someone
Paperless handouts
http://plpwiki.com
Back Channel Chat
http://todaysmeet.com/uindy

3. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Co-Founder & CEO
Powerful Learning Practice, LLC
http://plpnetwork.com
sheryl@plpnetwork.com
Website and blog
21st Century Collaborative
http://21stcenturycollaborative.com
@snbeach on Twitter

4. Things do not change; we change.
—Henry David Thoreau
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
What are you doing to contextualize and
mobilize what you are learning?
How will you leverage, how will you enable
your students or those you work with to
leverage- collective intelligence?

5. Lead Learner
Native American Proverb
“He who learns from one who is learning, drinks
from a flowing river.”
Sarah Brown Wessling
2010 National Teacher of the Year
Describes her classroom as a place
where the teacher is the “lead
learner” and “the classroom walls
are boundless.”

6. Learner First---Professional Second
It is a shift and requires us to rethink who we
are as an educator, student, or professional.
It requires us to redefine ourselves.
Think About
Emerson and Thoreau reunited would ask-
“What has become clearer to you since we last
met?”
Share with someone near you.. What have
you learned recently?

8. The Disconnect
• THE I go to school, I EDUCATOR
“Every timeCONNECTEDhave to
power down.” --a high school
student

9. 6 Trends for the digital age
Analogue Digital
Tethered Mobile
Closed Open
Isolated Connected
Generic Personal
Consuming Creating
Source: David Wiley: Openness and the disaggregated
future of higher education

10. Are you Ready for
Learning and Leading
in the 21st Century
It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And organizations who
aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant.

11. Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0
We are living in a new economy –
powered by technology, fueled by
information, and driven by knowledge.
-- Futureworks: Trends and Challenges for
Work in the 21st Century

12. By the year 2012 80% of all Fortune 500
companies will be using immersive worlds – Gartner
Vice President Jackie Fenn

13. Knowledge Creation
It is estimated that
1.5 exabytes of unique new information
will be generated
worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be
more than in the
previous 5,000 years.

14. For students starting a four-year
technical or higher education degree,
this means that . . .
half of what they learn in their first
year of study will be outdated by their
third year of study.

16. Defining the Connected Learner
Our lives are connected by a
thousand invisible threads.
—Herman Melville

17. Do it Yourself PD
A revolution in technology has transformed the way
we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to
create knowledge as connected learners.
What are connected learners?
Learners who collaborate online; learners who use
social media to connect with others around the globe;
learners who engage in conversations in safe online
spaces; learners who bring what they learn online
back to their classrooms, schools, and districts.

18. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

19. What does it
mean to be a
connected
learner with a
well developed
network?
What are the
advantages or
drawbacks?
How is it a
game changer?

20. Dispositions and Values
Commitment to understanding asking Dedication to the
good questions ongoing development
of expertise
Explores ideas and concepts,
rethinking, revising, and continuously Shares and contributes
repacks and unpacks, resisting
urges to finish prematurely
Engages in strength-based approaches
Co-learner, Co-leader, Co-creator and appreciative inquiry
Self directed, open minded Demonstrates mindfulness
Commits to deep reflection Willingness to leaving one's comfort
zone to experiment with new strategies
Transparent in thinking and taking on new responsibilities
Values and engages in a culture of
collegiality

21. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Professional development needs to change.
We know this.
A revolution in technology has transformed
the way we can find each
other, interact, and collaborate to create
knowledge as connected learners.

22. Define
Community
Define
Networks

23. Community...
...has been defined as a group of interacting
people living in a common location.
Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, 2010
In the digital age, common
location is not as important as
common interest.
http://www.psfk.com

24. A Definition of Community
Communities are quite simply, collections of
individuals who are bound together by natural will
and a set of shared ideas and ideals.
“A system in which people can enter into relations
that are determined by problems or shared ambitions
rather than by rules or structure.” (Heckscher, 1994, p.
24).
The process of social learning that occurs when people who
have a common interest in some subject or problem
collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find
solutions, and build innovations. (Wikipedia)

25. A Definition of Networks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Networks are created through publishing and sharing ideas and
connecting with others who share passions around those ideas who
learn from each other.
Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining
connections with people and information, and communicating in such
a way so as to support one another's learning.
Connectivism (theory of learning in networks) is the use of a
network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for
learning. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be
connected to another node: information, data, feelings,
images. Learning is the process of creating connections and
developing a network.

26. Making connections
In connectivism, learning involves creating
connections and developing a network. It is a
theory for the digital age drawing upon chaos,
emergent properties, and self organised
learning.
(It’s not what you know, or who you
know- but do you know what who
you know- knows? )
Source: Wikipedia

27. “Understanding how
networks work is one
of the most important
literacies of the 21st
Century.”
- Howard Rheingold
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

28. Open Networks
If ... information is
recognized as useful to
the community ... it can
be counted as
knowledge.
The
community, then, has
the power to create
knowledge within a
given context and leave
that knowledge as a
new node connected to
the rest of the network’. Practitioners’ knowledge = content & context
– Dave Cormier (2008)

31. Connected Learning
The computer connects the learner to the rest of the world
Learning occurs through connections with other learners
Learning is based on conversation and interaction
Stephen Downes

32. Connected Learner Scale
Share (Publish & Participate) –
Connect (Comment and
Cooperate) –
Remixing (building on the
ideas of others) –
Collaborate (Co-construction of
knowledge and meaning) –
Collective Action (Social Justice, Activism, Service
Learning) –

33. 1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face
connections among members of a committed
group—a professional learning community (PLC)
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
2. Global network: Individually chosen, online
connections with a diverse collection of people
and resources from around the world—a personal
learning network (PLN)
3. Bounded community: A
committed, collective, and often global group of
individuals who have overlapping interests and
recognize a need for connections that go deeper
than the personal learning network or the
professional learning community can provide—a
community of practice or inquiry (CoP)

34. Professional Learning
Communities
The driving engine of the collaborative culture of a PLC is
the team. They work together in an ongoing effort to
discover best practices and to expand their professional
expertise.
We want to focus on shifting from a culture of isolation to
a culture of deep and meaningful collaboration.
FOCUS: Local , F2F, Job-embedded- in Real Time

35. FOCUS:
Situated,
Synchronous,
Asynchronous-
Online and
Walled Garden
Communities of Practice

36. Celebration
Celebration

37. Connection
http://i.imwx.com
cc Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, 2010

38. Communication
cc Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, 2010

39. Collaboration
http://idirekt.cz/soubory/t-mobile_dance2.png

40. Connection Collaboration
Celebration Communication
Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, 2010
User Generated
Co-created
Content

41. Personal Learning
Networks
FOCUS: Individual, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources
and People – Social Network Driven

43. responsive
responsive

44. personalized

45. investing in collaborations

46. Do it Yourself PD as Communities
Of Practice
Self Directed
Connected Learners
DIY-PD
Personal
Learning
Networks
F2F Teams
"Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise,
DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and
expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who
have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge
for him/herself." (Wikipedia, n.d.)

47. Community is the New Professional Development
Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) describe three ways of knowing and constructing
knowledge…
Knowledge for Practice is often reflected in traditional PD efforts when a trainer shares
with teachers information produced by educational researchers. This knowledge
presumes a commonly accepted degree of correctness about what is being shared. The
learner is typically passive in this kind of "sit and get" experience. This kind of knowledge
is difficult for teachers to transfer to classrooms without support and follow through.
After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind, pressures and
isolation of teaching.
Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of teacher experience and practical
knowledge in improving classroom practice. As a teacher tests out new strategies and
assimilates them into teaching routines they construct knowledge in practice. They learn
by doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teachers reflect and share with one
another lessons learned during specific teaching sessions and describe the tacit
knowledge embedded in their experiences.

48. Community is the New Professional Development
Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where teachers create
knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying
their own classroom teaching practices collaboratively, allows educators to
construct knowledge of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of
classroom practice to a more systemic view of learning.
I believe that by attending to the development of knowledge for, in and of
practice, we can enhance professional growth that leads to real change.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999a). Relationships of knowledge and
practice: Teaching learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24,
249-305.
Passive, active, and reflective knowledge building in local
(PLC), global (CoP) and contextual (PLN) learning spaces.

49. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

50. Change is hard

51. Connected learners are more effective
change agents

52. Let’s just admit it…
You are an agent of
change!
Now. Always. And now
you have the tools to
leverage your ideas.

53. An effective change
agent is someone
who isn’t afraid to
change course.
Let’s look at some
examples…

54. Real Question is this:
Are we willing to change- to risk change
Can you accept that Change (with a “big” C) is sometimes a
messy process and that learning new things together is
going to require some tolerance for ambiguity.

55. Last Generation