Network Navigatorswith Isaacs UK

Many ideas grow better when transported into another mind

than in the one where they first sprang up.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Successful Networks are both virtual

The Australian Demographic & Social Research Institute

…and physical

A professional development network for people working creatively with children

and families in the arts, cultural and early years sectors.

Five Key Focus Areas• Professional Development building skills for achieving

creative learning environments, and embedding mainstream culture.

• Knowledge Networking sharing good practice, collating action research and case studies, inspiring great creative practice across the sectors.

• Research and Evaluation to better understand the characteristics of successful learning environments and provide a rigorous evidence base of research to raise aspiration, develop practice and influence policy.

• Advocacy to promote key messages about the positive impacts of creativity on children’s lives at the highest levels and bring it into the mainstream.

• Brokership to provide the tools and connections for sustainable partnerships that support children’s ideas and learning needs, and achieve a much higher quality, breadth and depth of practice across the field.

Empowering Professionals to be creative

Earlyarts Principles• Children are human beings and good people to be with.• Adults can be great partners in children’s play.• An active learning environment is one that promotes an

ongoing researchfulness, playfulness and happiness.• Creative processes and environments have an important

role to play in nurturing crucial learning dispositions.• Arts and Cultural forms provide a fundamental pathway to

expressing and defining our cultures and identities.• Artists or creative professionals can bring different skills,

and perspectives to support children’s own stories.• Children and adults all have lots of creative potential.

www.earlyarts.co.uk

Earlyarts Services

Brainy when Born

Right or Left Brain?

From Exploration…

…To Expression

Connecting Knowledge – Earlyarts Research

Network-Friendly Sectors

Obstacles & Challenges

Aspirations

Learner Voice at the Centre

• Sense of confidence and connectedness, understand fit within bigger picture = empowering.

• Secure critical & trusted friends for testing ideas.

• Network of Champions for life-changing practice.

• Understand multi-agency dialogues & languages.

• Increased critical awareness of learning styles good practice and pedagogy.

• Stronger, more comparable evidence base.

• Develops creative skills & changes practice.

• Run by social enterprise enabling reinvestment.

Networked Learning Community

Connecting up the Knowledge

National Network Model

Model under the Microscope

Professional Development

Knowledge Management

North West Region

Creative

Futures

earlyarts

Regional Co-ord

CPs

Children First

Forum

NW Mus Hub

Lancs EYs network AiS

BBR

Cheshire RTN

EYPS network

s

CAPE UK ALC

Regional Stakeholder

National Stakeholder

International Stakeholder

Artists Database Brief

Builder

Resource Bank

Book Reviews

Confs & SeminarsInt

Exchange

Consul-tancy

Regional Ebulletin

Earlyarts Sharing

Knowledge & Learning

Earlyarts Knowledge Management Challenges

• 4000 recipients of ebulletin x 6/yr (Outlook)

• 1200 registered web site users (Mambo)

• 51,000 /month resource bank hits (Mambo)

• 400 attending Prof Dev Days x 4/yr (Outlook)

• 12 PDDs captured in image & video format (Ning/Flickr)

• 500,000 in each arts & early years workforce

• 120 artists in database (Bespoke database)

• 30 Case Studies per region (Mambo)

• 1000’s articles & links resource bank (Delicious / Mambo)

Social Media Challenges

• Connectivity of different sectors, different languages, different motivations.

• Physicality of geographic networks re: localised identity and branding = greater trust.

• Limited access to online technology in some sectors.

• Greater familiarity within arts & cultural sectors.

• Facilities required by network in one place.

• Loss of focus on the CPD / knowledge sharing aspect.

• Ability to empower (user control) and share ownership of network = more subscribers = sustainability.

• Over-scaled into an unwieldy giant, losing flexibility.

Future Perfect

The successful network will incorporate…

• Open source CMS on admin-friendly, scalable platform e.g. Drupal / Joomla.

• Integrated database for registrations, ebulletins, event promos, members, artists database, etc.

• Personalisation, e.g. opt-in / opt-out facilities, review purchases, personal bookshelf, targeted connections.

• Integration of web 2.0 platforms to house images, videos, blogs, RSS feeds, delicious tagging, etc.

• Mass mailout facilities for all PR opportunities.

• Advertising (e.g. adsense) inc flash / animations.

• Shopping cart facilities & links to online finance systems.

• User Reviews / Feedback system.

The successful network will build…

• Strategies for capacity building and lasting change

• Rich resource of professional and leadership development

• New and effective relationships

• Commitment to shared ideas and purposes

• Inclusive, engaged and sustained participation

• Confidence to work beyond comfort zones, cultures and languages

• Motivation to achieve higher quality practice

• Enquiry based, rigorous approaches

• Trust, faith, belonging, purposefulness, inspiration, ideas, friendships, knowledge and power in people’s lives.

• people are human beings

• people work in communities, and community extends beyond the walls of their organisation

• conversations are richer with the new tools available, and organisations have less capacity to control their employees and customers

• people, in that context, have some power, and what is happening has a democratising influence.

The ClueTrain - Key themes

Demos on Power(video on next slide)

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes

Marcel Proust