Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach Co-Founder & CEO Powerful Learning Practice, LLChttp://plpnetwork.comsheryl@plpnetwork.com

President21st Century Collaborative, LLChttp://21stcenturycollaborative.com

AuthorThe Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

Follow me on Twitter@snbeach

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Housekeeping

Get close to someone

Paperless handoutshttp://plpwiki.com

Back Channel Chathttp://todaysmeet.com/NOEL13

All of OctoberFree professional learning

Free for you– free for your staff

http://connectededucators.org/

edConnectr• Robust matchmaking tool for

learning & innovation• Uses tags to make it easy to

create rich, action-oriented profiles

• Uses maps to make it easy and fun to find others

• Helps educators find collaborators, get help, or just connect

District and State Support• District toolkit, Part 1

– Support for participation in CEM – Examples of district at different

levels, with videos and links– Links to tools and resources at each

level

• District toolkit, Part 2 – Support for integrating informal and

formal professional learning year round

– Readiness assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation tools

Starter Kits, Book Clubs, More

• Starter kit updated, offering an activity each day • Book club expanded to four books, each with author

involvement• Community directory continues to expand• Connected educator profiles expand throughout month• Help desk, open houses

Digital Badges• Four types:

– Event – Starter Kit– Peer-to-peer– Connected educator

• Published to Mozilla Backpack– Can create a collection as your

“digital transcript” of your CEM participation

– Can include badges from such as those from our open badge catalog

Learner First—Educator Second

Introduce yourselves to each other and brag a little. Talk about (in 2 min or less) the most recent or compelling connected learning project you have recently led, discovered, or been involved in.

Emerson and Thoreau reunited would ask-

“What has become clearer to you since we last met?”

Mantra for today’s keynote…

We are stronger together than apart.

None of us is as smart, creative, good or interesting as all of us.

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Things do not change; we change. —Henry David Thoreau

What are you doing to contextualize and mobilize what you are learning?

How will you leverage, how will you enable your teachers or your students to leverage- collective intelligence?

Are you Ready for Learning

and Leading in the 21st Century?

It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And schools who aren’t redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant in preparing students for the future.

The world is changing...

 

By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds – Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn

Libraries 2.0Management 2.0 Education 2.0Warfare 2.0Government 2.0Vatican 2.0

Credit: Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid

Everything 2.0

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

“We are tethered to our always on/ always on us communication devices and the people and things we reach through them.”

~ Sherry Turkle

Shifting From Shifting To

Learning at school Learning anytime/anywhere

Teaching as a private event Teaching as a public collaborative practice

Learning as passiveparticipant

Learning in a participatory culture

Learning as individuals

Linear knowledge

Learning in a networked community

Distributed knowledge

Shift in Learning – The PossibilitiesRethinking teaching and learning…

1. Multiliterate

2. Changing Demographic

3. Active Content Creators

4. Global Collaboration and Communication

We are in the midst of seeing education transform from a book-based, linear system with a focus on individual achievement to an web-based, divergent system with a focus on community building.

dangeuslyirrelevant.org

Our kids have tasted the honey.

http

://w

ww

.dan

gero

usly

irre

leva

nt.o

rg/2

009/

02/a

-tas

te-o

f-ho

ney.

htm

l

22

Free range learnersFree-range learners choose how and what they learn. Self-service is less expensive and more timely than the alternative. Informal learning has no need for the busywork, chrome, and bureaucracy that accompany typical classroom instruction.

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

The Disconnect“Every time I go to school, I have to power down.” --a high school student

The pace of change is accelerating

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.

Knowledge Creation

For students starting a four-year 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.

Time Travel

Lewis Perelman, author of School's Out (1992). Perelman argues that schools are out of sync with technological change:

...the technological gap between the school environment and the "real world" is growing so wide, so fast that the classroom experience is on the way to becoming not merely unproductive but increasingly irrelevant to normal human existence (p.215).

Seymour Papert (1993) In the wake of the startling growth of science and technology in our recent past, some areas of human activity have undergone megachange. Telecommunications, entertainment and transportation, as well as medicine, are among them. School is a notable example of an area that has not(p.2).

Shift in Learning = New Possibilities

Shift from emphasis on teaching…

To an emphasis on co-learning

Shifts focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.

Shifts focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.

Connected Learning

The computer connects the student to the rest of the worldLearning occurs through connections with other learnersLearning is based on conversation and interaction

Stephen Downes

Share

Cooperate

Collaborate

Collective Action

According to Clay Shirky, there are four steps on a ladder to mastering the connected world: sharing, cooperating, collaborating, and collective action.

From his book- “Here Comes Everybody”

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) –

34

Education for Citizenship

“A capable and productive citizen doesn’t simply turn up for jury service. Rather, she is capable of serving impartially on trials that may require learning unfamiliar facts and concepts and new ways to communicate and reach decisions with her fellow jurors…. Jurors may be called on to decide complex matters that require the verbal, reasoning, math, science, and socialization skills that should be imparted in public schools. Jurors today must determine questions of fact concerning DNA evidence, statistical analyses, and convoluted financial fraud, to name only three topics.”

Justice Leland DeGrasse, 2001

“Schools are a node on the network of learning.”

Personal Learning Networks

Community-- in and out of the classroom

Are you “clickable”- Are your students?

• 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.

Do it Yourself PDA 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.

What is Do -It- Yourself Learning ?

What do you wonder…

About leading a connected school?What is connected learning?How do you define the terms?Let’s build a common language.

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Meet the new model for professional development:

Connected Learning CommunitiesIn CLCs educators have several ways to connect and collaborate:• F2F learning communities (PLCs)• Personal learning networks (PLNs)• Communities of practice or inquiry (CoPs)

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face connections among members of a committed group—a professional learning community (PLC)

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)

• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Professional Learning Communities

Personal Learning Networks

Communities of Practice

Method Often organized for teachers

Do-it-yourself Educators organize it themselves

Purpose To collaborate in subject area or grade leverl teams around tasks

For individuals to gather info for personal knowledge construction and to bring back info to the community

Collective knowledge building around shared interests and goals.

Structure Team/groupF2f

Individual, face to face, and online

Collective, face to face, or online

Focus Student achievement

Personal growth Systemic improvement

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. 

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.

Dedication to the ongoing development of expertise

Shares and contributes

Engages in strength-based approachesand appreciative inquiry

Demonstrates mindfulness

Willingness to leaving one's comfort zone to experiment with new strategies and taking on new responsibilities

Dispositions and ValuesCommitment to understanding asking good questions

Explores ideas and concepts, rethinking, revising, and continuously repacks and unpacks, resisting urges to finish prematurely

Co-learner, Co-leader, Co-creator

Self directed, open minded

Commits to deep reflection

Transparent in thinking

Values and engages in a culture of collegiality

• Connected Communities (Tribes) are forming everywhere

• You have the tools you need at your fingertips

• Your faculty, your students, your school community– need/want leadership

• You were called to lead..Not manage• Motivate…Connect…Leverage• Inside, Outside, Upside Down

State of Affairs

Status Quo-- Things are working well most of the time.

THENSomething happens that creates a sense of urgency to change. A desire to learn something new. You are presented with evidence that makes you feel something. It touches you in some way.

Maybe…- a disturbing look at a problem- a hopeful glimpse of the future- a sobering self reflection

.

One of three things happen:

1. Complacency - You are moved but fail act - telling yourself or others, "Everything is fine."

2. False urgency - You are busy, working-working-working and never reflect or move yourself to action. You talk and it scratches the itch.

3. True urgency or passion- You are clearly focused on making real progress every single day. Urgent behavior is driven by a belief that the world contains great opportunities and great hazards. It inspires a gut-level determination to move, and win, now.

You see it. You feel it and you are moved to change or act or learn

• Letting go of control• Willing to unlearn & relearn• Mindset of discovery• Reversed mentorship• Co-learning and co-creating• Messy, ground zero, risk taking

Image: http://flic.kr/p/ch6kp3

Be a learner first—leader second • It's all about asking hard questions and then listening deeply

• A connected learner isn’t afraid to admit that they don’t know the answer to a question or problem, and willingly invite others into a dialogue to explore, discuss, debate, or generate more questions. (@barb_english)

• Asking our questions out in the open in connected ways @lisaneale

• I believe that being a connected learner leads to more questions than answers and that is good. I also believe that connected learners have to learn to take risks - exposing your learning and thoughts can be challenging @ccoffa

• Lurkers become learners. Learners become contributors. @sjhayes8

Wonder is both a sense of awe and capacity for contemplation.

It also helps to ask questions like: 1) Why am I planning to do this? 2) How will I initiate this change? 3) Who can I connect with online in my network that can help me? 4) How will I measure our progress? Or how will I know if we are learning?

“Understanding how networks work is one of the most important literacies of the 21st Century.”

- Howard Rheingold

http://www.ischool.berkeley.eduHow do you define networks?

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 organized learning.

Photo credit: Cogdogblog

George Siemens

Image: http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/images/2/24/Connectivism_chart.gif

Personal Learning Networks

FOCUS: Individual, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources and People – Social Network Driven

“Twitter and blogs ... contribute an entirely new dimension of what it means to be a part of a tribe. The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.”

Internet tribes

cc S

teve

Whe

eler

, Uni

vers

ity o

f Ply

mou

th, 2

010

“A tribe needs a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

Connected Learning Communities provide the personal learning environment (PLE) to do the nudging

Motivations

• Social connectedness

• Psychological well-being

• Gratification• Collective

Efficacy

Use a 3-pronged Approach

Net

wor

ks

Com

mun

ity

Whatis community, really?

A Place to Build Trust and Relationships

A Domain of Interest

A Place to Meet

A Place to Construct Knowledge Collaboratively

CelebrationCelebration

A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas.

• puts you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers

• allows you to share your experiences and learn from others

• allows you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes

• accelerates your learning

• Improves student achievement

• validates and builds on existing knowledge and good practice

• provides the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas

The New Third Place?

“All great societies provide informal meeting places, like the Forum in ancient Rome or a contemporary English pub. But since World War II, America has ceased doing so. The neighborhood tavern hasn't followed the middle class out to the suburbs...” -- Ray Oldenburg

“ Do you know what who you know knows?” H. Rheingold

Critical friends: Form a professional learning team who come together voluntarily at least once a month. Have members commit to improving their practice through collaborative learning. Use protocols to examine each other’s teaching or leadership activities and share both warm and cool feedback in respectful ways.

Curriculum review or mapping groups: Meet regularly in teams to review what team members are teaching, to reflect together on the impact of assumptions that underlie the curriculum, and to make collaborative decisions. Teams often study lesson plans together.

Action research groups: Do active, collaborative research focused on improvement around a possibility or problem in a classroom, school, district, or state.

Book study groups: Collaboratively read and discuss a book in an online space.

Case studies: Analyze in detail specific situations and their relationship to current thinking and pedagogy. Write, discuss, and reflect on cases using a 21st century lens to produce collaborative reflection and improve practice.

Instructional rounds: Adopt a process through which educators develop a shared practice of observing each other, analyzing learning and teaching from a research perspective, and sharing expertise.

Connected coaching: Assign a connected coach to individuals on teams who will discuss and share teaching practices in order to promote collegiality and help educators think about how the new literacies inform current teaching practices.

"Imagine an organization with an employee who can accurately see the truth, understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various decisions. And now imagine that this person is able to make something happen." ~ Seth Godin.

Change is hard

Connected learners are more effective change agents