What Is An Online Learning Community?

Much of the learning currently happening on the Internet comes from self-motivated individuals with a common interest and a desire to interact with others who share the same interest (Wenger, 1998).

The focus is on interaction…

PLC Fellows play a moderation role• There will be two listservs

• PLC Fellows- for you to ask questions and get deep leadership training

• ASSET online- which will be school-wide

• On ASSET online your role is 25% participant- 75% moderation

As a moderator you will:• Ask more questions than you share opinion

• When you share ideas, you will end with a probe to stimulate conversation.

• You will ask questions about other’s posts for clarification

• You will look for possibilities to stir conversation around topic

• You will be our behind the scenes person

Why Take Part In An Online Community?I value this virtual environment where you educate me, stimulate my thinking, probe my educational values and viewpoints, get me to think and have helped me to grow. Often by the time I am ready to formulate my words, others have done it beautifully, and I marvel at the quickness of your thoughts. I love the diversity of views, the discussions of issues on which opinions go in all directions, but no matter how far apart the opinions, everyone has the best interest of the students at heart, and that is one of the underlying unifiers of all members of TLN.Thank you for being you- collectively.

Cathy Kinzler

How Does a Virtual Learning Community Work?

• Begins with joining and an introduction

• Build community and trust

• Structured and unstructured exchanges

• Daily virtual conversations

• Anytime--anyplace

• Digest option available

• The coming out of a lurker

One model that holds merit an be found on the Learning Circuits Blog.It is developed around the roles and interactions members of a community have as participants in that community. It is titled 4L Model (Linking,Lurking, Learning, Leading) and was inspired by comments made by John SeeleyBrown in an interview with Marcia Connors for LineZine.

Linking  These are visitors who find a community by one means or another. They may have have bookmarked the site or added it to their RSS reader. They are in a “testing” mode to determine if this community if of interest to them and worth giving more of the time and attention.

Lurking Often the largest segment of a community, these individuals pay attention to the activity of the group and occasionally participate in various activities. Wenger calls this group Legitimate Peripheral Participants (LPP). They may be interested in greater involvement, but either don’t feel worthy or don’t know how. For others the content may only be peripheral to their work. 

Learning These are regular visitors who contribute to the community regularly. They are considered “members” of the community. Occasionally , they may take on a project or event leadership role as either an “audition” for a more core role or as a way to lead despite overall time unavailability.

Leading At the core of a community are the Leaders of that community. Leadership is a matter of commitment and willingness to contribute on a consistent basis. Leaders may or may not be designated via title. Roles, other than community coordinator, may evolve as needed. Wenger says it is the responsibility of leadership to “build a fire” of activity that is strong enough to draw people to the community and encourage greater participation.

Attributes of Successful Learning Communities

- a shared vision of what constitutes the mission of the community

- a core group who is willing to chime in on a variety of topics, keep the conversation rolling, and self-monitor the conversations is critical. This can be a formal group "appointed" to the role or just a group who steps forward to assume that role.

- A community organizer who maintains the consistent integrity of the group

- opportunities beyond just a listserv, such as book reviews, book chats, PD opportunities, lesson sharing, etc... - provocative issues, yes... topics which draw in a variety of participants from different angles to give new perspectives

Derek Wenmoth created a similar  framework to Lee's role-based model to discuss the ways in which people participate in online communities that develop around blogs. 

His diagram attempts to illustrate how participants in the online environment move through phases as they gain understanding and confidence.

consumer - The first phase is where participants (often referred to as lurkers) simply read and explore the posts of others. Far from being passive as the word lurker suggests, consumers can be very active participants in an online community - just not yet visible to others.

commentor - as this label suggests, these people make comments on others posts (either on blogs, or in discussion forums), often seeking clarification, agreeing with a statement, or offering a suggestion or link to something similar.

contributor - as this label suggests, contributors are those who have started their own blogs or who initiate new threads on discussion forums. They are confident about putting forth their own ideas etc.

commentator - a commentator is someone who frequently takes a 'meta' view of what is going on, providing a level of leadership within the community. Their contributions will often draw attention to the 'bigger picture', making links with other work - analyzing and synthesizing the contributions of others.

More Community…http://www.techlearning.com/blog/snbeach/

Photo credit:

Etienne Wenger

Questions?

Discussion?

Tools to Support Your PLC Work

Teacher 2.0The Emergent 21st Century Teacher

Teacher 2.0Source: Mark Treadwell - http://www.i-learnt.com

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Pre-service educationStudy groups

Curriculum writingContinuing education

Formal Informal

Individual developmentPeer collaborationPeer coaching or

mentoring

FORMAL INFORMAL

You go where the bus goes You go where you chooseJay Cross – Internet Time

ONLINE DEVELOPMENT

Choice Multiple perspectives

NETWORKING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

helps us reach for helps us reach for what we need, what we need,

according to our according to our contexts and contexts and

knowledge levels.knowledge levels.

provides us with provides us with opportunities for opportunities for

experiential experiential learning with learning with different tools different tools and platformsand platforms

builds an online builds an online professional and professional and social presencesocial presence

helps us gain confidence and practicehelps us gain confidence and practice and then apply experience and then apply experience

to our teaching and learning. to our teaching and learning.

MULTI-CHANNEL APPROACHSYNCHRONOUS

ASYNCHRONOUS

PEER TO PEER WEBCAST

Instant messenger

forumsf2f

blogsphotoblogs

vlogs

wikis

folksonomies

Conference rooms

email Mailing lists

CMS

Community platformsVoIP

webcam

podcasts

PLE

Worldbridges

Blogs and RSS

My Bloghttp://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com

RSShttp://www.bloglines.com/public/snbeach

Wikis

Tech Enhanced Learninghttp://techenhancedlearning.wikispaces.com/

21st Century Teaching and Learninghttp://abpc.wikispaces.com/

EduBloggerConhttp://edubloggercon.wikispaces.com/

21st Century Collaborative Wikihttp://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com

Look at What We Can Build When We Work Together!

21st Century Wiki

Del.icio.us

Google Applications

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

Questions?