PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ONLINE TEACHER NETWORKS: PROGRESS AND POTENTIAL

Online Social Science Teacher Professional Learning Networks 2010-2020

Dr Paul Keown, University of Waikato

A community of practice is
a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
(Wenger, 1998)

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.
(PALETTE (2010) Pedagogically sustained Adaptive Learning through the Exploitation of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge, http://palette.ercim.org/content/view/26/35/)

Online Geo-Ed Paper launched TopClass Perspective CoP experiments in Geo-Ed paper Moodle In the Styx Project Waikato Geo-Ed Conference Royal Society Teacher Fellow SocCon

Timeline
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Geog Perspectives Website Project ClassForum 3 PhD project CoPs run over 18mths

Paul Keowns PhD Completed Ning 2010 Isolated to Connected project

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

Web 1.0 was characterized by a "top-down" approach to content, consisting of largely standalone and static web pages, and usually requiring the use of complex code to construct (OHear, 2005). Web 2.0 is an "architecture of participation" (OReilly, 2004) characterised by greater social interaction and collaboration where web services and applications allow users to publish content without the need to write code and therefore allows bottom up participation.

Co-creation is a key in the new online environment (enacted within) energetic horizontal communities that arent constrained by rank. Kalantzis and Cope (2008)

E-learning ecologies and social networking tools of Web 2.0 provide means to support peer learning within environments such as Myspace, YouTube, Facebook , Moodle, Ning and others...

Some Current Web 2.0 Networking Sites

Auckland Geography Teachers at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Auckland-GeographyTeachers-Association-AGTA/120405311363333. History teachers in Otago at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Otago-History-TeachersAssociation/129799867054169 And Wellington at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington-Area-HistoryTeachers-Association/148974205162895 There is a Senior Social Studies page too but it does not seem to be populated.

Some Current Secondary School Sites

The Katikati College site Katikati College Community which includes geography teacher Philip Cranstons CReAtive Minds: Katikati College blog , and Nigel Bailey, a secondary geographer, is currently the guest blogger for July 2011 on Hazel Owens blog at http://ictelt.blogspot.com/

FUNCTIONS OF A SOCIO PROFESSIONAL Potential Functions Examples COP

Sharing of teaching resources Helping each other Discussion, dialogue & Debate Learning new techniques, tools, information Joint workshop activities Photographs, videos, powerpoint presentations, activities, units etc. Answer questions and solve teaching problems with and for others In-depth dialogue about subject and topic issues. eg policy changes, new ideas etc New teaching approaches, tools, and strategies eg web tools, information on a new topic etc. Joint unit writing, resource development, moderation etc

Isolated to Connected: A Community of Practice

for teachers of geography from remote schools.
Janey Nolan thenolans@xtra.co.nz

I2C participation
84 people are registered on the site and actively interested in it. 60 of these (71%) have posted a comment into the site. This is a very high number for this type of site. That is many people are content just to draw from such a site and dont necessary post material to the site. (Legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). 43 (51%) have made 3 or more posts and engaged in a discussion or conversation. 20 (24%) have made 7 or more posts. 7 (8%) have made 19 posts or more!

Popular Places on the Site

Discussion Space Author Discussants Posts

Web tools Q&A Level 1 Wall Level 2 Wall Level 3 Wall ENE 2010 (NB WIKI) Updated Standards Volcanoes Planning Population

Cr No To To To No Ma Cr CoM No

7 6 10 10 5 5 5 4 6 4

37 29 24 20 20 19 19 17 13 11

VCoP TPDL communities are such communities engaged in the coconstruction of knowledge about good teaching practice. However, to build effective and productive communities requires meticulous attention to detail at both design and operational levels

THE EIGHT KEY FACTORS ARE ... focus diversity leadership tools community dialogue blending

THE FOCUS & TOOLS ISSUE ... Insufficient knowledge of Ning spaces A jumble of spaces with like items in different places Democracy v Anarchy Need for more management of placement of resources, discussions, work spaces etc.

SITE MAP ...

Photos Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 . Photo n Videos Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 . Video n Forums Forum 1 Forum 2 Forum 3 Forum n Groups Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group n Include postings at top And wall at bottom Blogs Members Chat Events

Occassional Blog 1 Member 1 ie Blog 2 Member 2 Syncronous Blog 3 Member 3 discussion

Blog n Member n Include postings at top And wall at bottom

A Possible Future Timeline

2010 Isolated to Connected forms regional groups within Or Regional Groups spin off to form other separate communities 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 A suite of ItoC type sites available to a range of social science teaching communities Isolated to Connected project goes national

Investigation of possibility of establishing I2C type CoPs for other social science projects

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