Keynote presented at Teaching & Learning Conference meets eFest 2009
(#eTLC09). 1 October 2009, UCOL Palmerston North, New Zealand
You Are Not Alone - How a Personal Learning Network, consisting of
social networking tools & interpersonal connections can act as a filter
for educators to help them overcome information overload and be
effective 21st century educators.
Many thanks to Alec Couros (http://twitter.com/courosa) for his inspiring Connected Teacher image.
You Are Not Alone - Presentation at #eTLC09 eFest 2009
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
7.
8.
11.
12.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
30.
31.
32.
34.
38.
40.
41.
42.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Afraid I have to start this keynote with a bit of a disclaimerPeter Mellow at the eFest Open Space & Derek Wenmoth are both such wonderful speakers, with an uncanny ability to ask the right questions and to make you think about what technology and this changing time mean for your pracitceI’m really here as an emissaryWork at EIT Hawke’s Bay as eLearning Advisor
Together with Dave Sturrock I’m co-convenor of the eLearning Forum Btw if you’re wondering, I’m @catspyjamasnz on twitter – I’ve got twitterstream going, you can follow it here on these monitorsComing back…For us the idea of joining eFest with Teaching & Learning is that For us ed techies e-learning is not about technology but all about teaching & learning (those who were at Open Space will be able to back me up here). And we saw this joining of the conferences as perfect time for some cross-pollination to begin happening. A chance to step over the ‘digital divide’
(Hurdle?) Looks like all of us have been set a bit of a challengeYesterday, morning Roy Sharpe big ask for us: Please prepare students for jobs that don’t exist yet oh and by the way they’ll be doing with tools that haven’t been invented yet. In pm, Derek Wenmoth asked us: What do we think it means to prepare students for the 21st century? Theme for the conference has been: the changing role of the teacher in the 21st c, how do we prepare ourselves?
By now most of us have probably seen every web2.0 slide under the sun to scare the pants of you with the overwhelming number of tools & possibilities out on the web
World mosaic made out of 1001 web2.0 logosWeb2.0 tools – web2.0 can be a bit of a controversial term, however I’ve found it a good heuristic to explain the new possibilities we have available to us to connect with people, information and learning. We’ve gone from a 1.0 world, where the information published was by a small group, for mass consumption. Information was static, to this 2.0 environment where anyone can communicate, connect, create content, collaborate & contribute to the conversation…Unfortunately this also leads to our challenge…
World mosaic made out of 1001 web2.0 logosWeb2.0 tools – web2.0 can be a bit of a controversial term, however I’ve found it a good heuristic to explain the new possibilities we have available to us to connect with people, information and learning. We’ve gone from a 1.0 world, where the information published was by a small group, for mass consumption. Information was static, to this 2.0 environment where anyone can communicate, connect, create content, collaborate & contribute to the conversation…Unfortunately this also leads to our challenge…
It’s overwhelming. With so much information, tools & people out there, how do we start?
All of this information, tools and the acceleration of it, can be overwhelming. And can leave you feeling isolated? So my job as emissary today, is to take you on a bit of a tour of where you can go for support & learning….And remember that Angie Farrow said it is fine to be in that state of almost ‘foolishness’
Community of practice – what is a CoP Wenger quote
E-learning lunches & online space to capture discussionPart of Innovation in Teaching & Learning groupCore groupSave our artefacts online in a specially set up Moodle site called Innovate EIT!Add do’s & don’ts
You are not aloneHave experienced colleagues in this environmentThey are happy to connect in person and online
Online communities of practice on about everything under the sun. These are communities that do not contain people you have met face-to-face, but who share your interest, likes, dislikes and will share their experience in your practiceSo as I’ve been preparing for this session, anyone who knows me will know that I don’t think without talking about it, it’s been interesting that people have said, oh yes, because I regularly visit site x or site y to find out about…So everybody.co.nz is one such site (I’d never heard of it until a few days ago) but it’s a place where people go to find out about health related issuesAsthma, colds & flu or osteoporosis
Even with just these two communities, we seem to be stepping away from the ‘frivolous’ playing on the internet, into things that have a real purpose. Looking after your health. Getting rid of junk. Buying junk ;-) Making money and how best to do it…Social networking & social networking tools can be put to learning. Perhaps best thought of as educational networking. This becomes much clearer with some of these sites
You’re all familiar with this site. Site David set up for the conference. Make friends, get connected, share information, signed up for your workshops…On Ning anyone can start a community – and teachers & educators have, by their thousands…
Serendipitous smaller communitiesOZNZ Educators & Simon Brownhttp://twitter.com/skytrystsjoyhttp://edhouse.wikispaces.com/Meeting+topicsInformal – how it came aboutConnected through both live & asynchronous tools/conversationsOther than Nigel from Waikato University, I’ve never met any of them face to face. But the connection is real.The Community of practice, the connections made there contributes to my practiceOk Joyce – so so far you’ve not made our lives all that much easier. You’ve just shown us even more places to go online… Aha, and this is where it gets personal.
Online communities – communities of practice out there to support your teaching & learning, or your practice & your interests. You just need to find them.
Simon has become a member of my personal learning network – although I am a member of the oznz educators, Simon is someone I communicate with a lot and whose work, his reflections & experiences share in his tweets, plurks (yes the language gets a lot more fun)
Go live to site
What is a PLN? Never even heard of it until Joyce got me started…Mainly it’s the people I already know and the tool is emailQuite close to ….
Alec Couros very popular depiction of Typical teacher network – we’ve been talking about the changing role of teacher in 21st cBut perhaps this should be….
Typical Educator Network – librarian, learning support, manager,edtech…DRAW YOURS – just for 2-3 minsPLEASE CAPTURE
2,5 mins
Abt 4 months ago decided to use social networking (start at 36 seconds)Amazing journey4 benefits:1. Really in touch with what’s going on, in areas that I care about2. Working out what I think as I tweet & blog3. re-connect with people overseas, or connect more deeplyConnect deeply with people that I’ve never metGoes on to talk abt how she met Erica – find time to listen to the anecdote
Mark Smithers describes takes you on tour of tools he uses and how
Tools of a PLN to make connections, find artefacts & learn from, converse with peopleDelicious, Netvibes, Twitter, Flickr, Wikis (in all shapes & forms), Blogs (in all shapes & forms), SlideshareGoogle DocsI use Twitter as the backbone of my PLN – all of the signals go through there, but then get passed on to where they need to goQuestion often asked: how much can you learn in 140 characters (study last week, facebook & activity done was better for you then the short 140 character messages which won’t stick). When you get on , you’ll be amazed at how profound people can be in 140 characters, but real strength is that those 140 characters can contain a link…Also those 140 can contain a hashtag and that can link a stream of messages together…. And now…..
We have a conversation, a live streaming, many to many conversation (as we’ve been having here at eFest). If you’ve been following the twitter stream through the monitors
Next PLN tool isBlogs – slower immediacy – obvioulsy more depth, more room for reflection, explanation than twitterBut I don’t get overwhelmed by blog posts – I don’t feel like I have to visit each blog of interest every day and read every single post. Instead I collect all the headlines like this in an RSS reader and then read what I want to readAgain, see I’ve personalised it – it only contains articles that could be of interest to me. But I will read those that ARE of interest
delicious
delicious
With your direct colleagues, your online communities and your PLN it is true : you are not aloneSo how will that PLN help you?
Chemistry teacher exampleI actually think that helping teachers/educators develop their own PLN is one of the most meaningful things I can do.Because that PLN will become the filter that will allow you to safely drink from the fire hydrant in measured amounts, when appropriate
Am gonna leave you with this thought from Seth Godin