These are slides presented at the 2011 Canada MoodleMoot in Edmonton AB.

1. Alberta Distributed Education & Technology Association (ADETA)Connecting the Silos – Moving to the Future

2. What is ADETA? History Current activities Challenges Opportunities

3. Leveraging the Collective Group Network 3 Set Sets Dron and Anderson, 2011

4. Communities of Practice Networks Distributed Share common interest Mostly self-organizing Open or closed? No expectation of meeting or even knowing all members of the network Little expectation of direct reciprocity Contribute for social capital building, altruism, and a sense of improving the world/practice through contribution Increases exposure to the adjacent possible (Brown and Duguid, 2001)

6. “Your Friends Make you Fat”They can also make you smart! Fowler & Christakis (2007) A study of Obesity http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070725_obesity.htm

7. Which networks do you use and find useful? Why? Anyothers?

8. Example: A Successful Finnish Network

9. I took the liberty of creating a group called 'Sometu' on LinkedIn, with the following description: (...) Sometu stands for “Sosiaalinen Media Oppimisen Tukena,” or “Social Media in Support of Learning.” The 3,600 people in our network share a common interest in new ways of working and new tools brought about by social media, which support and advance learning both on an individual and a community level. Our primary Internet presence is at http://sometu.ning.com. The site sports a Finnish user interface but features a section called “Sometu in English” as well, at http://sometu.ning.com/group/english.

10. ADETA on the Web

11. ADETA on Linkedin

12. ADETA on Twitter

13. ADETA on Facebook

14. Other ADETA initiatives? Suggestions?

15. Brainstorm How can networks meet professional association needs? What tools do we need to support networks? How do we attract a “critical mass” of ACTIVE users?

16. How can an organization like ADETA re-invent itself as a network? Ideas? How would you like to be involved in this network??

17. Join us for the ADETA Community Meeting In the Robson Room from 1:30 to 3:00 OR In the Morraine Room from 4:45 to 5:30