Education Plaza:Online communities of practice for educators

Tryggvi Thayer6. June, 2016

What I’m going to do...

How do we address educators’ professional development needs in times of increasingly rapid technological and social change?

1. Education Plaza

a. Online communities of practice

2. Samspil 2015

a. Rationale

b. Description of the project

c. Outcomes

d. Recommendations

3. The future for teachers’ professional development

Education Plaza(Menntamiðja - http://menntamidja.is)

Develop and promote new practices for continuing professional development

Support teachers’ CoPs - online and offline

Promote and support digital habitats for CoPs

Social media

Websites

Digital resources

Facilitate and support knowledge sharing

EduCamps

Design workshops

Partners: University of Iceland, Teachers’ Union, City of Reykjavík, Ministry of Education, Federation of Municipalities.

A theoretical lens - Smooth & striated space(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987)

Nomading smooth spaces

Education Plaza seeks to create nomadic spaces

● Smoothing the terrain○ Access to people○ Access to information○ Access to dialogue

● Harnessing the power of the “difference”○ “... information [...] is a difference which makes a difference” (Bateson, 1972).○ IT smoothes the spaces that we inhabit to allow us to identify and explore

differences.

“... difference, and not similarity, [is] the driving force in becoming” (Roy, 2003)

Communities of practice (CoPs) online(Wenger et al, 2009)

CoPs are groups of people with mutual interests who have decided to share their knowledge and experience to facilitate professional development.

Online CoPs use a range of tools to construct digital habitats for constructing, collecting and diffusing knowledge.

CoPs rely on individual members to assume responsibility for roles needed to maintain the digital habitat.

CoPs come and go as needed.

Digital habitats support CoPs

JOINT ENTERPRISEnegotiated enterprise, mutual accountability, interpretations, rhythms, local response

MUTUAL ENGAGEMENTengaged diversity, doing things together, relationships, social complexity, community maintenance

SHARED REPERTOIREstories, styles, artifacts, tools, actions, discourses, concepts, historical events

Samspil 2015:A collaborative teacher-training initiative on ICT for teaching & learning

Target audience:

Teachers and administrators

Teachers at preschool, compulsory and upper-secondary levels

Teachers in all parts of the country

Goal:

Low cost/high impact

Practical knowledge/experience

What can we do within a CoP framework to leverage Education Plaza's existing resources and knowledge?

Samspil 2015: The primary challenge

Exponential rate of technological change!

Samspil 2015: Framing learning needs & goals

Rapid technological and social change raises questions about learning needs.

How does change affect teaching & learning?

How do educational systems react to change?

How do teachers and school leaders react to change?

Goals:

Form dynamic self-sustaining CoPs.

Develop capacity for proactive action with regards to technological change.

Promote forward-looking values and attitudes within communities.

Samspil 2015: Another challengeReaching the appropriate audience:

Adapted from Linda McKeown

Samspil 2015: Addressing the challenges

Address learning needs in a proactive & future-oriented manner:

The past:Facts, history, reality.

The future:Experimental, possibilities, innovation.

Reactive:Look toward the Now from perspective of the past.

Proactive:Look from the Now toward the future.

Samspil 2015: Structure of the course

Samspil 2015: Example of learning activities for 1 month

Samspil 2015: Outcomes

About 350 participants

Very positive reactions

Majority claims to have “learned a lot”

Keen interest in maintaining community

Have energized previously existing communities

New knowledge-sharing practices diffused

EduCamps are very popular

New blogs about education

Increased activity on social media

Sense of community

We’re all engaged in a constant learning process

Easier to locate relevant knowledge

Platforms for those who want to share

Samspil 2015: Pros & cons of our approach

Pros Cons

● Able to cover broad range of topics.

● Dynamic resources emerge in the learning process.

● Learn anytime, anywhere.

● Connect with learners where they are.

● FUN, FUN, FUN!

● Too long?

● Hard to keep everyone engaged.

● Requires a lot of work.

● Local contacts not all engaged.

● When do instructors disengage?

● How do we measure outcomes?

● Some never really got how the programme was intended to work.

What would I change?

More emphasis on local networks.

Split into series of 3 month long courses.

Make better use of “meatspace”/more face-to-face opportunities.

Better monitoring of learners.

Higher price tag.

What next for online CoPs?

Need to use digital resources for professional development. There is no other realistic way to stay up-to-date.

Current online CoPs:

Sharing knowledge & experience on social platforms.

Access to broad range of resources.

Digital agents help diffuse information.

Future CoPs:

Creative communities interacting in digital spaces.

Virtual & augmented reality to construct new environments.

Artificial intelligence analyzes learning needs.

Artificial intelligence produces information.

CoP engaged in constructing visions for the future.