Alberta Distributed Education & Technology Association (ADETA)

Connecting the Silos – Moving to the Future

What is ADETA?• History• Current activities• Challenges• Opportunities

Group Network

Leveraging the Collective

3

Dron and Anderson, 2011

Sets Set

Communities of Practice • 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)

Networks

“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

Which networks do you use and find useful? Why?

Any others?

Example: A Successful Finnish Network

• 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.

ADETA on the Web

ADETA on Linkedin

ADETA on Twitter

ADETA on Facebook

Other ADETA initiatives?

Suggestions?

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?

How can an organization like ADETA re-invent itself as a network?

Ideas?

How would you like to be involved in this network??

Join us for theADETA Community Meeting

In the Robson Room from 1:30 to 3:00OR

In the Morraine Room from 4:45 to 5:30