Information Superhighway for the Networked Teachers: Online Communities of Practice

Aslı Lidice Gokturk Saglamaslilidice@gmail.com @aslilidicehttp://aslisaglam.edublogs.org

Why Do We Do Professional Development?

Shulman’s Categorization(1987)

• Content knowledge

• General Pedagogical knowledge

• Curriculum knowledge

• Pedagogical content knowledge

• Knowledge of learners & their characteristics

• Knowledge of educational contexts

• Knowledge of educational purposes, values and aims

What Do We Already Know About Effective Professional Development?

1. Humans are social beings &Learning a social endeavor

2. Knowledge within a social setting means being competent at activities which are valued within the community

3. Knowing is developed through active engagement in the community through participation

4. The goal of learning is to produce meaning or understanding of the world and our engagement within it.

Wenger‘s Community of Practice Theory (1998)

Components of a social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998, p. 5)

EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGY?

Application of community concept to online learning

«Application of community concept to online learning can be linked to the paradigmatic shift in education, which reveals transformation in 3 areas:

(a)knowledge transmission to knowledge building,

(b) from teacher centered to learning centered, and

(c) from passive to active learning (Harasim, 2006 cited in Tolu, 2010)».

As a result; innovations in technology played a significant role for the growth of interest in online community of learning.

Coı (=Community + Inquiry)

• Conceptual framework for the use of computer mediated communication in supporting an educational experience (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000)

• a cohesive and interactive community of learners whose purpose is to critically analyze, construct, and confirm worthwhile knowledge (Garrison &Vaughan, 2008, p.9)

• Community; social dynamics, social interaction and collaboration

• Inquiry (intellectual academic interaction & the process of constructing meaning through personal responsibility and choice.

A summary of the CoI elements and characteristics

ELEMENTS CATEGORIES Examples

Social Presence

Open Communication Learning Climate/ Risk-FreeExpression

Group Cohesion Group Identity/Collaboration

Personal/Affective Self-Projection/ExpressingEmotions

Triggering Event Sense of Puzzlement

Teaching Presence Facilitating Discourse Shaping Constructive Exchange

Direct Instruction Focusing and Resolving Issues

Cognitive Presence ExplorationIntegrationResolutionDesign & Organization

Information ExchangeConnecting IdeasApplying New IdeasSetting Curriculum & Methods

«BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY FOR EFL PROFESSIONALS IN AN ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE DISCUSSION BOARD»

• What makes an effective online learning environment for over 60 English teaching professionals from 29 different countries?

• Compared two implementations of the same online teacher training course in 2004 and 2005.

• Results: using these instructional strategies to change teaching presence caused some increase in social and cognitive presence in one of the classes, but not in the other.

• Why different? group cohesion through shared language, culture, cultural inclusivity social bonds, importance of reaching higher phases of the practical inquiry model and religion and obstacles to Internet access are discussed as possible explanations.

• The results support and extend Garrison et al.’s (2000) community of inquiry model (Kang Shin, 2008).

«An Exploration of Synchronous Communication in an Online Preservice ESOL Course: Community of Inquiry Perspective»

• a qualitative case study: the use of synchronous communication for creating a community of inquiry and student satisfaction in an online ESOL endorsement course for preservice teachers.

• Elluminate Live for class meetings & Gmail Chat for impromptu interactions between a student and the teacher. Online recordings of live meetings, student written reflections, surveys, interviews, and teacher/researcher journal.

• The findings: synchronous communication enhances building and sustaining an online community of inquiry creating a sense of social presence with trust, comfort, and belonging, and enhanced group work efficiency. 

• “The study highlights the critical role of synchronous communications to create effective online learning communities, however it also underlines that the implementation of synchronous communication tools requires robust pedagogical planning to enhance student learning”

Teacher Learning in On-line Communities Are you familiar with these?• CoP

• WIA

• Web 2.0 tools

• EVO

• Worldbridges

• Secondlife

• Virtual round table

• Teacher Challenge

• Moocs

• Coursera

WEBHEADSOnline Community of Practice of Teachers and EducatorsPracticing Peace and Professional Development through Web 2.0 and Computer Mediated Communication

1990s

evolutionary & enterprising scholars displaying a deep warmth & dedication to helping others

A world wide, cross-cultural,vibrant online community of educators with a shared domain of interest

A passion to learn about that domain (web 2. 0 tools in ELT)

Collaborative practice

CoPhttp: www.webheadsinaction.org

HOW DOES WEBHEADS WORK?COMMUNICATION PLATFORM : Yahoo

Participants send messages about various issues,

ask for help,

respond to each other’s questions &

meet online (live) on a regular basis

explore the latest communications technologies,

brainstorm on how to adapt Web 2.0 & Social networking tools.

Webheadsinaction.org

Learning2gether

mooc

• What’s a mooc?

• Xmooc

• Cmooc

• Some examples

#ETMOOC

Why join ETMOOC?

1647 registrants355 registered blogs851+ blog posts and 1000s of tweetsAt the onset!!!

TESOL CALL Interest Section Electronic Village Online (EVO) Sessions

• more social scaffolding

• collaborative spirit of WIA

• EVO & WORLDBRIDGES

• online discussions &workshops varying from

• simple discussions to virtual hands-on workshops,

• discussion of an issue in the field of teaching language to

• experiments with and pedagogy of new technology tools

• Provides invaluable service to teachers all over the globe,

• Brings the convention to those who cannot travel..

• The sessions are again free and open to all interested parties.

• 7 year-old community of practice of teacher educators worldwide.

• participants will work collaboratively to:

• use various synchronous and asynchronous web tools to communicate with colleagues worldwide,

• interact through edmodo, text chat, voice chat, and others,

• reflect on and define their mentoring skills through exchange with peers ,

• discuss possibilities of applying the skills in their work communities.

• enlarge our community of practice.

#EVO2013Mentoring

TitanPad

Edmodo

DigiFoot12

SecondLife – Avalon Project

6th SLanguages Annual Symposium 2012

In Sum

• Promising adult learning environments include:

exchange of information,

collaborative work,

critical thinking,

active/exploratory/inquiry-based learning, informed decision-making,

and authentic, real-world context (ISTE &Thomas, 2007).

• Connected learning opportunities on the internet, information

superhighway, can benefit the networked teachers

Final word from the networked teachers

References

Kang Shin, J. (2008). Building an effective international community of inqury for EFL professionals in an asynchrounous on-line discussion board, Unpublished Phd Dissertation, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA.

Tekiner Tolu, A. (2010). An Exploration of Synchronous Communication in an Online Preservice ESOL Course: Community of Inquiry Perspective, Unpublished Phd Dissertation, University of South Florida, USA.