Comments on: Networked Learning Communities

By: reneebr

reneebr — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:05:04 +0000

I loved the article and already see it in my school. I have taught afterschool Novanet, internet-based credit recovery online. The only problem is that I am learning along with my students because they study math, science, English, and social studies. I am having to become an expert in all of them to keep up with each of my students. It is an example of the “hybrid-learning” described in the article. However, I see us doing more of the communities of learners in a classroom before doing it at home. I think if we as teachers knew more about where education is going, we would be more receptive and innovative in our classroom. However, those who have ventured into the communities of learners are often victimized by administration and parents making other leaders reluctant to venture forth. I know I have been. As you put it in the next article, we are still charged with keeping our kids safe. So the question becomes how do we as teachers move toward this new steam engine called the learning community. Obviously, our steamboat must be reconstructed. As a victim of open space learning, I can tell you that if teachers aren’t taught to teach that way, it is disastrous for the students. And as the article says, “the internet has won.” Our problem is to use it wisely for the students. How? I don’t have the answer except to adapt my teaching as best I can.

By: dobbsep

dobbsep — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:34:28 +0000

I laughed out loud at the phrases “sage on the stage” and “guide on the side” as ways to describe teachers. Of COURSE that is what we are…..but we are so much more. I LOVE the concept of a teacher as an expert learner because we show students how to learn, but we never stop learning ourselves.

In a PLC of teachers at Westminster this past spring, we studied Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind and then applied his 6 skills (creativity, design, humor, religiousness, etc.) to our and our students’ changing roles in the 21st century clasroom.

One idea that I have been circling back to is the concept of Service learning that goes across the curriculum. I’ve linked a really good example of Problem-Based/Service Learning that incorporates these ideas to my blog. It’s called the Blood Project.

Great article.

By: shaunsudberry

shaunsudberry — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:37:52 +0000

I see myself becoming more of a learner alongside my students as I delve deeper into Cherokee County’s Teach 21 program. Podcasting, Claymation, and Digital Storytelling are all applications I am learning as I go. A few classes can give me a general overview of each of these programs, but it is when I am back in the classroom working with my kids that the true learning begins to take place. Many a day, you walk by my classroom and hear one of my student say, “she’s only one person and she’s learning, too… that’s why she’s going to school at night, remember”. I think my students do know that we are learning to use out blessings of new technology together! The missing link for me has been not having a collaborative, professional community in which I feel accepted and valued for what I bring to the table. I am proud to say I have found that community in the KMWP and I am learning to feel more comfortable even sharing my writing pieces with our community of learners.

By: sellcrazyelsewear

sellcrazyelsewear — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:32:54 +0000

Waking up to the new things I am discovering about my writing, I am confronted with new ways of thinking about how we can interact with kids as well. Some of the things that we have been implementing over the past year (like doing the assignments along with the students like word watching, or writing pieces along with them,) have opened my eyes. While I feel that I am a mature learner, (able to access maybe more critical thinking skills or metacognition to acquire knowledge or complete tasks)I still get that babe in the woods feeling sometimes.(especially when trying to find a better way to teach!) I think we could all stand to let go and fall into that feeling and realize that some of our students are in that mode as a regular method of functioning, and we are the ones that need to think aloud how to follow the metacognitive steps, or problem solve, so that they have a process to try. How many times this week I have heard “I thought they would know how to do that” Has anybody else heard or thought this? If we can try to think about setting up some networked learning community collaboration between schools for students to share writing (even internationally!) with the proper facilitation, it might be a powerful tool. Who knows what might happen? I always enjoyed writing letters, maybe we can just start with something like having pen pals! I am excited to see what we, as an SI entity (a networked learning community), can begin to build in support of each other and all of our students. What is it they say, “it takes a village?”

By: Shanna

Shanna — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:58:41 +0000

I can appreciate these new ways of looking at the classroom, and the concepts make total sense, but I am also left with the questions you mention as well as one more: HOW?

My biggest problem with educational articles is the overload of theory. Like the project mentioned early in the article, the WHY is all over the place, but where is the HOW? I want to get there, but I need a more directed path.

This same idea has been my frustration with the teacher demo. I love all these new ideas and really want to use them, but somewhere in my mind is a disconnect. Thankfully the gap is closing–which is discussed as part of the process in the article–but this does not alleviate the frustration.

The steamboat metaphor helped to clarify the theory fully; I just need o know how to be a part of that structural change that is so necessary.