Article+Summaries+and+PDFs

[|WeTheTeachers] Reading Summaries For Meeting #2

Mason, R. //The Tools in Practice//

This article reviews the advantages and disadvantages of several web 2.0 applications. Mason also provides a detailed example of how each application has been used in practice. Most of these examples come from traditional learning environments (a teacher/student model), but are still relevant to the types of learning that may take place in the VLC. I have provided a series of quotations about the most relevant tools described. As you review this list, please note that Mason wrote this article in 2008; //Twitter,// possibly the most discussed web tool of 2009, is not on the list. “Universities can make podcasts of spe3cial lectures, cross-cultural exchanges, guest speeches or other events and make them widely available to students” (p. 70). “The shortcomings of audio in general appear to bnin in the area of providing complex or detailed information that needs to be heavily processed, logically deconstructed, commited to memory, or otherwise requires a great deal of concentration” (p.71). “Experts can share their bookmarks with novices. Individual students can share their resources with their peers. Managing the mass of information on the Internet is extremely difficult and social bookmarking is a simple way for sharing the burden” (p.81). “Flickr contains imagery that can be used in every aspect of teaching to help develop visual literacty skills, and in the process, help students understand intellectual property rights, while contributing greatly to a host of learning applications” (P. 85).
 * -Blogs:** “While the strength of the blog is its immediacy, this also means that any lack of attention in maintaining a regular flow of messages may lead to the abandonment of the blog by readers, and therefore by contributors” (p63).
 * -Podcast**: “A podcast is an audio file which can be downloaded and listened to either o an iPod or MP3 player for mobile study or a computer or laptop for location-based study” (p. 69).
 * -Social Bookmarking:** “In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are accessible either to the public or to a specific group, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tage, or even randomly” (p. 80).
 * -Photo Sharing:** “Photo sharing is the publishing or transfer of a user’s digital photos online, thus enabling the user to share them with others” (p. 84).

Riel, M. & Polin, Linda. //Online Learning Communities: Common Ground and Critical Differences in Designing Technical Environments// Riel and Polin differentiate three distinct “forms of learning” within learning communities: //task based, practice-based, and knowledge-based//. Although these forms of learning overlap and all take place within a community setting, network design decisions help create a certain form of community. A //task-based// community works together to complete a specific project. Thus, these communities can be short lived. However, because task-based communities have a shared goal, the connections between members are often strong and can be quickly established. A //practice-based// community may be synonymous with a //community of practice//: a group united around large scale goals and motivations that are located within an occupational context. //Knowledge-based// communities differ from //practice-based// communities in that they are engaged in the production, collection, and dissemination of knowledge that may be most relevant beyond occupational use. Riel and Polin conclude there article with a discussion of larger structures that could include each of these communities by emphasizing their “common cultural core of continuous reflections and change” (p. 16).

The design of //task-based// communities requires the selection of an intentional focus. This can evolve out of a group consensus, but often requires the input of a leader or community expert. Designated roles, objectives, time-frames, etc. are also important when designing a task-based community. The technology is chiefly involved in providing meeting spaces, organization tools, and storage space, and when appropriate the tools to actually create a product (the creation of a resource library within our VLC could be viewed as such a product).

A //practice-based// community differs significantly from a //task-based// community in that membership in a community of practice could be described as being voluntary. Volunteerism requires a higher level of social responsibility – the community is only sustainable if members actively participate. Riel and Polin believe a healthy community of practice is permeable: “Communities avoid isolation and support their own development by interacting with groups engaged in tangentially related practices” (p. 28).

A //knowledge-based// community is focused on “thinking about knowledge as knowledge”. Riel and Polin give the example of a group of researchers who share work and ideas, but without a clear agenda behind their collaboration.

Schlager, M. & Fusco, J. //Teacher Professional Development, Technology and Communities of Practice: Are We Putting the Cart before the Horse?//

In this article Mark Schlager and Judith Fusco, two of the designers of [|Tapped In], critique their sites development. Specifically they note that attempts to support an online community have ignored alternatives that could have fostered local professional development: “helping teachers to break out of their isolation only to grow apart from their local practice professionally is not our intent” (p. 122). Most of this article focuses on how technology can be used to improve district wide professional development programs. This is not the VLC’s goal per se, but Schlager and Fusco’s designation between a “community of practice” and a “network of practice” (p. 121) and their eight “guideposts” (p. 138-146) are still relevant for our project.

Schlager and Fusco honestly state that although they have tried to cultivate a “community,” //Tapped In// may be better considered a “network of practice,” a “constellation of practice,” or a “crossroads of practice” (p. 121). If an educator’s practice is considered the work done in and for a specific school community, it is difficult to consider the disparate online connections, which a virtual platform like //Tapped In// supports, a community. This distinction may sound tedious, but since Schlager and Fusco define professional development as a “process of learning how to put knowledge into practice through engagement //in// practice within a community of practitioners” (p. 124) the process of learning must be properly nested “within a community.” The article ends with a series of eight “guideposts for technology design.”

- //**Learning Processes**//: “we also see a need for teachers to have a set of online learning and collaboration capabilities that they can own and tailor to meet their own needs and the needs of the community” (p. 139) - //**History and Culture**//: “Developers of online environments must also be aware of the match between historically evolved norms and values and those that their technology promotes. The two need not, and in some cases should not, match, but if the designers are not aware of the mismatch, they may not build appropriate scaffolds to help users bridge the mismatch” (p. 140). - //**Membership Identity and Multiplicity**//: “Online infrastructure needs to be designed to help members of a community of practice build and manage their professional identity, find and collaborate with one another, and function in multiple roles” (p. 140). - **//Community Reproduction and Evolution//**: “One hallmark of a community of practice that distinguishes it from other forms of community is the ability to grow, evolve, and reproduce its membership” (p 141) - //**Social Networks**//: - //**Leaders and Contributors**//: “Environments that support communities of practice should enable any member of the community to have the technical capabilities and social support required to take on leadership roles in a given context” (p. 144) - //**Tools, Artifacts, and Places**//: “Technological tools and learning artifacts are frequently introduced to groups of teachers with little or no advance planning for how those tools and artifacts will be introduced into, and become an integral part of, the overarching culture of a community (p. 144) - //**The Practice**//: “The practice – the collective enterprise – of educating children demands that members of multiple occupational communities and levels of management hierarchy work together in ways that transcend occupational or managerial structures” (p. 146)

**Teacher Participation in Online Communities: Why Do Teachers Want to Participate in Self-generated Online Communities of K-12 Teacher**

This article aims to identify reasons why teachers participate in “self-generated” online communities. Most research before this study has only examined communities designed to support university courses or to supplement traditional forms of professional development. An implicit power dynamic resides in these communities as participation is often mandatory. A “self generated” community could then be described as more democratic.

Hur and Brush’s research question emerges out of three previous studies. Ling et al. (2005) found that 4-10% of members in online communities “produce more than 50-80% of the messages and resources. In 2002, Baek identifies six reasons why teachers don’t participate (even though they may be members) in online communities: “lack of time, isolate work, lack of reflection on their practice, lack of technical support, pressure from state mandates, and pre existing mistrust directed at the university” (Hur and Brush, p. 282). Hew and Hara (2007) located four reasons why teachers //do// participate in online communities: collectivism, reciprocity, personal gain, and altruism.

Hur and Brush selected three communities to use as case studies. They collected data in order to develop an idea about the degree to which each community was actually used and they interviewed participants to uncover why they did or did not actively participate. The data collected from the community “[|WeTheTeachers]” is the most relevant to our project:

“WeTheTeachers was developed by a former elementary school teacher in 2005, and it had more than 2,500 members as of May 2007. The member profile indicated that approximately one new person registered in the community per day. WeThe Teachers had two distinct purposes: sharing lesson plans and online discussion. The site provided a place where teachers uploaded their own lesson plans or teaching materials. As of May 2007, members had uploaded 984 lesson-related files and shared 1,195 postings on 19 online discussion boards. Sharing person information, such as pictures or e-mail addresses, was optional. We observed that approximately 10% of participants identified themselves. But most members used pseudonyms. The way members participate was divers. Some teachers actively shared lesson plans but rarely participate in online discussion, whereas some teachers participate only in online discussion. Members had a wide range of teaching experiences, from college students majoring in education to teachers who had taught for 40 years.” (p.285)

The interviews revealed that teachers choose to participate in order to share emotions, combat teacher isolation, experience a sense of camaraderie, and explore ideas. This study clearly finds that teachers participate in communities mostly for emotional reasons.

