Presentation for NLS network of Nordic teachers' unions in Reykjavík, 6. June, 2016. The philosophy behind Education Plaza's approach to continuous professional development and the Samspil 2015 ICT in education training initiative.

1. Education Plaza:
Online communities of
practice for educators
Tryggvi Thayer
6. June, 2016

2. 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. 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

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

5. Nomading smooth spaces

6. 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)

7. 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.

8. Digital habitats support CoPs
JOINT ENTERPRISE
negotiated enterprise, mutual
accountability, interpretations,
rhythms, local response
MUTUAL ENGAGEMENT
engaged diversity, doing
things together, relationships,
social complexity, community
maintenance
SHARED REPERTOIRE
stories, styles, artifacts, tools,
actions, discourses, concepts,
historical events

9. 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

10. Samspil 2015: The primary challenge
Exponential rate of technological change!

11. 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.

12. Samspil 2015: Another challenge
Reaching the appropriate audience:
Adapted from Linda McKeown

13. 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.

14. Samspil 2015: Structure of the course

15. Samspil 2015: Example of learning activities for 1 month

16. 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

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.