eTwinning PDW
eTwinning Groups
From pilots to a big scale!
Riina Vuorikari
October 1 2009

Riina, who?
Riina Vuorikari
from Finland, lives in Brussels since 1999
• Slides available:
http://www.slideshare.net/vuorikari
• Since 2000 worked in European Schoolnet
• MEd in Finland, DEA in Hypermedia, PhD
in November!!

What’s on your plate?
• Goal: What can Ambassadors do for
Groups?
• Groups’ pilot:
– examples of what Groups do
– what have we learned
• Roll out the eTwinning Groups:
– Ambassadors’ key role in Groups
– Next steps - describing Groups

A buffet of Groups?
On Sunday, for each Groups, I would like
to see:
• A vision (what will this Group be about?)
• A tagline (e.g “eTwinning, the community
for schools in Europe”)
• Some engagement and leadership
taken (e.g. I will run this activity once a
month in Spanish)

Groups = Thematic online
communities
Pilot Oct-Jan 09

Creativity

MST

School leaders

What are Groups about?
• “ a community of practice is not really a thing,
but rather a process in which social learning
occurs because the people who participate in
this process have a common interest in ..”
• “The product of this process is the sharing of
ideas, the finding of solutions to common
problems and the building of a repository of
available and new knowledge and expertise.”
Kirschner & Lai (2007) Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 16, 2, pp.
127-131

Differences
Learning Labs Groups
• Structured activities • Less structured
• Scheduled activities, up to
participants
• Lead by a
• Less schedule
“professional”
• Moderator on the
moderator
background
• Determined time • No clear end

Creative Classroom (1)
• Members were invited to join the Group to
“foster creativity at schools and in eTwinning
projects”
• About 40 teachers + one moderator
• First: create your profile and
introduce your self
• Discussion activity:
Does school kill creativity?

Creative Classroom (2)
the Groups was to define
• Their way to describe “creativity in learning”
• Define their goals
• Discussion lead to links in “creative” mini-
projects using variety of tools
• 35 bookmarks at:
http://delicious.com/tag/etwinningcreativity

Creative classroom (3)
• Scheduled events using Flashmeeting to “talk
about Your project and creativity”
• Scheduling
events is
important
as teachers
are busy.
• This allows
better planning
of their time!

Like usual... no time!

Creative classroom (4)
Different tools used:
• Online community (Ning), e.g. creation of
sub-groups based on interest, profiles and
writing on walls, polls, forum, upload images
• External tools, e.g. creating bookmark lists
(delicious), integrate videos from YouTube,
FlashMeeting

Activities in the Groups (5)

What have we learned? (1)
• Leadership and teamwork skills are
needed
• There should be more than one “leader”
in a group => Leadership team

What have we learned? (2)
• Online leadership and teamwork skills
– “good leaders need good followers”
• Technical skills
– use of ICTs in general and the platform in
particular
• Skills in content and substance
– the stuff teachers know the best!
• Different skills also needed for Ambassadors

Different roles (3)
• Leaders: can be one or distributed
– take responsibility and set the goals
– determine how the group will achieve these goals
• Core members:
– e.g. subject matter experts, knowledge manager,
content coordinator
• Support persons:
– e.g. mentors, tutors, event coordinators,
technologist
• Community members

Motivation does not always
mean participation! (4)

Task orientation vs. process
(5)

Ambassadors’ role?
Plan, build, support and
moderate Groups with other
eTwinners!
“Show leadership in building
eTwinning Community”

Online leadership and
teamwork skills
• Vision and action
– Set and attain goals, take initiative, add
your energy to the group
• Competences
– Assign roles and be clear when delegating
• “Expedition behaviour”
– pitch in, be positive, serve group goals,
respect others, work as a team

Ambassador’s roles in Groups
• Leaders: can be one or distributed
– take responsibility and set the goals
– determine how the group will achieve these
goals
• Core members:
– e.g. subject matter experts, knowledge
manager, content coordinator
• Support persons:
– e.g. mentors, tutors, event coordinators,
technologist
• Community members:
– “expedition behaviour”

Timeline
1. 2. 3...
1. Pilot
2. Ambassadors: Ideas and commitments for
Groups - work in Chania.
3. Rolling out..

• Unified look and feel (“branding”)
• More tools, e.g. wiki
• No advertisements
• No problems with school firewall
• Log-in with the same eTwinning
username
• LifeRay (open source - more control!)

Group activity: Working on the
proposed themes

A buffet of Groups?
On Sunday, for each Groups, I would like
to see:
• A vision (what will this Group be about?)
• A tagline (e.g “eTwinning, the community
for schools in Europe”)
• Some engagement and leadership
taken (e.g. I will run this activity once a
month in Spanish)

Group activity: Working on the
proposed themes
• Brainstorming in Groups for 1 h
• Plan and build a foundation for your
thematic Group
• Continuation in workshop “building
and sustaining online communities”
• Sunday: 45 min to polish up and
present your ideas to all

Now
• Find your Group
• Decide
– who holds the pen and drafts ideas on the flipchart
• Use the planning tool (8 questions) to get
started
• Try to answer to questions that make sense!
• To be continued...

Building and sustaining online
communities
Riina Vuorikari
CSS, European Schoolnet
Chania Oct 2, 2009

Curious life of an online
community
• Online communities form, grow, mature
and terminate = lifecycle
• Each level has different issues and can
be supported
Lai et al. (2006) Literature Review and Synthesis:
Online Communities of Practice

Lifecycle of an online
community
Phase 0: Planning.
• Determine the scope and purpose of
the CoP
• Define roles of the CoP and
assign/engage people
• Make a skeleton of a plan for the CoP
• Define how to evaluate whether the
Group has been successful

Lifecycle of an online
community
Phase 1: Formation of the CoP
• “CoPs should grow, not be implemented’
• Build trust by mandating “good profiles”
• Develop clear policies such as code of
conduct, community governance, netiquette,
copyright
• Plan activities that allow active participation,
but also ‘lurking’

Lifecycle of an online
community
Phase 2: Sustain and manage CoPs.
• Attract a diverse membership
• Mentor new members
• Delegate leadership (leader of the day)
• Turn lurkers into active participants
• Think “Glocal”!
• Evaluate purpose and direction

Lifecycle of an online
community
Phase 3: Transformation or disengaging.
• Expansion or fading away?
• Evaluation of a CoP: on-going activity where
the success is measured against its own
goals (Phase 0)

"Learning is not only
experience, but reflection on
experience (Dewey 1938)"
• In an online community, like that of
Ambassadors on Ning or any other,
what has been/is the biggest barrier for
you to benefit from them?
– write it on a post-it
• What would be your solution to fix that?
– write it on a post-it

Participation inequality
J.Nilsen (2006) Participation inequality: Encouraging More Users to
contribute