This document discusses the concepts of connected learning and professional development. It introduces connected learning communities (CLCs) as the next generation of professional learning communities (PLCs) that are more connected through online networks. It emphasizes becoming a connected learner through developing personal learning networks (PLNs) and communities of practice. Professional development needs to change to focus on teachers as connected learners who engage in "do it yourself" PD through online collaboration and networking. The document provides definitions of key terms like community, networks, and connected learning and discusses how CLCs, PLNs, and communities of practice can support connected, self-directed professional learning.

2. Housekeeping
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Get close to someone
Paperless handouts
http://plpwiki.com
Back Channel Chat
http://todaysmeet.com/clc

3. Lani Ritter Hall
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Co-Founder & CEO
Powerful Learning Practice, LLC
Community Leader http://plpnetwork.com
Powerful Learning Practice, LLC sheryl@plpnetwork.com
http://plpnetwork.com
lani@plpnetwork.com Website and blog
21st Century Collaborative
Website and blog http://21stcenturycollabrative.com
http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com

6. Goals for Today
1. Tell you a little about our book and how
it is unique.
2. Give you some insight into what the
next generation of PLCs will look like.
3. Discuss what it means to be a
connected learner
4. Share your learning with each other.

7. What’s Different About This Book?
• Learner first- Educator second
• Next generation PLCs: Connected
Learning Communities (CLCs)
• DIY PD
• You become a connected
learner

8. Things do not change; we change.
—Henry David Thoreau
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
What are you doing to contextualize and
mobilize what you are learning?
How will you leverage, how will you enable
your teachers or your students to leverage-
collective intelligence?

9. Lead Learner
Native American Proverb
“He who learns from one who is learning, drinks
from a flowing river.”
Sarah Brown Wessling
2010 National Teacher of the Year
Describes her classroom as a place
where the teacher is the “lead learner”
and “the classroom walls are
boundless.”

10. Learner First---Educator Second
It is a shift and requires us to rethink who we
are as an educator. It requires us to redefine
ourselves.
Think About
• What have you learned? One take away.
• Share with someone near you

11. The Disconnect
• THE I go to school, I EDUCATOR
“Every timeCONNECTEDhave to
power down.” --a high school
student

12. 6 Trends for the digital age
Analogue Digital
Tethered Mobile
Closed Open
Isolated Connected
Generic Personal
Consuming Creating
Source: David Wiley: Openness and the disaggregated
future of higher education

13. Are you Ready for
Learning and Leading
in the 21st Century
It isn’t just “coming”… it has arrived! And schools who aren’t
redefining themselves, risk becoming irrelevant in preparing
students for the future.

14. Defining the Connected Educator
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Our lives are connected by a
thousand invisible threads.
—Herman Melville

15. Do it Yourself PD
A revolution in technology has transformed the way
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
we can find each other, interact, and collaborate to
create knowledge as connected learners.
What are connected learners?
Learners who collaborate online; learners who use
social media to connect with others around the globe;
learners who engage in conversations in safe online
spaces; learners who bring what they learn online
back to their classrooms, schools, and districts.

16. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

17. What does it
mean to be a
connected
learner with a
well developed
network?
What are the
advantages or
drawbacks?
How is it a
game changer?

18. Dispositions and Values
Commitment to understanding asking Dedication to the
good questions ongoing development
of expertise
Explores ideas and concepts,
rethinking, revising, and continuously Shares and contributes
repacks and unpacks, resisting
urges to finish prematurely
Engages in strength-based approaches
Co-learner, Co-leader, Co-creator and appreciative inquiry
Self directed, open minded Demonstrates mindfulness
Commits to deep reflection Willingness to leaving one's comfort
zone to experiment with new strategies
Transparent in thinking and taking on new responsibilities
Values and engages in a culture of
collegiality

19. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Professional development needs to change.
We know this.
A revolution in technology has transformed
the way we can find each other, interact,
and collaborate to create knowledge as
connected learners.

20. Define
Community
Define
Networks

21. A Definition of Community
Communities are quite simply, collections of
individuals who are bound together by natural will
and a set of shared ideas and ideals.
“A system in which people can enter into relations
that are determined by problems or shared ambitions
rather than by rules or structure.” (Heckscher, 1994, p.
24).
The process of social learning that occurs when people who
have a common interest in some subject or problem
collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find
solutions, and build innovations. (Wikipedia)

22. A Definition of Networks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Networks are created through publishing and sharing ideas and
connecting with others who share passions around those ideas who
learn from each other.
Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining
connections with people and information, and communicating in such
a way so as to support one another's learning.
Connectivism (theory of learning in networks) is the use of a
network with nodes and connections as a central metaphor for
learning. In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be
connected to another node: information, data, feelings,
images. Learning is the process of creating connections and
developing a network.

23. Connected Learning
The computer connects the learner to the rest of the world
Learning occurs through connections with other learners
Learning is based on conversation and interaction
Stephen Downes

24. Connected Learner Scale
Share (Publish & Participate) –
Connect (Comment and
Cooperate) –
Remixing (building on the
ideas of others) –
Collaborate (Co-construction of
knowledge and meaning) –
Collective Action (Social Justice, Activism, Service
Learning) –

25. “Understanding how
networks work is one
of the most important
literacies of the 21st
Century.”
- Howard Rheingold
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

26. Knowledge Construction
Practitioners’ knowledge = content & context

28. 1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face
connections among members of a committed
group—a professional learning community (PLC)
• THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
2. Global network: Individually chosen, online
connections with a diverse collection of people
and resources from around the world—a personal
learning network (PLN)
3. Bounded community: A committed, collective,
and often global group of individuals who have
overlapping interests and recognize a need for
connections that go deeper than the personal
learning network or the professional learning
community can provide—a community of practice
or inquiry (CoP)

29. Professional Learning
Communities
The driving engine of the collaborative culture of a PLC is
the team. They work together in an ongoing effort to
discover best practices and to expand their professional
expertise.
PLCs are our best hope for reculturing schools. We want
to focus on shifting from a culture of teacher isolation to
a culture of deep and meaningful collaboration.
FOCUS: Local , F2F, Job-embedded- in Real Time

30. FOCUS:
Situated,
Synchronous,
Asynchronous-
Online and
Walled Garden
Communities of Practice

31. Connection Collaboration
Celebration Communication
Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, 2010
User Generated
Co-created
Content

32. Personal Learning
Networks
FOCUS: Individual, Connecting to Learning Objects, Resources
and People – Social Network Driven

34. responsive
responsive

35. personalized

36. Do it Yourself PD as Communities
Of Practice
Self Directed
Connected Learners
DIY-PD
Personal
Learning
Networks
F2F Teams
"Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise,
DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and
expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who
have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge
for him/herself." (Wikipedia, n.d.)

37. Community is the New Professional Development
Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a) describe three ways of knowing and constructing
knowledge…
Knowledge for Practice is often reflected in traditional PD efforts when a trainer shares
with teachers information produced by educational researchers. This knowledge
presumes a commonly accepted degree of correctness about what is being shared. The
learner is typically passive in this kind of "sit and get" experience. This kind of knowledge
is difficult for teachers to transfer to classrooms without support and follow through.
After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind, pressures and
isolation of teaching.
Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of teacher experience and practical
knowledge in improving classroom practice. As a teacher tests out new strategies and
assimilates them into teaching routines they construct knowledge in practice. They learn
by doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teachers reflect and share with one
another lessons learned during specific teaching sessions and describe the tacit
knowledge embedded in their experiences.

38. Community is the New Professional Development
Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where teachers create
knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying
their own classroom teaching practices collaboratively, allows educators to
construct knowledge of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of
classroom practice to a more systemic view of learning.
I believe that by attending to the development of knowledge for, in and of
practice, we can enhance professional growth that leads to real change.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999a). Relationships of knowledge and
practice: Teaching learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24,
249-305.
Passive, active, and reflective knowledge building in local
(PLC), global (CoP) and contextual (PLN) learning spaces.

39. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

40. Change is hard

41. Connected educators are more
effective change agents

42. Let’s just admit it…
You are an agent of
change!
Now. Always. And now
you have the tools to
leverage your ideas.

43. An effective change
agent is someone
who isn’t afraid to
change course.

44. Real Question is this:
Are we willing to change- to risk change- to meet the needs
of the precious folks we serve?
Can you accept that Change (with a “big” C) is sometimes a
messy process and that learning new things together is
going to require some tolerance for ambiguity.

45. Last Generation