This document discusses trends in education and learning in the digital age. It addresses how contemporary technologies and digital resources can best meet the needs of learning communities and personal learning. Key points discussed include the need to shift from isolated to connected learning, from consuming to creating, and from learning as individuals to learning in networked communities. Connected learning communities that leverage collective intelligence through participation, collaboration, and social action are emphasized. Professional development is reframed as occurring through communities and networks rather than traditional workshops. The document advocates becoming connected, DIY learners who are change agents through communities of practice.

2. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Co-Founder & CEO
Powerful Learning Practice, LLC
http://plpnetwork.com
sheryl@plpnetwork.com
President
21st Century Collaborative, LLC
http://21stcenturycollaborative.com
Author
The Connected Educator: Learning
and Leading in a Digital Age
Follow me on Twitter
@snbeach

3. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Housekeeping
Get close to someone
Paperless handouts
http://plpwiki.com
Back Channel Chat
http://todaysmeet.com/catccamp13
#catccamp13

4. My Community Work-
Learning by Doing

5. Mantra for today’s keynote…
We are stronger together than apart.
None of us is as smart, creative, good or
interesting as all of us.

6. • How can the “infusion of contemporary technologies
and digital resources” best meet the needs of our
learning community?
• How can the the “infusion of contemporary
technologies and digital resources” best meet the
needs of my personal learning?
• How will you leverage, how will you enable your
teachers or your students to leverage- collective
intelligence?
Guiding Questions

7. Learner First—
Educator Second
Introduce yourselves to each
other and brag a little. Talk
about (in 2 min or less) the
most recent or compelling
connected learning project
you have recently led,
discovered, or been involved
in.
Emerson and Thoreau
reunited would ask-
“What has become
clearer to you
since we last
met?”

9. The world is changing...

10. 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

11. “We are tethered to our
always on/ always on us
communication devices
and the people and
things we reach through
them.”
~ Sherry Turkle

12. Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0
We are living in a new economy –
powered by technology, fueled by
information, and driven by knowledge.
-- Futureworks: Trends and Challenges for
Work in the 21st Century

13. Shifting From Shifting To
Learning at school Learning anytime/anywhere
Teaching as a private event Teaching as a public
collaborative practice
Learning as passive
participant
Learning in a participatory
culture
Learning as individuals
Linear knowledge
Learning in a networked
community
Distributed knowledge

14. By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500
companies will be using immersive worlds– Gartner
Vice President Jackie Fenn
Libraries 2.0
Management 2.0
Education 2.0
Warfare 2.0
Government 2.0
Vatican 2.0
Credit: Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid
Everything 2.0

15. 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.

16. dangeuslyirrelevant.org
Our kids have tasted the honey.
http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/02/a-taste-of-honey.html

17. 17
Free range learners
Free-range learners choose
how and what they learn. Self-
service is less expensive and
more timely than the
alternative. Informal learning
has no need for the busywork,
chrome, and bureaucracy that
accompany typical classroom
instruction.

18. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
The Disconnect
“Every time I go to school, I have to
power down.” --a high school
student

19. The pace of change is
accelerating

20. It is estimated that
1.5 exabytes of unique new information
will be generated
worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be
more than in the
previous 5,000 years.
Knowledge Creation

21. For students starting a four-year
education degree, this means that . . .
half of what they learn in their first year
of study will be outdated by their third
year of study.

22. Shifts focus of literacy
from individual
expression to
community
involvement.

23. Shifts focus of literacy
from individual
expression to
community
involvement.

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

25. 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) –

26. 26
Education for Citizenship
“A capable and productive citizen doesn’t simply turn up
for jury service. Rather, she is capable of serving
impartially on trials that may require learning unfamiliar
facts and concepts and new ways to communicate and
reach decisions with her fellow jurors…. Jurors may be
called on to decide complex matters that require the
verbal, reasoning, math, science, and socialization skills
that should be imparted in public schools. Jurors today
must determine questions of fact concerning DNA
evidence, statistical analyses, and convoluted financial
fraud, to name only three topics.”
Justice Leland DeGrasse, 2001

27. Are there new Literacies- and if so, what are they?

28. Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-
solving
Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of
improvisation and discovery
Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world
processes
Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed
to salient details.
Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that
expand mental capacities
.

29. Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with
others toward a common goal
Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different
information sources
Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information
across multiple modalities
Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and
respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
.

30. What does it mean to work
in a participatory 2.0 world?
Reflection

31. What is Do -It- Yourself Learning ?

32. How Does One Get Started on the Path
to Becoming a DIY, Connected Educator?

33. Status Quo-- Things are working well most of the time.
THEN
Something happens that creates a sense of urgency to change.
A desire to learn something new. You are presented with
evidence that makes you feel something. It touches you in some
way.
Maybe…
- a disturbing look at a problem
- a hopeful glimpse of the future
- a sobering self reflection
- you hear someone like Ewan McIntosh speak
and are moved to action

34. One of three things happen:
1. Complacency - You are moved but fail act - telling yourself or others, "Everything
is fine."
2. False urgency - You are busy, working-working-working and never reflect or
move yourself to action. You talk and it scratches the itch.
3. True urgency or passion- Urgent behavior is driven by a belief that the world
contains great opportunities and great hazards. It inspires a gut-level
determination to move, and shift, now. You are clearly focused on making real
progress every single day.
You see it. You feel it and you are moved to change or act or learn

36. • Letting go of control
• Willing to unlearn and relearn
• Mindset of discovery
• Reversed mentorship
• Co-learning and co-creating
• Messy, ground zero, risk taking

37. Wonder is both a sense of awe
and capacity for contemplation.
Wonderment begins with
curiosity but then goes deeper
beyond the surface to a place of
possibility. A place we look for
patterns and testing of ideas we
had closed to our more
reasonable mind.
Wonder is to leave aside our
taken-for-granted assumptions,
peel away our biases, and to
willing explore aspects and angles
we wouldn't have seen before.

38. • http://bit.ly/QSqfjI
• PLN Speed Dating

39. It also helps to ask yourself questions like:
1) Why am I planning to do this?
2) How will I initiate this change?
3) Who can I connect with online in my network that can help me?
4) How will I measure my progress? Or how will I know if I am learning?

41. “Understanding how
networks work is one
of the most important
literacies of the 21st
Century.”
- Howard Rheingold
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu
How do you define
networks?

42. In connectivism,
learning involves
creating connections
and developing a
network. It is a theory
for the digital age
drawing upon chaos,
emergent properties,
and self organized
learning.
Photo credit: Cogdogblog
George Siemens

45. responsive
responsive

46. personalized

47. “Twitter and blogs ...
contribute an entirely
new dimension of
what it means to be a
part of a tribe. The
real power of tribes
has nothing to do
with the Internet and
everything to do with
people.”
Internet tribes
ccSteveWheeler,UniversityofPlymouth,2010
“A tribe needs a
shared interest and a
way to
communicate.”

49. Connected Learning Communities provide the personal
learning environment (PLE) to do the nudging

51. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
1. Local community: Purposeful, face-to-face
connections among members of a committed group—a
professional learning community (PLC)
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)

52. • THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR
Professional
Learning
Communities
Personal Learning
Networks
Communities of
Practice
Method Often organized for
teachers
Do-it-yourself Educators organize
it themselves
Purpose To collaborate in
subject area or
grade leverl teams
around tasks
For individuals to
gather info for
personal knowledge
construction and to
bring back info to
the community
Collective
knowledge building
around shared
interests and goals.
Structure Team/group
F2f
Individual, face to
face, and online
Collective, face to
face, or online
Focus Student
achievement
Personal growth Systemic
improvement

53. Community and Networks are 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 information produced by 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 to transfer to local context without support and follow
through. After a workshop, much of what was useful gets lost in the daily grind,
pressures and isolation of doing the work.
Knowledge in Practice recognizes the importance of experience and practical
knowledge in improving practice. As you test out new strategies and assimilates
them into your routines you construct knowledge in practice. You learn by
doing. This knowledge is strengthened when teams reflect and share with one
another lessons learned during application and describe the tacit knowledge
embedded in their experiences.

54. Community and Networks are the new Professional Development
Knowledge of Practice believes that systematic inquiry where learners create
knowledge as they focus on raising questions about and systematically studying
their own practices collaboratively, allows participants to construct knowledge
of practice in ways that move beyond the basics of work routines to a more
systemic view of practice.
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.

57. “ Do you know what who you know knows?” H. Rheingold

59. Critical friends: Form a professional learning team who come together
voluntarily at least once a month. Have members commit to improving
their practice through collaborative learning. Use protocols to examine
each other’s teaching or leadership activities and share both warm and
cool feedback in respectful ways.
Curriculum review or mapping groups: Meet regularly in teams to
review what team members are teaching, to reflect together on the
impact of assumptions that underlie the curriculum, and to make
collaborative decisions. Teams often study lesson plans together.

60. Action research groups: Do active, collaborative research focused
on improvement around a possibility or problem in a classroom,
school, district, or state.
Book study groups: Collaboratively read and discuss a book in an
online space.
Case studies: Analyze in detail specific situations and their
relationship to current thinking and pedagogy. Write, discuss, and
reflect on cases using a 21st century lens to produce collaborative
reflection and improve practice.

61. Instructional rounds: Adopt a process through which
educators develop a shared practice of observing each other,
analyzing learning and teaching from a research perspective,
and sharing expertise.
Connected coaching: Assign a connected coach to
individuals on teams who will discuss and share teaching
practices in order to promote collegiality and help educators
think about how the new literacies inform current teaching
practices.

62. "Imagine an organization with an employee who can accurately see the truth,
understand the situation, and understand the potential outcomes of various
decisions. And now imagine that this person is able to make something happen." ~
Seth Godin.

63. 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.

64. Change is hard

65. Connected learners are more effective
change agents

66. We have a choice: A choice to be powerful or pitiful. A choice to allow ourselves to become
victims of all that is wrong in education or activists. Activists who set their own course. Who
resist the urge to quit prematurely. DIY change agents who choose to be powerful learners on
behalf of the children they serve.