Connecting, Collaborating, Continuing to Learn

Penuel and Riel utilize social network analysis to take a hard look at school leadership and teacher communities of practice.  They also discuss the way information moves about and within a school network.  The potential for this analysis to provide helpful insight into teaching, learning and assessment is great.  The study of social ties and the resources they gain as well as the ability of the Web 2.0 collaborative tools to generate a continuous flow of information forces us to look at social networks differently than we have in recent years.  The authors propose that it is with greater understanding of the inner workings of social networks that we can “better understand how to support and promote school change.”

Science of networks: Answer two important questions:

1. When does teacher collaboration lead to school change?

2. What are the forces that increase or restrict flow of information and expertise among members of a teaching community?

• Used social network analysis and a longitudinal design to identify patterns of collaboration and sharing of expertise among teachers that lead to self-reported changes in practice.
• 23 California schools
• Currently engaged in reform efforts (school wide)
• Hoped to see if schools that wanted to increase collaboration were successful in implementing it across the whole faculty to achieve whole-school change.

Findings:

1. Assumption is that it was important to connect everyone with everyone across the network, not so.  It wasn’t about how many people, but the expertise level of the people you did talk to.  Most teachers interact based on physical proximity.  ie. hallways, teacher’s lounge, location of classroom, lunch time, etc.  The nature of the ties between people is what really mattered in helping implement the school’s reform.  In short, “it mattered a great deal WHO was in a teacher’s network, not just how large or small that network was.”

2.  Having a diverse network that includes both close friends and acquaintances is helpful.  Strength in weak ties. Teachers tend to form subgroups; tend to share with their closest colleagues, however when those teachers shared with other teachers outside their subgroups, there tended to me an increase in resources, or more “social capital” to help implement change.

3. Don’t try to make everyone an expert all at once, however, do make the experts visible.  NCLB would like us to think about teacher quality in terms of the individual, however, even the best teachers can not maintain the level of knowledge and there fore become ineffective with the support of continuous learning they gain from a network of individuals.  Collective expertise.  Schools that allow teachers to talk about their practice, share successes and strategies, discuss instructional resources with are more successful in reform efforts.  Also important to recognize success and achievement in a positive manner that encourages teacher to look to their peers for support and resources.

4.  A mixed approach to allow teachers to share information and learn from each other is most effective.  Establishing a clear “chaine of command” or “letting a hundred flowers bloom” are effective ways to help teachers collaborate.  Top-down or bottom-up, leadership has to clearly evolve and be recognized and come from within the network.  Engaging in cross curricular discourse and allowing people to share expertise across the discussion groups is helpful.

5. Time. Free up your experts within the network to allow them to collaborate with others.  The “bridges” or “nodes” in the network are key factors in increasing the flow of social capital within the network. Network analysis can help identify those places within the network.  Potential “hidden resources”.

“Identify the true experts and enabling them to help others may be especially critical when dollars for formal professional development are scarce, as they are in many schools.  Professional development can be and effective means of preparing teachers to implement an innovation.  Yet the kind of practice-linked and sustained professional development that is necessary is expensive and not always available, even for reforms deemed important by the state or district.  Therefore, the informal network and the informal leaders within it may be the most important resources for facilitating implementation of a reform.” p. 4

Trust. Critical Factor

Trust has a strong impact of the flow of information within a network.  Teachers need to have an open mind and be willing to try new things if school reform is to be successful.  Trust is built up between two people within a network when they keep their promises, provide help and receive help freely, and successfully work together through problems.

We must continue to develop ways to analyze the qualitative aspects of social networks.  There are important aspects of social networks that are emerging and changing due to the increased use of technology to enhance communities of practice.  In understanding how teachers interact within these communities of practice we may be able to maximize the bridges and nodes within these networks to increase social capital school wide.

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher participation in online communities.  The findings resulted in five categories: sharing emotions, utilizing resources, combating teacher isolation, exploring ideas, experiencing a sense of camaraderie. The development of community, promoting teacher self-esteem and providing support for teachers are keys to successful professional development.  Communication is more accessible due to the increasing power of the internet and the availability of web 2.0 tools.  Tapped In (Schlager & Fusco, 2008) and Inquiry Learning Forum (Barab et. al., 2001) are two examples of communities that have been organized for teachers in online environments.  However self-generated online communities have not been sufficiently researched.  Teachers create their own learning environments all the time and often participate for many years.  Yet they often do not participate in online learning communities for research purposes. ( Zhao & Rop, 2002) This might lead us to understanding the motivation behind participation in these online communities.

Social learning theory (Putnam & Borko, 2000) explain three ways to view cognition; cognition as situated, cognition as social and cognition as distributed.

Cognition as situated: knowledge and learning are situated in cotexts where learning takes place.

Cognition as social: emphasizes social aspects of learning; what people consider to be knowledge and how people think and develop ideas within communities of practices over time. Knowledge is the outcome of ongoing interactions within groups of people.

Cognition as distributed: cognitive properties are not solely individual; rather they are distributed across individuals (Lave, 1993)

Emotional Sharing: Ongoing debate about the definition of emotions.

Emotions can be initiated by cognition synchronously or as an antecedent to it.  People often share emotions with others, especially during extremely negative or positive events.  The majority of people share emotion with intimate companions, such as parents, a spouse, or close friends. (Christophe & Rime’, 1997)

Teachers need to have ownership in a community in order for it to be successful.  Wenger (1998) describes communities of practice as self-generating.  This bottom-up approach to network development is mirrored in the development of online communities This article describes the sociotechnical structures of the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF), which is a web based professional development tool designed to support math and science teachers and reflects on the components of successful networks and communities of practice in hopes to better understand the structures within the community that allow for it’s development.

We need to focus on a new model for teacher learning; one that is community based.  The problem is that this model cannot be imposed in a top-down approach. Community centered learning must be facilitated and have a great deal of user-driven formation.  Unfortunately teachers do not have the opportunity to discuss, interaction and participate in their communities of practice in the ways that will afford them the opportunity to impact school reform.

(Note: article written in 2001; despite the years that have passed, many of the same problems exist.  New technologies have afforded teachers with greater opportunity to engage in informal types of social learning for professional development, yet large scale, systemic models don’t exist in most schools.)

Inquiry Learning Forum is designed to assist teachers to come together in a virtual space to visit each other’s classrooms to observe and discuss best practices.  The vison of the creators of the website is to create a space that helps teachers make their teaching explicit so that it can be shared with others.

Article describes the design, analysis and development, but I am most interested in the process of supporting sociability.

Communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) activity binds individuals to community; shared practices and experience over time result in learning that is continually evolving through each interaction.  Barab & Duffy, 2000, state that when learning occurs as part of a community of practice, members interacting with this community have access to this history of previous negotiations as well as responsiveness from the current members on the functional value of a particular practice, solution or finding.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) state that in order for the community to be sustained, there must be a continual contribution of new members, new ideas, etc.  One of the ways this occurs is for members on the outer edges of the community to participate in small ways, slowly moving towards the center regions of the community.

In this study of online teacher community called INDISCHOOL in Korea, the researchers examined online postings from the community and conducted interviews.  12 factors were identified as a resulte of this study.  8 supporting factors and 4 factors that were inhibiting. The factors were further categorized into three areas; internal, external and outcome factors.

Existing professional development models don’t meet teacher needs. Often there is not follow up to the one or two day workshops and no time allotted for implementation or discussion of practice.  Often there is a disconnect between what teacher need to learn, what they want to learn and what the school district offers.

Distributed Cognition: knowledge is distributed across people and tools, resulting in collective knowledge which is greater than the sum of individual knowledge. (Johnson 2001; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Salmon, 1993)

Wegner (1998) claims that communities of practice cannot be designed, they are self-organizing depending on the needs of the users.  This could describe the current phenomena of online social networks and their popularity in the educational community.  Traditionally teachers are not afforded the opportunity to engage in discussion, sharing, or learning based on individual preference and need.  Typical professional development models are most offen top-down in nature with the needs of the group taking preference over the needs of the individual. Online communities of practice and online professional development opportunities allow teachers to engage in practice based on their needs, learning styles and areas of interest.

Sustainability: communities need members who are committed and motivated in order to thrive.  Common goals, vision, shared interests and trust are all factors that contribute to the growth and sustainability of a community of practice.  While the vast amount of research lies ahead of us, there is substantial theory (Schalger et. al, 2009; Barab & MaKinster, 2003; Dube,Bourhis & Jacob, 2005; Zhao & Rop, 2002) that the factors that contribute to the growth and development of communities of practices in physical locations will, if replicated in an appropriate manner, contribute to the growth and development of communities of practice that are established online and in virtual worlds.

Methodology:

Single case study; intention is to identify factors influencing the sustainable nature of the online community; wanted to explore this from the teachers’ perspective rather than understand the community as a whole.

Three sets of data were collected; interview transcriptions, archived web postings, and researcher’s observation notes.

Findings

Two categories: Support and Hindrance; divided within each into three subgroups, internal, external and outcomes.

Supporting factors: Internal: Having autonomy, having a sense of ownership, acknowledging values of participation

Supporting factors: External: Providing online and offline interaction, providing an easy way to use tech systems

Supporting factors: Outcomes: helping novice teachers become confident educators, assisting in overcoming teacher isolation, meeting teachers individual needs

Hinderance factors: Internal: Teachers’ lack of confidence, previous negative experience in online communities,

Hinderance factors:External: Lack of technological support, discouraging teacher’s active learning

This study left me with some questions:

As a result in the increase of technological knowledge and expertise, would the hinderance-external factor of lack of technological support be reduced?

How do we create environments for active participation?  Discouraging teachers’ active learning was a hinderance-outcome factor.  Information sharing is a wonderful aspect of the internet. Downside is that some teachers will not actively share, they will just “steal”.  We need to understand what motivates teachers to participate actively, finding a balance between give and take.  My initial thoughts are that that type of outcome exists in current physical environments and for that matter, in most organizations.  There are always people who do more, share more, engage more often, etc.  This may be a factor we just have to accept, all the while working to increase participation for those that might just be apprehensive in trying new things.

Editorial: Journal of Teacher Education, theme issue: Innovative Uses of Technology for Teacher Learning

Wicked Problem: problem that include a large number of complex variables.

The fast pace of the growth of digital technologies combined with the complexities of teaching and learning has amazing potential, while at the same time, presents difficult and challenging problems.

The authors of this editorial frame the topics outlined in the issue around TPACK, teacher knowledge related to integrating technology, technological pedagogical content knowledge.

1. What are the pedagogical affordances and constraints of digital technologies?

Technology: is the knowledge creation and use of tools and techniques to control and adapt to our environment; includes analogue technologies ie. pencil, chalkboard, microscope as well as newer technologies, digital technologies ie. internet, email, video games. We are only just beginning to realize the academic potential of the newer technologies.

Reasons teachers like them:

• limitless capacity to store information
• accessibility, search and retrieval
• ability to manipulate artifacts to capture the interrelations
• No constraints of time or place (anytime, anywhere)

Potential to:

• Education to reach a large number of people, including remote spaces
• Asynchronous participation in online communities allows for anytime, any place collaboration
• Synchronous participation allows for real time discussions, spanning distances, connecting spaces

Complications:

• Instability: rapid pace of innovation results in continuous change
• Knowledge is never fixed; constantly faced with the need to know more
• Fast to deliver technology = more bugs, less reliability, dependable structure
• Challenges organizational financial and intellectual resources

“As a result, the never-ending process of learning to use advanced information and digital technologies in teaching can be fraught with ambiguity and frustration. (Koehler & Mishra, 2008)

2. In what ways can we use digital technologies in teacher education and professional development?

• Strong impact; can reach large numbers of people, potentially cost-effective
• Technologies can provide individualized professional development and just-in-time learning to meet the needs of busy teachers.
• Video, online social networks and online professional development programs.
• Hatch & Grossman, 2009; Santagata, Sherin and van Es, 2009, explore the use of video
• Online communities like Tapped In (Schlager and Fusco, 2003); update 2009

3. How can digital technologies support teacher’s integration of technology into classroom teaching?

• Not addressed in this issue, but needs to be explored further
• What knowledge and skills must teachers have to use technology effectively in their teaching?
• NETS (National Educational Technology Standards for Teacher)

TPACK is a “compelling conceptualization” of the knowledge teachers need to effectively integrate technology into their practice.  I think that developing technological skills for personal learning that teachers will become more effective teachers, in that they will be able to clearly see the relations between the use of technology, pedagogy, content and knowledge.  The technological knowledge cannot be ignored, however it also cannot be taught through the traditional models of professional development currently in practice.  Teachers need to incorporate it into their own learning.  Just as the NWP’s philosophy of teaching writing challenges teachers to become good writers into order to be good writing teachers, technology skills need to be developed much in the same manner.  Technology is not a content area, but a skill, like reading, writing, computation, that must become ubiquitous in order to be infused into the educational systems.

Just about a decade into the 21st century and we are increasingly utilizing the web for more and more of our daily activities.  The ubiquitous nature of online tools is transforming the ways in which people communicate and connect.  The increasing popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter have paved the way for serious conversation about the use of these tools in the educational community.  The evidence is clear.  The National School Boards Association (2007) reports that nearly 96% of students with access to the internet have participated in the use of social network technologies.  What’s even more important to educators is that more than 50% of student talk online specifically about homework.  The same report suggests that in schools that utilize structured online professional communities for teacher collaboration and communication, participation is high. So what does this mean for educational researchers, administrators, teachers and the other participants in our public education system?  We need to take online networks seriously.

“To harness the power of this societal transformation to serve teaching and learning, we need to understand the phenomenon and unlock the value it holds.”

In their study, Analzying Online Teacher Networks, Schlater, Farooq, Fusco, Schank and Dwyer (2009) argue that there are limitations to existing research that don’t allow us to explore the potential power of these social networks.  There is a great deal of content that is generated in these environments.  We need to explore ways the incorporate integrated and automated methods to collect this data.  In additional we need to create more analytical frameworks that allow for a more insightful approach to data analysis.  Even traditional Social Network Analysis methods have difficulty gaining access to and managing both the amount and types of data collected.  Online social networks are often large in scale and boundaries are difficult to determine. The authors go on to claim,  “The cyber-environment offers the ability to capture and analyze more complete and objective records of peoples actions and interactions automatically over time, however digital actions are not simple to mine or interpret. In addition, interaction data are missing a key ingredient of SNA: judgments about the strength of social ties.”

Research supported propositions:

1.  Research indicates that professional networks among educators are increasing in use and may play an important role in improving education.

2. Participation in online networks may, in fact, support teachers practice and facilitate the development of new knowledge, however the activities and value are not well understood.

3. Major obstacles to full utilization of these teacher networks is the “lack of appropriate framworks, tools and techniques for studying them.”

Social Network Analysis: a mathematical approach to analyzing the interactions and relations of entities (in the case of educational networks, people) in a network and creating a visual representation , called a sociogram, mapping the structure and strength of relationships.  (Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988)

Using this analysis researchers are able to understand how information and resources flow between individuals in a network.  (Frank & Zhao, 2005; Frank, Zhao and Borman, 2004) (and others) Through this work we can begin to develop ways to understand how social ties within a educational organization are formed and how the social capital (resoruces obtained from the social ties) can support and promote school change.

“This body of work is breaking new ground in correlating the existence of social capital with outcomes that matter to practitioners and policy makers (e.g. higher student test scores, more helping behaviors, and successful implementation of reform practices.”

Sociologists often analyze social networks using mathematical models.  As an aspect of positive leadership within schools, social network analysis is a good way to get a feel for what is happening in a organization.  School activities, student stories, sharing best practices and tips for innovative uses of technology can all be observed through understanding the social networks that exist. Some key findings from this study include:

1. It’s not just how many people you talk to, but whom you talk to.  Proximity also plays a key role in your interactions within the school.  Time is a critical factor.

2. The attitudes and experience of those in your network greatly impact your attitudes toward teaching and learning.

3.  Taking advantage of the expertise outside of the subgroups of your social network can provide greater access to resources, thus increasing the “social capital” and allowing for greater opportunity to make changes within one’s own practice.

4.  “The goal of trying to make everyone an expert all at once does not strengthen the network; making effective expertise visible to all does work.” Traditional models of professional development and attempts to make all teachers “highly qualified” have stifled teachers abilities to engage in continuous learning.

5.  Short hand comments like “I do project-based learning” or “I engage in digital practices” aren’t specific enough to provide insight into the actual teaching practices that a teacher enacts in the classroom.  Other teachers may nod in agreement and believe they they too engage in similar practices, yet in fact the two practices may be quite different.  Making practices public and allowing time for collaborative reflection of teaching performance allows teachers to make tacit knowledge more explicit; “exploring teaching philosophies and strategies beyond the shorthand comments.”

6.  Allow teachers the opportunity to engage in a matrix type model of collaborative work where educators across disciplines interact and share view points, expanding their perspectives.

7.  Within all social networks experts emerge.  School leaders need to recognize the importance of these leaders and allow time for them to interact effectively within the network. “Identifying the true experts and enabling them to help others may be especially critical when dollars for formal professional development that is necessary is expensive and not always available…the informal network and informal leaders within it may be the most important resources for facilitating implementation of a reform.”

8.  Trust is a “core resource” for school reform.  Trust is constructed when those in the network establish relationships that allow information to move freely, help as often as possible and “muddle through difficult problems to reach a joint solution.”

What is the threshold for trust?  Unknown for sure.  Interesting to look at. What is it about the combination of people within the network that allows trust to grow?

This article particularly, (and in combination with my interview with Yong Zhao) started my thinking in the direction of social capital and the ability of social networks to increase or decrease the flow within organizations.  This ideas has helped me to bridge some of the gaps in my own thinking as to what personal learning networks can do for school reform (not broad based, systematic school reform, but simple, small, building based school reform).  Each teacher is viewed as a portal for information/experience sharing.  From an organizational viewpoint, what does this do to/for the network?  Does this flow of social capital differ in a rural or urban setting?  Do schools that have active participants in online social networks have an increase of social capital within their building?  I think the overlap of the local social network, maybe your building based community of practice with a similar community of practice that exists partially on the web can be a very energizing place, bringing in new ideas and affording teachers with a stage to display their own best practices, getting constructive criticism and often well deserved praise.

Lieberman and Pointer-Mace continue to redefine the field of professional development and teacher learning.  As the ability to collaborate and connect via the web affords teachers with new opportunities, Liberman and Pointer-Mace frame our thinking around possibilities for changing learning environments and protocol for teachers.  As teachers and administrators reach out through the web, the practice of teaching is becoming more and more public.  Teachers are opening up their classrooms in communities of practice that extend beyond the walls of our brick and mortar buildings.  This increased publicity allows a forum of reflection, discourse and analysis of current teaching practices.  No longer do teachers have to rely on their administrators or local intermediate school districts to transport knowledge into their buildings; they are finding more ways to engage in meaningful practice of for increasing their own knowledge base.  Solving problems they encounter in the classroom, from behavior management to methodological approaches to teaching mathematics, teachers are reaching out to their peers for assistance and feedback.  Lieberman and Pointer-Mace suggest we are entering into a new conversation about teaching, “instead of anecdotal venting in the teachers lounge at lunch, we imagin faculty looking closely at a writing workshop conference video and a piece of student work saying, “Wow! Did you notice that?  What do you think?”  This new kind of representation, multimedia representation of teaching, affords teachers with the opportunity to (more easily) record, access and reflect upon teaching practices in ways that haven’t been quite so accessibly before.

p. 3  “In Japan, Singapore, and South Korea teachers spend 35% of their time teaching students, while the rest is spent on a variety of activities to enhance their practice, including having shared office space where teachers have access to materials and to each other for large portions of the day. (Kang & Hong, 2008)

Ken Frank spoke to us about his observations in Finland.  Students are outside for 15 minutes of every hour.  In addition to the obvious health and learning benefits for children, this allows teachers to talk, to share, to collaborate 15 minutes of every hour in the school day.  It is a consistent and sustainablemodel of professional learning.

Annotations from:

Hew, K. F., & Hara, N. (2007). Empirical study of motivators and barriers of teacher online knowledge sharing.    Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(6), 573-595. doi: 10.1007/s11423-007-9049-2

Khe Foon Hew from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Noriko Hara of Indiana University Bloomington, engaged in an empirical study of the flow of knowledge in online communities. They examined the types of knowledge that was shared and also explored the the motivators and barriers involved in the sharing of knowledge. Hew and Hara looked a Literacy Educator listsev, examining select postings during the month of February in the years 2003-2006. They also conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers who were members of the listserv. This research is important as educational researchers examine ways in which we can enhance and support continuous professional development opportunities for teachers. Two approaches discussed in this article, formal and informal knowledge sharing approaches can both be found throughout current models of professional development. Formal knowledge sharing is found frequently throughout the public education system , often taking the form of workshops or conferences. This non-authentic learning environment is often criticized because it does not take place in the location in which the learning is applied. (Brown and Duguid, 1996). Informal knowledge sharing takes place in much more authentic environments. These environments are also typically more social in nature. According to Schulager and Fusco, 2003, they can have a powerful impact in helping teachers to improve their practice.

Communities of Practice (CoP): Wenger et al. 2003, “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaccting on an ongoing basis” (p. 4).

Three defining characteristics: domain, community and practice (Snyder et al. 2004). They can come in different forms; face to face as well as online.

Motives for involvement from Baston et al. 2002

• egoism: increase personal benefit ie. prizes, pay, recognition
• altruism: increases the welfare of one or more than one person other than yourself (serving community to benefit the individuals)
• collectivism: increase the welfare of the group (serving community to benefit the group)
• principlism: end goal of upholding moral principles

Use of technology as a tool can also motivate or hinder one’s participation in an online community. Davis, 1993 p. 477: “the degree to which an individual believes that using a particular system would be free of physical and mental effort” (I wonder in what ways the advances in technology has impacted participation in online communities. There are more opportunities for participation today. There seems to be an increase in the use of online tools to access information on the internet; does this translate into an increase in participation in online communities of practice?

Lack of visual cues, tone of voice, etc. impact the ways in which people interact in online communities. It can be both a motivator and a barrier. People tend to focus more on the message rather than each other (Kiesler 1986) however there is also room for miscommunication when text only communication lacks the cues that help define meaning and feeling.

Results:

Research Question 1: What activities do teachers engage with one another?

• Request
• Appreciation
• Administrative
• Announcement
• Apology
• Clarification
• Compliment
• Empathy
• Sharing knowledge

Research Question 2:What knowledge do teachers share with one another?

• Book knowledge
• Practical knowledge

Research Question 3: What motivates teachers to share their knowledge?

• Collectivism
• Reciprocity
• Personal Gain
• Altruism
• Technology
• Respectful environment
• Interest of the seeker

Research Question: 4: What hinders teachers from sharing their knowledge?

• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of time
• Technology
• Avoiding confrontation
• Negative attitudes of the seeker

Practice Dependent: motivators for sharing knowledge may be practice dependent, that is they may differ greatly between professions. For example in highly competitive fields like law, finance or science the participating members of the community may not want to share information as freely as teachers seem to do in their practice. They may be afraid that someone else will benefit from their ideas and they are less likely to see a “greater good” purpose for information sharing.

I have spent the last two weeks deeply immersed in conversation centered around digital literacy.  As a member of the National Writing Project and the technology liaison for the Chippewa River Writing Project, I was fortunate to have been invited to attend a new event this year held as a precursor to the annual meeting.  Digital Is…Convening was held on Wednesday, November 18th in Philadelphia.  It was an incredibly intimate event, only about 150 attendees, all interested in the ways the digital world impacts learning.  What’s interesting about being involved in an event like this is the ability to engage in meaningful conversation.  Many times at conferences, those of us interested in educational technology find ourselves first defending it’s place in education before we move into any discussion about pedagogical practices.  We spend much of our energy convincing those that don’t believe that there is, in fact, solid, convincing reasons to pay attention to the ways in which technology is/can/will/should change our teaching practices.  We tire from the effort it takes to convince those that don’t engage themselves in the use of digital learning and often get distracted.  Coming to an event where those in attendance already believe in the importance, engage in the practice and and understand the potential of digital learning and the field of educational technology was both energizing and peaceful and thought provoking all at the same time.  The conversations that took place between the Tuesday evening social and the events held throughout the main event on Wednesday were rich, thoughtful and caused me to pause and think about the diverse ways in which this “revolutionary” shift is impacting, not just our schools, but our communities, our country and the world as a whole.

As you can imagine, the opportunity for blog topics from this experience was limitless.  There are several important take-a-ways that I would like to share and I kept a running list from the conference and will hopefully blog about them separately very soon.  However during my drive to the U.P. for a holiday celebration with my family, I listened to three podcasts from Steve Hargadon’s Future of Education series: Larry Cuban, Henry Jenkins and John Seeley Brown. If you have never taken the time to listen to any of these interviews, I highly recommend pausing to do so.  Hargadon is an insightful host, asks engaging questions and keeps the conversation focused.  While all three of these men have a great deal to say about digital learning, new literacies and the integration of technology into our teaching practices, the interesting part in each of these podcasts, for me, was their views on blogging.

Larry Cuban’s blog is a collection of wonderfully written posts focused on school reform, specifically ways in which policy impacts practice.  Cuban, in his interview with Steve Hargadon talks about the practice of blogging and the ways in which it has impacted his own thinking and learning.  He has three rules for his blog: 1. Write in a clear and concise manner.  2.  Keep the topics focused on the issues he is passionate about and 3. Limit the entries to 800 words.  He said it has been a good practice from both a writing aspect (he writes more often) and from a community perspective (enjoys seeing the comments, getting emails, connecting with people).  Cuban, at the age of 75, has studied technology’s impact on education for over five decades.  While not willing to concede an educational  revolution, he does admit that the ability of the tools available today are different than previous technologies and that their impact on education remains to be seen.

I’m going to digress a bit and offer up some additional perspective that frames my recent thinking.  In my prosem with David Wong, we  just read an article, David Labaree  (2003) The Peculiar Problem of Preparing Educational Researchers. The discussions in our online environment have centered around the disconnect between the thinking of practicing teachers and the thought processes needed for becoming an educational researcher.  In addition to this article, all three of my courses this semester have raised the issue of a potential gap that seems to exists between teachers in the field of K-12 learning and those involved in educational research at the university level.  The combination of conversations, articles and these podcasts has led me to think that in fact, blogs might be a way to bridge that gap, make a pathway for connections between the university world and the field of K-12 education.

In John Seely Brown’s podcast, he talks about the “depressing number of people who actually read articles published in journals”.  Journals cost money and accessibility is limited unless you are associated with a university. Brown continues an offers up blogging as a way to communicate and share emerging ideas.  He says blogs distribute information to a much wider and diverse audience than has ever occurred within the traditional publishing industry.  Jenkins, in his podcast interview,  suggests that all teachers and professors should engage in the practice of blogging. The problem (as any blogger or one who has attempted to blog will tell you) is that it takes time, which means time away from something else.  Jenkins suggests that until it is recognized by the academic community as a meaningful practice, ie. recognized in the tenure track, then it won’t become a prolific part of a university community.  Both Jenkins and Brown suggest that blogging is a type of service as well as a practice of scholarship.  Jenkins suggests that in addition to the problem of “counting” in the tenure system, there is a fear among researchers when it comes to sharing ideas.  The idea of putting yourself out there and the possibility of someone taking credit for your work is scary to some people.  Jenkins proposes that blogging in the academic community is a practice that will allow for discourse across disciplines, and that is, in and of itself, a frightening practice for some, especially those that are used to writing, sharing and holding conversation within their own fields.  Brown adds that the in the past we defined ourselves by what we wore or what we owned or how much money we had; today we are defining ourselves by what we have created and what we shared as well as what others have taken and done with those creations.  For example, it’s not enough that you write a blog and post it,  but that there is interaction among the community with and in the information the blog contains.  It is the links, the comments, the engagement in conversation and the possibility for debate and enlightenment that makes blogging a worthwhile form of scholarship.  Brown references Andrew Sullivan’s article, Why I Blog and describes the ways in which Sullivan’s learning is transformed by the interactions in the community that he has created through blogging.

I am throwing all of this out there because it really has me thinking.  In what ways can we support and encourage blogging in the academic community?  How can we properly introduce the idea of blogging as both scholarship and service?  As we engage in this collaborative blog, what are the issues we can raise here, amongst ourselves, that can be shared with the K-12 community in order to begin to “bridge the gap”?  I’m wondering about the possibilities and the future of academic journals to allow subscribers to manage and organize the flow of information with the tools at our fingertips…RSS feeds for research topics designed to expand across journals, key-word searches that allow us to quickly gain access to all of the current trends surrounding our interest areas (much like the TPACK stream found here).  There seems to be powerful tools in existence that allow us to create, manage and share content.  As leaders in the educational field, perhaps we need to take a look at the ways in which we have traditional communicated and expand that to include the tools available in the 21st Century.

These thoughts cross posted at EPET collaborative blog, http://ideaplay.org/?p=126.