Glossary
best practices: practice identified by education researchers as having the greatest impact on student learning
bottom-up approach: in education, defined as a movement generated from a self-organizing group of educators, as opposed to the idea of top-down administrative application
communities of practice: a group of people that usually come together naturally that share a practice, interest or craft; knowledge is shared freely within the group and ties are strengthened as the group works collaboratively, problem-solving over time.
emerging technologies:
Legitimate Peripheral Participation: how newcomers become situated into a community of practice; typically engage in low-risk tasks on the outer edges of the community; necessary to sustain a community
online communities: groups of people that gather online for informational purposes ie. music likes/dislikes, technical help forums, fan clubs, etc.
online communities of practice: groups of people that in online environments that also have the characteristics of local communities of practice, that is they have a shared interest and rely on each other to share information about those interests; they are also sustained and over time develop ways to collaborate and problem solve.
online social networks: social networks that exist in an online forum; popular social networking sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and Twitter
online postings: refers to postings made in an online community, usually in a discussion forum (asynchronous) or chat room (synchronous)
online professional development: emerging trend in offering educators the opportunity to engage in professional learning through the web; current research is focused on developing methods that incorporate best practices for teacher learning; allows for customization and individualization of teacher learning.
situated cognition: knowledge is inseparable from doing; a model of knowledge and thinking that requires thinking on the fly rather than the storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge. Recent perspectives of situated cognition have focused on and draw from the concept of identity formation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) as people negotiate meaning (Brown & Duguid, 2000; Clancey, 1994) through interactions within communities of practice.
social capital: refers to the intangible resources found within the interpersonal relationship in social networks
social networks: A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.
social network analysis: key technique in modern society to analyze the interactions among populations of people
social cognitive theory: what we learn can be attributed to the interactions among people, activity and experiences within our environment
sustainability: the capacity to endure; in education, the ability to create continuity in and among a particular learning event, ie. sustained participation in online communities of practice; sustained professional development.
top-down approach: in context of teacher professional development it is the implementation of change from a hierarchial standpoint, that is the information and expertise is shared from the administration, channeled down through teacher leaders, then to the teachers.
TPACK framework: Technological, Pedagogical, Content Knowledge; a framework for the knowledge needed by teacher to integrate technology into their teaching practices
virtual learning environment: a software system designed to support teaching and learning in an educational setting; many of today’s virtual learning environments can be found online
