Virtual Learning Communities are best described in the e-book, Connections: Virtual Learning Communities. I like how Richard Schwier describes the term communities as a metaphor and how our perception of a community is very different from our reality of a community. We are all part of a community in some way. It makes me think about how our principle is working to create our middle school community. We are a community because our common interest is that we work and learn in the middle school. He is promoting the family aspect of the community in terms that we are all here to help each other and to learn from each other. This is the idea that Schwier was trying to get across about a good virtual community. I think of this idea he has created at our middle school can easily be transferred into the virtual learning community of our online interests. Using virtual learning communities to build on our "Do-it-yourself-learning" is a great tool where the learning can take place.
There are so many ways to connect with these Virtual Learning Communities. I did a google search to see what would come up with Virtual Learning Communities and there were 4,990,000 sites that came up. The first VLC was one about Everyday Mathematics. It is described as a place for educators to meet and support each other as their students are learning. This is a prime example of how a VLC can be used. I would love to see a VLC come to my school. I think this would be a great place for us as educators to connect and support each other with our professional development and our own desire to learn. One of the issues faced in the middle school is not enough time to connect with our colleagues to discuss the curriculum or even to share ideas around a common topic. I think the VLC would be a great way to accomplish this task.
The only question now I guess is how to promote a VLC in a school? How do you involve teachers to share their ideas and thinking to help each other learn more about a topic? Is there a great way to entice educators who may not be technology savvy? What is the best way to "hook" them into contributing? This is a question that came up in chapter 2 of Connections: Virtual Learning Communities. VLCs are only as good as the contributors. If the contributions are not what people are looking for then they will not come back. So how do you educate educators that may be skeptical about contributing?
Your comment about Everyday Mathmatics being the first result in your search for VLC's reminded me that at our school, many of us participate in the Smart Board Exchange. This is a VLC dedicated to a very specific purpose. Teachers post Smartboard compatible lesson plans that can be downloaded, modified, and moved right into the classroom. I think these types of lessons have a high level of credibility and probably success since they have been created and tested by educators in the field.
ReplyDeleteHi - thanks for sharing the comments about your school and the culture of community that your principal is creating. I also liked your questions about creating a VLC in a school. I've told the other educators I work with that I want to post bookmarks on Diigo so we can share resources. We often share articles and resources we find online, but they get all mixed up in e-mail, and it's hard to remember what I have and where it is. In fact I've already started using Diigo for work bookmarks. The other resource we're using at work is Google+ to share articles and resources and post our thoughts/reactions. We haven't figured out the best and easiest way to share, yet, but I think we'll try several tools and see what works.
ReplyDeleteSharon