Communities of Practice: This Summer's Class!

Already a week in to Communities of Practice, a course I was thinking of taking, decided I wasn't going to take, and in which I'm now enrolled.

It is working out for the better, though, because creating a CoP for faculty development purposes is something about which I've wanted to learn ever since I learned about CoPs a few years ago. Presenters from Penn State spoke at EDUCAUSE about the CoP they had created for faculty, to provide support for educational technology use and integration, and it was fascinatingly informative. The presenters strongly suggested we read Etienne Wenger's Digital Habitats, which is our textbook for this course.

So, I'm pretty hopeful and positive about what we're learning in this course. I have only five classmates though, but sometimes that is actually better, because it's easier to converse online with fewer people. You read everyone's postings and have more time to provide an in-depth and thoughtful response.

I'll let you know how it's going!

Last Week of Class )-:

This class has been the most active one I've been in, discussion-wise, in the seven courses I've taken so far. It was a diverse class of folks with so many things to say!

One thing that was great for me was to have so many folks who look at OLEs from the technological point of view. These classmates had interesting contributions, although I didn't always understand what they were talking about, or necessarily agree, because of my limited perspective and experience.

Other classmates had great insights that were similar to my own (that's not the only reason the insights were great, but it helped. Lol). I was somewhere to the extreme on the non-techie side in that I think I really wanted to concentrate on being gentle and communal, and didn't feel a need to be overly intellectual. I can read my own stuff on my own time and geek out in private. Learning from everyone else was where it was at in this course. There is more that I didn't say than that I did say to folks, about which I'm a little regretful. There are a few days left.

What I wanted to try to do this time was to help other students feel ok and not be overwhelmed, so they would contribute more to the discussion boards because maybe in part they thought one of their classmates cared, which was true! I do care about my classmates. We're all in this together.

For me, that was the biggest takeaway.

A very rewarding comment from one of my techier classmates referred to their point of view as being technological, and that they learned about all the other perspectives and complexities of  teaching and learning in an OLE. I have to thank that person for being who they are, and helping expand my horizons with their specific perspectives. It was that kind of class. I hope everyone is OK and had a positive experience.

Oh, and I read a whole lotta stuff about embedded librarianship too. It was so back to the future-esque: basically, if you are not collaborating well with faculty and with your IT folks, if you are not teaching in the OLE yourself or if you do not have your own course in the OLE, you are not going to get too far.

Collaboration. What's old is new again.

My circa 1981 Frye boots  need some polish....

Embedded Librarianship

It will be embedded librarianship.

That's final. I've committed. Yet still.......
Oh, never mind. There are discussion boards for that.

How can embedded librarianship be made sustainable? I have a great example from Nova, the distance education librarian, the team of librarians reaching out to us in our Bb course sites. Am I jealous? Yes, of course I am. Would I like to do the same thing? I'm going to try.

 

Still no idea what to research

Maybe I want to research everything. Is that bad? I guess so.

Ok, I'm going to settle on "online pedagogy" and see how much of the other topics I want to research I can stuff under that umbrella. Subtopics, I think they're called, right?

Thinking in circles, I've simply come back to the same conclusion: what goes in to being an effective online instructor? Through what lens or which lenses should I view this question? How can I avoid researching MOOCS, because although indulgently interesting, they are not as close to my practical reality as they are for other people?

I'll leave the MOOCS for the future research or discussion part.

Social constructivism's progression to MOOCish connectivism. What a strange word. It seems to need a lot of technology to work, putting the technology front and center again, as a cure-all for learning. I just read an article that used the word "ironic" in reference to connectivism, because the OLE members in the MOOC were more disconnected than connected.

Back from hiatus

OLE!

Back into the ring, for the final push to June 2014.

Online Learning Environments this term, complete with a new version of Bb, a new research proposal to devise by Feb 1, and lotsa new readings.

I have no idea what to research.

Or, better stated, I have a lot of ideas for what to research, but I don't think any of them are going to work.

What do I want to know? Let's see:

• How can an instructor using an OLE allow undergradute students who hate to write express their learning and growth without having to write on a blasted discussion board all the time?
• How do learning preferences affect the ability of people to learn effectively in an OLE, assuming the OLE is a good OLE? (found a couple of things on this topic)
• What faculty development issues are the most important in relation to effective teaching in an OLE?
• Can an OLE be used effectively for faculty support and development? I know that Penn State made a community of practice.

What about my own asynchronous communication behavior?

• If I don't like to write early in the week on the discussion board, but prefer to first read what the early posters write and then respond to it on say, a Wednesday or Thursday, it that selfish of me?
• Am I  therefore a bad classmate because I'm not a blurter and am incapable of thinking quickly, and prefer to learn from everyone else's posts without contributing right away? (Assimilator)
• What if I do my best to compensate for my selfishness by sharing resources I've found through the reading and researching I've been doing, while not posting to the discussion board?