21st Century Learning

Video Podcast - Chillin' with Kevin

Do you know Kevin Honeycutt? If you do not, you should. He is wise, talented, sincere, loves kids, and wildly funny. Here is a vidcast we did at the recent NCAETC conference. The most fun I have ever had in an interview.

We Got Your Back

The disruptive "anytime, anyplace, and that means right now darn it" nature of the tools never ceases to amaze me. So I am in NYC with Will Richardson presenting and a Skype window comes up where someone just added me to their "friends" in Skype. The audience giggles and Will walks behind me and whispers, "Close Skype." I notice it is Al Upton as I am shutting down and smile. I then describe to the audience the battle that this Aussie, who I know through the blogosphere, is going through. You can read more about what happened here.

Short story Al's blog has been disabled in compliance with DECS wishes (Department of Education and Children’s Services - South Australia) It seems that this blog in particular is being investigated regarding risk and management issues.

So this morning I Skype Al to apologize for yesterday and let him know I wasn't being rude but that I had been in the middle of a presentation and the following takes place in Skype:

[7:53:48 AM] Al Upton says: want to be added in?
[7:53:59 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: added in to?
[7:54:08 AM] Al Upton says: skype conference
[7:54:15 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: is there one right now?
[7:54:26 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: yes, I would love to..
[7:54:39 AM] Al Upton says: yep ...  I'll ring stay as long as you like
[7:54:56 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: k I will just listen
[7:55:01 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: getting headset

Anytime, Anyplace, Right Now
Then I am dropped into a voice conversation with several well known Aussies from the blogosphere. Alexander Hayes, Sue Waters, Graham Wegner, and Al Upton. I listen for a moment and then decide to jump in. They are discussing Al and his student's plight and how incredible the response of the network has been (blogging community) in support of what he is going through. (Last check there were 164 comments to his post announcing the closure.) I was invited to attend a meeting on May 2 (Aussie time) that was being held to talk about the advantages of blogging with students. I not only agreed to attend but offered to create a room in Elluminate for many (up to 100) of us in the blogosphere to attend as well. It felt good to have something to offer Al as he walks out this ground breaking case that will have a ripple effect on us all.

Teacher Leadership
My take on what Al is going through is that it could be any of us and what he says and does from this point forward will be very important to watch. We all need to know how to advocate for our students- and how to explain how principled changes in education need to occur if we are going to remian relevant in our student's lives.

Think this is isolated to Australia? While I was in Buffalo, NY a week or so ago I caught a news cast of a Canadian who faces being fired from his teaching position for allowing a chemistry study group to be constructed in Facebook that related to students helping each other study for his course. UPDATE: yikes-- it was a student who faces expulsion-- not a teacher losing his job. The Canadian news station I was watching in Buffalo interviewed the teacher(professor) who was put on suspension. Guess the heat got switched to the student.

How would you respond if faced with a similar challenge. Can you articulate what you believe well enough to defend why you are using these tools? Do you know the foundational research that undergirds why students using social networking tools is important to their future and success? Have you done any action research in your own classrooms that point to similar findings? Do you know where to begin to set up a simple comparison project that would yield those results?  Do you know how to talk to policy makers in short 2 minute elevator speech formats that preach like poetry in terms of the least amount of words to convey the biggest message? Do you know how to approach the media effectively so that what gets written from your interview is similar to what you thought you said? Basically, are you a teacher leader?

These are the roles of a 21st Century educator: Teacher as leader, Teacher as writer, Teachers as 21st Century literacy activist.

Action Research- Documenting your Legacy
Here is one idea for garnering the kind of data you need to help defend your position should you ever be put in a position similar to Al.  You and a couple teachers get together and decide to teach a lesson that covers the standards you typically teach in class. For example, let's say several of you teach the US Civil War in your school. Together you decide on the objectives and assessments. You develop a common assessment (teacher made) that you work on together that measures if the objectives in your Civil War lesson are met. A couple of you deliver the content of your lesson using blogs and other 21st Century tools. Others deliver their content traditionally. Both groups give the common assessment at the end of the lesson. Compare the data.

Here is an example...

Bertelsmann Foundation Report: The Impact of Media and Technology in Schools
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/ashidele/The_Impact_of_Media_by_Bertelsmann_Fdtn.pdf

2 Groups
Content Area: Civil War
One Group taught using Sage on the Stage methodology
One Group taught using innovative applications of technology and project-based instructional models
End of the Study, both groups given identical teacher-constructed tests of their knowledge of the Civil War.

Question: Which group did better?
Answer: No significant test differences were found

However 1 year later...

Students in the traditional group could recall almost nothing about the historical content

Students in the traditional group defined history as: “the record of the facts of the past”

Students in the digital group “displayed elaborate concepts and ideas that they had extended to other areas of history”

Students in the digital group defined history as:
“a process of interpreting the past from different perspectives"

If you are interested in Teacher leadership and how to become an advocate for the profession I would love to talk. Here is a great document you need to read. It is a bit dated in computer years (2001) but pretty state of the art in terms of teacher leadership research.
http://www.iel.org/programs/21st/reports/teachlearn.pdf

Also, the Teacher Leaders Network is another resource I would check out. I helped to develop this vibrant community of practice and it continues to inform and rock my world in ways I never thought possible.

Culture Change- Breaking Down Tradition

Interesting discussion over on Student 2.0 by Sean (the bass player) a student in Scotland and a group of teachers.

The post was inspired from some well meant questions from a caring American adult (teacher) who was chatting with Sean at 1:30am (Scotland). I think it was more the perceived inferences Sean drew from the questions that inspired his post, not necessarily the intentions of the asker, but regardless, the conversation struck a chord with me.

Where do we draw the line?
Sean asks, "Where do we draw the line?" in response to the question- “Does it seem strange to you to associate with a bunch of adults?”  There is more to the conversation- I encourage you to go read Sean's post for contextual reference for this discourse that follows.

The line Sean is talking about has more to do with the hidden rules of tradition and territory than it does with a moral or digital citizenship line of sorts. It is one that while more visible in the 21st Century has been around since Amateur radios began showing up in homes.  It also has a bit to do with motivations, goals, intellect and family culture I think. Let me explain.

It is a matter of family norms and culture
Sean's preference for adults is not new and he certainly isn't the only one. There are others who don't quite fit the mold and in some families it is by design. I homeschooled my four kids. Amber, my oldest (http://myaimistrue.com), only attended 1 year of conventional education. And Grace, my youngest, entered the traditional system in 5th grade(11-12 year olds).They mostly hung with adults and each other- which had some real advantages. Sure, they had some friends that were their own ages who they mostly saw at church or later in the collaborative school I created, but mainly they preferred adults. Why didn't that bother me? Because in our family the culture (mantra) was- I am raising adults, not kids. I wanted the end product to be adults, so having lots of interaction with adults seemed to make sense.

My kids were mature for their age and had lots of questions and interests that other kids simply were not into, so it just made more sense for them to connect with folks who could help them learn what they wanted to learn. Besides, learning in our family took place 24/7 even at 1:30am-- as we all had people we spoke to around the world. And I do not think that is so different than it was for my father as he was a Hamm Radio nut when he was a kid and up at all times of the night trying to accommodate for time zones.

And being a homeschooling family, the more interesting or diverse the adults my kids befriended, the better. Since my kids could pursue their passions in terms of content studied, we actively sought out adult mentors who could serve as SMEs (subject matter experts), and technology helped a great deal with that. My kids would often attend the college classes I taught and participate in the discussions. They felt as comfortable around adults as they did children, not because they were so different- but more because our culture and experience was different. 

Tools today are more powerful
While we didn't have the same tools we have now, we did have some. Bulletin boards and asynchronous chat boards were popular, IRC chat, and various protocols that gave us direct access to each other's machines. Sometimes I would make the relationships online and introduce my new found friends to my kids and sometimes they would introduce me to who they had met. I will admit- in the beginning of all this- there were typically more "techie types" online than there was Joe average, so less chance for a need to exercise digital citizenship (safety)  skills. It simply hadn't caught on yet. However, if I had been given a choice between my kids being online at 1:30 am talking to someone in Scotland who was a responsible adult or having them out riding around in a car, breaking curfew with other immature, age-specific peers-- well you get the idea. Plus, when you raise your kids to be responsible online and have open lines of communication there is a level of trust that is developed. And until that trust is broken, there is no reason to doubt that the relationships  they are making in person or online aren't healthy. Staying involved is the key.

I say all this to say- not all kids are the same. Not all parenting styles are the same. My kids now are all very successful and madly creative. They are well adjusted and have lots of friends. They all say they have fond memories of growing up in a house that included such different learning opportunities and access to a variety of interesting adults through both hands-on and virtual experiences. And they all have continued to develop relationships with interesting adults from around the world.

Teachable Moments and Networking

Let me help you understand the different mind set. Because the culture in our family was learning as a life style and not just when school was in- we were always on "game" in terms of teachable moments.
I remember going to WalMart and seeing two young adults (my age at the time) on bikes who were traveling long distance. I thought, what a cool experience this would be for my kids. I struck up a conversation with these strangers and invited them to stay at my house for a few days. Turns out, Jenny and Dan were from Seattle and had just gotten married. As part of their honeymoon, they decided to take a cross country bike trip for a year and Jenny, a writer was documenting it all on a laptop!!! (Remember 15 years ago laptops were not as common). Boy did I score. Here we had young, interesting adults who used higher order thinking to plan a year long trip, one was a writer, they were traveling and could share their experiences with my kids.

We got out a map and documented everywhere they had been with pins and yarn. (picture shows how we used this technique to study other things too) We researched the geography, culture, and landforms. We talked about how you plan a year long trip and the kids planned their own using their newly found skills. We  looked at bikes in general, the mechanics, how to wrench, the science behind them and the environmental impact. The curriculum we discovered in Jenny and Dan was endless. When they left- they emailed back their locations and we continued to track them on the map.

Well meaning friends asked-- How did you know they weren't mass murders? What if they had been drug addicts or had hurt your children while you slept or what if they had stolen things? All valid questions I guess but  not part of our reality, much like Sean 's feeling of  surprise, " I surprisingly hadn’t thought about it before."

Not Wrong- Just Different
That isn't to say this way is "the" way to raise a family. Homeschooling sure has gotten its share of criticism as well. It is to say that there are different ways to raise kids that are acceptable even if they do not fit into the traditional vein. And adults are not the only ones who feel discomfort with breaking tradition (Sean's post).  Teens also feel territorial about places like MYSpace. My kids use to get asked all the time if it creeped them out that I was on MySpace and Facebook. They would laugh and say not at all as I was there first. 

Bottom Line
I think the most important message I got from what Sean wrote was this- Teachers we need to ask ourselves...

Do we want what we are preaching or not? Do we want kids who know how to use these tools in powerful and pervasive ways to connect and collaborate with others from around the world-- even at the cost of breaking our comfort and relationship with the status quo. Are we willing to unlearn most of what we know and relearn new ways -- new norms-- for how healthy relationships are established and nurtured in the 21st Century? Do we believe in learning ecologies made up of very diverse people who help inform our student's interests and passions?

Model for your students how to build a personal learning network
The kids are ready for relationships defined by community and what each learner has to share- and not bound by the traditions of teachers having to be the expert. I feel I have come full circle. Now rather than looking for teachable moments with interesting adults so my kids can learn what they need to learn, I find myself looking for opportunities to learn with/from interesting students who have garnered skill and wisdom through their use of these participatory medias. I want to learn all Sean has learned in his late night ventures with interesting adults. I hope he doesn't hang with kids all the time and that his parents continue to allow him to be part of a learning community that is trying to leave education a better place.

As educators we need to get ready for a real shift in culture. The shifts that are coming will not allow "business as usual" rather it will be "business as unusual". That is why it is critical for all of us to first own these emerging technologies and the pedagogy/culture that surrounds them, by using Web 2.0 tools to connect- in an effort to chase our own passions. Through the experience of building of your own PLN, not only will you model for your students how this should be done, but you might find some transformational moments along the way -that like mine with Jenny and Dan- will leave you a better person. And do NOT discount what those younger or older than you have to offer. Use expertise and passion- not age- as criteria for who you should learning from and for who should be part of your learning network.

I look forward to your comments, concerns, and push back. Let's have this hard conversation.

Photo credit: http://www.ky4ky.com/yhn.htm

Reflection as an Agent of Real Change

As I was reading Jennifer Jones' post on viral PD today I found myself thinking how cool it is that in a community we all have a piece of the puzzle. One of the challenges we face in the 21st Century though is how we collectively connect ideas in such a way that the big picture becomes clear and everyone can benefit.

I know what you are thinking- ever heard of RSS Sheryl? (Actually, I have been thinking about RSS a lot lately in the work we are doing with PLP). But more my concern is around *managing* successful viral PD. With all the feeds, Google Alerts, and other information being pulled to each of us, combined with all the responses from each participant in an active, engaged CoP and the viral spin offs of each community as it grows and becomes more successful through the planned scaling - - how does one manage all the information without missing critical pieces?

I am a community organizer by trade. I spend most of my day reading, writing, thinking, and developing community across the nation and around the world. So how do I decide what to keep and what to toss? As we begin to feel the results of successful viral PD opportunities like what happened in Alabama, how will staff developers keep up with it all? For that matter how will *any * of us keep up with it all- with information doubling every two years now and predicted to double every 72 hours by the year 2010?

As I continue to work within the communities with which I am involved, it is wildly gratifying to see the deep and consequential changes in practice taking place over time with the educators who are participating.  I know the job embedded model works. What I question is how to maintain these changes in practice over substantial periods of time (sustainability) as the viral impact causes diffusion of the innovation to large numbers of users (spread).

Knowing the role of the community organizer is critical in terms of champion building in the beginning when trust and norms are being developed among members, I question how staff developers who oversee multiple communities of practice in addition to maintaining their own learning through their personal learning networks will keep up?

In Alabama, (which is one of the Microsoft mid-tier Partners in Learning projects) the community is strong and participants have taken ownership in ways that deepen and sustain the original work via adaptation (shift) as they are innovating and revising the outcomes of what we (the designers) originally intended. It is exciting to find my thinking continually challenged and to be pushed to reshape and recreate the model in new and different ways. (evolution) However, I am finding less and less time for sharing what I am thinking, doing and the evidence I am collecting that points to what is working.

How do we find/make time for reflection? I do believe it is critically important to reflect and be transparent as possible about the processes we are using. Why? Because it helps us all move away from a place of privacy and isolation to one of collaboration and innovation. But lately, I find myself so busy with design and implementation that I neglect reflection, even as critical as I believe it is to have your comments inform my thinking.

In Schmoker's "Results Now" he says, Isolation -- 'professional privacy' as Little called it -- explains why exemplary practices never take root in more than a small proportion of classrooms and school. Judith Little found that, "When teachers engage regularly in authentic "joint work" focused on explicit learning goals, ...their collaboration pays off in increased teacher confidence and remarkable gains in achievement."

As more and more teachers reject isolation and seek collaboration, teaching will become more transparent with teams of teachers excited and willing to learn from each other. The idea of sharing and reflecting on 21st Century lesson planning in a virtual community where it can be accessed and reviewed on the Web is one way to help schools move more quickly toward a culture of collaboration and improved teaching and learning!

The Reflective Change Agent
Donald Schon suggests that the best professionals know more than they can put into words. To meet the challenges of their work, they rely less on established models and more on improvisation learned in practice. Basically, we test out our theories and ideas via our blogs and through other participatory media and this allows us to collectively develop and design further. Significantly, to do this we do not closely follow established ideas and techniques - textbook schemes. Rather, we draw on what has gone before (shift and evolution mentioned above) and we can link this process of thinking on our feet with reflection-on-action.

I think this way of thinking about reflection and leading is going to become more important as knowledge creation picks up an even faster pace. There simply will not be time to formally test each change idea so others can review the findings and determine value before implementation. Rather reflection in action, transparency in our process via conversations with experts on the Web will enables us to spend time exploring why we acted as we did, what was happening in a group and so on and inform our practice as we move forward. In so doing we develop sets of questions/answers and this informs our ideas about our activities and practice.

Through our blogs, videos and recordings we should engage the network in our process, not having to have a full understanding of things before we act. With communities of global, experienced professionals pushing our thinking along the way, we will be influenced by, and use, what has gone before, what might come, our repertoire, and the repertoire of the community.  As we work collaboratively we will bring collective fragments of memories into play and begin to build theories and responses that fit each new situation. Through this reflective process the change in schools will become more emergent, organic, and viral in nature.

So I invite my readers to continually comment and push my thinking further. I appreciate your voice in my work.

Community: Personal Reflections from Then and Now

I have been reflecting this morning on community and its place in my life and learning.

Communal Living and Community
My first experiences happened as a young woman living on The Farm, the largest successful commune in America. It was there that I first began to see the power of relationships in enabling others toward positive change and the concept of how identity is formed through meaningful social interaction and conversations around practice and reform.

"Utopian thought, as the basis of communal ideology, idealizes social unity and maintains that humanness exists only in intimate and collective life" (Kanter, 1972, p.32). While on the Farm, my thoughts on justice, sincerity, honesty, and humanity really started to take shape.The foundation was laid to rethink the status quo, respectfully question authority, and always stand up against unjust acts towards marginalized populations. The desire to become a voice for the voiceless was birthed.

Christian Community
In my late twenties, I discovered the loving community that comes from belonging to a group of people who are held accountable to one another in relationship under a set of established spiritual beliefs. I came to learn and grow so much as a mother, daughter, and individual through the vertical and horizontal relationships  I developed overtime as a Christian. The molding and shaping of my character and personality through the exercise of being held collectively to a higher standard gave me the tools needed to be self-governed and disciplined. The unconditional love and friendship I received as part of the Christian community, nurtured me through the negative effects of my childhood and the untimely death of my spouse when my daughters were just one and two years old. The relationships I formed taught me through a social learning process how to be a good mother and a woman of integrity. I am still growing into  someone who tries very hard to embrace personal excellence, always holding myself to this high standard, but yet allowing others to have the grace to choose their own path and way.

Virtual Community
In my mid-thirties I got my first computer. I was running a small, innovative K-12 school at the time called Friendship Bridge, as well as teaching preservice teachers at Valdosta State University as an adjunct. Immediately, I discovered bulletin boards and IRC chat and began to establish a network of content experts and friends from around the world who became my personal learning network. We would connect at various times throughout our day sharing what we were learning. There was a solider in Germany who  taught me about networking and hardware, a father and hockey enthusiast in Canada who joined me in experimenting and pushing the new tools to the limit, a brilliant young man in his 20s that was living in Florida who was trapped somewhat by his circumstance and spent his boredom at the public library, sequentially reading every book on the shelf and then sharing with me each author's ideas, and countless others who each left their mark upon my life- some for my betterment and some - well, they were not so positive, but it was community and we were all left changed by the ideas of the other.

It reminds me of Tennyson's poem Ulysses:

I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

I continue to be molded and shaped by the relationships I form around the world.

Community of Practice
When I came to Virginia in 1997, I tried to escape education. I worked for awhile as a MCSE trainer helping various network engineers get their industry certifications. I was struck by how competitive the field was and how little community existed. While the money was incredible, I missed children, teachers, and the potential for positive change (both individual and systemic) that I felt when teaching. So I took a position with a high need (many homeless children) elementary school as a computer resource teacher in hopes to give back for all I had been given.

What I observed in terms of community in our large school district was what Richard Elmore (2002) describes as a buffer- a protective barrier that discourages and even punishes close, constructive scrutiny of instruction and the supervision of instruction. Its primary effect is to protect these two—the heart of schooling—“from outside inspection, interference, or disruption” (p. 6).

The buffer prevents true communities of practice from developing and from teachers and educational leaders being able to learn more about what is working within the classroom. It prevents teachers from knowing what or how well they or their colleagues (both local and global) teach. It deprives us all of any meaningful frame of reference and discourages us from learning from each other.

I remember my mentor Greg Anderson, who served as the principal of my school, warning me that I was using technology as a rebel would. That our district  used a culture of equity- all schools were equally as good as the other- even if that perceived equity meant schools simply met and perpetuated the status quo. Greg, in spirit, supported my change efforts (when he felt they were in the best interest of children) although he didn't want a "loose cannon" causing him to lose his job in the process.

I  pushed the teachers at my school to see technology as a communication and collaboration tool. As a way to connect with others and remove the barriers of isolation the four walls of the classroom created. I wanted technology to provide transparency, the same transparency I had experienced on the Farm and in my small school and in the Christian community. I wanted technology to help students and teachers connect with others around the world in an effort to make lasting change in the way we live and learn in schools.

Judith Little (1993) has often talked about the private, protected world of teaching:

In large numbers of schools, and for long periods of time, teachers are colleagues in name only. They work out of sight and hearing of one another, plan and prepare their lessons and materials alone, and struggle on their own to solve most of their instructional, curricular, and management problems.

She and others see this approach of non-interference, privacy, and harmony as part of the problem in that it prevents us from getting to the root of what needs to change in schools. This culture of privacy and non-interference is fertile soil for maintaining status quo. However, she goes on to say,

Against this almost uniform backdrop of isolated work, some schools stand out for the professional relationship they foster among teachers. These schools, more than others, are organized to permit the sort of reflection…that has been largely absent from professional preparation and professional work in schools. For teachers in such schools, work involves colleagueship of a more substantial sort. Recognition and satisfaction stem not only from being a masterful teacher, but also from being a member of a masterful group.

It was this kind of community, this kind of meaningful dialog I so fervently wanted to see happen. I wanted to break through the buffer so that collectively teachers could see the status quo for what it was and through the collective wisdom and strong relationships within the community, make a courageous commitment to challenge and change the status quo.

Teacher Leadership and Community
The first opportunity I had for this to happen was within the Teacher Leaders Network (TLN). Terry Dozier, for whom I was leading the Virginia Teacher Leader Forum, sent me in her stead to a steering committee meeting for the development of a national virtual community of practice for teacher leaders across the country. The Center for Teaching quality had gotten the recommendations for 200 top educators who were not only highly accomplished but were articulate and positioned locally as change agents. What was birthed out of that meeting was TLN and under the nurturing leadership of John Norton (community of practice expert) and CTQ's president Barnett Berry (national edc. policy leader) has grown to become one of the most visible groups of teachers impacting educational policy in the nation. It is through TLN that I am personally shaped and challenged daily. This is my community of practice.

Bielaczyc & Collins (1999) describe a community of practice as:

The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members, who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning and how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned. If a learning community is presented with a problem, then the learning community can bring its collective knowledge to bear on the problem. It is not necessary that each member assimilate everything the community knows, but each should know who within the community has relevant expertise to address any problem.

This is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual knowledge and performance, and the expectation that students/teachers will acquire the same body of knowledge at the same time. Yet this is the model that not only provides systemic change, but holds the potential for a change initiative to push beyond the incremental culture of change expected in schools  to one of exponential reform that produces results now- so that our kids get what they need now, not after they graduate or from their own efforts.

21st Century Community
Through John Norton, I met Cathy Gassenheimer of the Alabama Best Practice Center.  Together we wrote a proposal that was funded by Microsoft that took the best of all of our experiences around using community as a vehicle of change. We created a 21st Century teaching and learning collaborative that used Web 2.0 tools to connect 40 school teams across the state in exploration and understanding of using personal networking literacies to change their practice.  We are currently in the third year of the project and teachers this year are focusing on the needed changes in pedagogy that relate to the new tools and changed paradigm. Working with student teams and other stakeholders, the impact of our efforts is being seen virally in the spread of these ideas throughout schools and across the state. Most recently, the state of Alabama has been in negociations with the Partnership of 21st Century Skills to become a partnership state.

Building Community Online
Communities of practice are clusters of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and as they interact regularly, they improve (Wenger, 1998). A driving force behind a community of practice is community knowledge, in which the sum of the collective knowledge is greater the sum of the individual knowledge (Gherardi & Nicolini, 2002) therefore as the collective knowledge grows stronger, so does the individual's knowledge (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). They operate on the premise, "None of us is as good as all of us." Wenger (2004) also suggests that by focusing on the system or the group as a whole, does not imply that the individual should be ignored.

Hall and Hord (1987) emphasized, organizations do not change - individuals do. However, it is through the relationships that learning occurs. McDermott (in Murphy 1999, p.17) describes it this way:

Learning traditionally gets measured on the assumption that it is a possession of individuals that can be found inside their heads…[Here] learning is in the relationships between people. Learning is the conditions that bring people together and organize a point of contact that allows for particular pieces of information to take on relevance; without the points of contact, without the system of relevancies, there is not learning, and there is little memory. Learning does not belong to the individual persons, but to the various conversations of which they are a part.

According to Wenger (1998) not all communities are communities of practice. Three characteristics must be in place: 1) a common commitment to the same sphere of influence (you couldn’t be in someone's community and not know it 2) community- members are engaged in activity and discussions; they help one another, and share information. 3) active practice- members are not just united by interests but by practice.

Is Twitter a Community?
So how does community fit in online? Are the relationships forged in the blogosphere and other social networking sites like Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, NING, Tapped In, and others - true community? Or are they networking or as some suggest a new learning theory all together called connectivism?

According to George Seimens, the principles of connectivism are:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information    sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is          a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

Virtual Learning Communities
Emerging technologies such as social networking and other Web-based tools have the potential to offer opportunities for new kinds of communities of practice for teachers and students. These tools bring enormous leverage to teachers at relatively little cost — intellectual leverage, social leverage, media leverage. Virtual learning communities use technology to established connections across barriers of time and space (Johnson, 2001). Teachers can participate in discussions at their convenience- anytime, anyplace.

A burgeoning body of opinion and research suggests that virtual learning communities are becoming the venue through which agents for change operate (Palloff & Pratt, 1999: Johnson, 2001; Barab & Duffy, 1998; Dede, 2003). The potential is enormous, as knowledge capital is collected and the community becomes a sort of an online brain trust, representing a highly varied accumulation of expertise.

According to Dede (2003) the most important challenge for educational leaders today is fostering 21^st Century skills and knowledge in today's students so they will be prepared to participate in our global economy. This challenge requires that teachers understand what types of knowledge and skills are required in leading edge workplaces and future careers. Teachers will also need to become adept at higher order cognitive, affective, and social skills such as systems thinking, creativity, and collaboration. This will require transformational strategies for developing deeper core content, new models of pedagogy, and development of personal learning networks (Dede, 1998).

Virtual learning communities are one way to provide the intellectual, emotional, and social support needed for teachers to unlearn and relearn contextually in an effort to bring about the needed behavior changes necessary to make way for the next generation of classroom practices (Dede, 1999).

Personal Learning Practice
Most  recently, my thoughts around community are playing out in the work I am doing  with Will Richardson  through our new LLC Powerful Learning Practice. Both Will and I believe that a teacher needs personal experience with the new literacies, using them to learn about their own passionate interests before applying them to the classroom. The reason many 21st Century teaching and learning projects have failed to make significant changes in school culture is directly related to both the buffer concept mentioned above and a lack of ownership and nurturing teachers need for these strategies to become pedagogically sound.  Learning, applying, and deepening understanding of the shifts in the changing learning landscape and how to use the new Web tools to break through the buffers of isolation occurs best in communities of practice. 

It is with great excitement that I look to 2008 to see how my understanding of community will grow and the new directions I will take in my own personal learning and the relationships I will develop along the way.

Teacher Friendly Professional Development

In this day and age of school reform, many are looking to how we train teachers as the key to educational improvement. Research shows that on average school districts spend the equivalent of $200 per pupil on professional development and these learning experiences add both time and effort demands on a teachers already impossible day (Killeen, 2002).

The federal No Child Left Behind Act’s emphasis on results has prompted school system leaders, staff developers, principals, and
teachers to become much more deliberate about the professional-development choices they make.

While our profession more than ever needs to build capacity in its teachers, we also need to be sure that time, energy, and resources are used only on "quality programs that teach with and about best practice" (Dede, 2006, p.1).

The World is Changing
Today, new and emerging Web technologies are connecting our children in ways never before possible. Through blogs, social networking sites, multimedia and other “Web 2.0” tools, their worlds are becoming more and more networked and engaging, creating environments for learning and collaborating
that look little like our traditional classroom spaces.

Schools, Not So Much
Conversely, schools have by and large been resistant to these shifts. Teachers complain, maybe rightly so, that they simply do not have the time to master the needed strategies. Attempts to gain the knowledge needed through workshops are often fragmented and unable to provide the ongoing daily guidance needed as teachers attempt to implement needed change in practice.

The Role of Community to Bring about School Reform
However, the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) across schools districts is one solution experience has shown me really works. Using a combination of face to face, synchronous and asynchronous meetings in a variety of settings (school-based, state-wide, and global) professional learning teams can participate in professional development that is tailored to teachers' busy schedules, while drawing on the valuable resources/experts not available locally, and that provides work-embedded support.

My Contribution to Educational Reform
Using the experience I garnered from the pilot I helped to develop and lead in Alabama, Will Richardson and I have recently teamed together to connect small teams of educators from around the globe in 21st Century learning environments. Our approach is different than the work in Alabama, but the intended outcomes are the same- bring education into the 21st Century.

Will and I are also working with administrators within the participating schools and districts in the development of systemic plans that lay the groundwork for a three and five-year vision for principled change. Our Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) project is currently helping educators to experience the transformative potential of social Web tools to build global learning communities and re-envision their own personal learning practice.

Outcome-Making the World a Better Place
The opportunities for learning thus far have been incredible. But the one that simply rocked my world is a project that one of the teacher leaders involved with our work helped her daughter create.

Laura, a ten-year old girl in upstate New York started a blog Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference that in just a week’s time has caught the interest of a whole bunch of kids from around the world (media too) who want to make a difference as well. Talk about transformative! Laura offers a classroom challenge- as teachers you will want to check it out and get your class involved and there is an opportunity to match funds for the winning "Make a Difference" project too!

Laura on Day 1 of her 25 Days to Make a Difference Project

 

References

Killeen, K. (2002). School district spending on professional development: Insights available from national data. Journal of Educational Finance. 28 (1) pp 25-49.

Dede, C. (2006). Online professional development for teachers: Emerging models and methods. Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard Education Press

Community for Everyone

A Critical Need for Change

In recent years, many school districts have established collaborative practices among teachers by developing professional communities of practice. Teachers operating in these communities have regular, face-to-face discussions for the purposes of reviewing evidence of student learning, determining student needs and designing interventions to address those needs.

However, the creation of similar communities of practice among school administrators lags behind what has become common place for some teachers. Often, the very same school leaders who go to great lengths to ensure that their teachers meet together regularly to discuss practice often avoid making the same commitment for themselves.

A recent study by NCREL revealed that 70% of principals feel "not at all prepared" to "somewhat prepared" in instructional leadership of which 21st Century strategies are a key element. Because instructional leadership is essential to successful schools, principals and other leaders, must receive consistent, job-embedded support. One effective way to do just that is through virtual learning communities.

In a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Peter D. Hart Research Associates on behalf of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills registered voters revealed that Americans are deeply concerned that the United States is not preparing young people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. What is needed is a strong commitment to help educators and educational leaders implement 21st century strategies in their schools.

Last night in a live chat that was part of the K12Online Conference culminating event- "When Night Falls" this very subject surfaced. These two questions kept repeating themselves in different ways:

• How do schools/teachers help administrators understand the importance of getting *all* teachers on board with using 21st Century teaching strategies and content in their classrooms?
• Who should be the target group for the message- teachers or administrators?

It was an interesting discussion and Chris Harbeck did a wonderful job of facilitating the conversation. For me personally, I believe part of the problem lies in the way we frame the question. In looking at an either/or between teachers or administrators we are leaving key voices out of the conversation. Yes, administrators are important in that when they understand the trends that are impacting the current shift, they become powerful leaders of change. Yes, teachers are important because if they do not understand and buy-in to the needed change in their current practice, nothing will change. But are they the only voices we want to have at the educational decision making table? What about students, parents, and other stakeholders in the school community? What about those of us in the education blogosphere community that have so much expertise to share? Do we have a role to play?

In my opinion, true educational reform in the 21st Century comes down to building community- specifically virtual community. Professional communities of practice are critical to carrying out induction, mentoring, ongoing professional development, and other forms of knowledge management  that typically take place in a school environment.

Trends that Drive the Change

Change and tension are constant in the life of school professionals. Some change initiatives come from observations of need that occurs within a school and some are the influence of outside trends- economic, societal, and demographic. I was reading an article recently that brought this into clearer focus. In the Journal of School Improvement, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2002  a couple of the trends described by Gary Marx voiced my thinking about how change should be implemented in schools.

Trend 4: Social and Intellectual Capital are the New Economic Values in the World Economy

In an economy driven by technology and information, a dramatically increasing level of knowledge is needed to function in any occupation, ranging from managerial and professional to technical, service, manufacturing, and agricultural. One thing is clear in an economy based on social and intellectual capital-what you know and who you know both count.

This new economy will be held together and advanced through the building of relationships. "Unleashing and connecting the collective knowledge, ideas, and experiences of people creates and heightens value."

Additionally, educators will need to stay current with the trends so they will know what knowledge and skills students will need to be successful in their future.

They should also capitalize on their own social and intellectual wealth. Schools develop hundreds, even thousands, of relationships with students, staff, parents, other units of government, nongovernmental organizations, universities, the surrounding community, business  and professional colleagues, vendors, and other groups. Each and every school should be seen as a source of intellectual strength.

That last quote is powerful- read it again and let it sink in. "Schools should be the source of intellectual strength" and I would add, that is developed and facilitated through virtual communities of practice. The virtual translation of traditional professional learning communities holds particular promise in that global educational partners can be part of the connections taking place online. Schools should lead the way in modeling the transformative power of online communities.

Unpacking the Idea

So what form does a virtual school community of practice (CoP) take? It begins with two points of intersection. First, administrators set up a virtual space for communication and collaboration. They will need to choose a platform that has both public and private spaces and allows for the formation of subgroups that can be created by community members as needed. The platform should be very intuitive and require a minimal learning curve. Once the platform is selected then a community organizer who understands how to develop community online should be chosen. This person's contribution can not be underestimated in the beginning of the work.

Second, teachers need to have easy access, full permissions and the ability to use the platform in ways that make sense. By developing CoPs within their classroom, teachers model for their students how to establish learning networks of their own. Student networks should consist of content experts who are critical to mastery of curriculum objectives and classroom goals.

The main page of the virtual community will have the familiar branding of the school's logo, Web page and other established cultural artifacts to make it easily identified and to provide the connective pieces needed for members to feel part of the school community. The main page provides the portal through which all other community pieces can be accessed or where various stakeholders can request access.

Role of the Larger Community

In addition to the flurry of activity taking place within a school's local virtual community space, there exists a role for the educational blogger community at large. When called upon to help mentor or share, educational bloggers need to rise to the occasion and make ourselves available. New teacher induction, inservice professional development, preservice instruction and other collaborative opportunities are just a few of the ways we can band together around the world to help create the change needed "one school at a time." Using tools like Twitter and RSS educators can stay connected to the teaching social networking community and ask for/or volunteer when needed.

Trend 7:Technology Will Increase the Speed of Communication and the Pace of Advancement or Decline

Twenty-first century technology is having a profound effect on every person, every organization, and every nation on earth. Those who have it and know how to use it are moving forward at an unprecedented rate. Those who don't are declining at the same dizzying pace.

Social networking is coming into its own in part from the way age-old social practices surrounding trust and cooperation are being mediated by new communication and computation technologies. Howard Rheingold in his recent book "Smart Mobs" believes that, "A new kind of digital divide that ten years from now will separate those who know how to use new media to band together from those who don't."

That means a new role for teachers. Great teachers will not only serve as subject matter specialists but will also become partners with students, helping them learn how to turn information into usable ; knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. Rather than simply dispensing information, 21st century teachers will become orchestrators and facilitators of learning.

Through school-based CoPs we will open our classrooms to the world, allowing diverse teams of students, made up of members from varying corners of the planet, to work together solving real world problems and society's ills.

Taking it to the Classroom

Classrooms in the 21st Century should be: collaborative, student centered, project/problem based, encourage student choice/voice, experiential, democratic, places of shared knowledge construction, risk taking, and where a learning ecology develops and thrives.

Virtual communities of practice can play a vital role in making the shift from schools that are teacher driven to student centered places of learning. Through using a virtual CoP schools can create an enhanced learning environment where all members of the community- administrators; teachers; and students; can gain insight from each other, deepen their understanding, knowledge, innovation and expertise, all while overcoming the feelings of isolation that many teachers experience within the four walls of their classrooms.

Additionally, through school-based virtual CoPs educational bloggers can play an important role by connecting and collaborating with educators in our various schools and places of work across the globe.

How have you collaborated with other teachers or students to enhance the professional development experience or classroom curriculum? Please share your experiences here and feel free to add to the conversation.

Photo Credits:
http://flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/40727794/

http://flickr.com/photos/monica_andre/336074931/

Professional Learning Communities that Reach Outside the School

Over on Dangerously Irrelevant Scott links to the latest version of the National Staff Development Council Standards or Staff Development  which notes, effective staff development:

 

• has small groups of educators working together over time in professional learning communities;
• is based on principles of effective adult learning; and
• deepens educators’ content knowledge.

According to the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory,

The term professional learning community describes a collegial group of administrators and school staff who are united in their commitment to student   learning. They share a vision, work and learn collaboratively, visit and review   other classrooms, and participate in decision making (Hord, 1997b). The benefits   to the staff and students include a reduced isolation of teachers, better informed   and committed teachers, and academic gains for students. Hord (1997b) notes,   "As an organizational arrangement, the professional learning community is seen as a powerful staff-development approach and a potent strategy for school change and improvement.

Human Capital and Creativity

The demands of the 21st Century has created a need for schools to become learning organizations that focus on developing human capital and creativity in their teachers to prepare them for changing the educational landscape. Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline describes a learning organization as a place "where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together" (Senge,1990,p. 3). Unfortunately, most schools simply aren't there.

Wisdom of the Teacher
Roland Barth dares to discuss "the elephant in the room" a  recent Educational Leadership article (March 2006)  by which he means the various ways educators compete with and isolate themselves from one another. "Relationships among educators within a school range from vigorously healthy to dangerously competitive. Strengthen those relationships, and you improve professional practice."  One way to strengthen relationships is through meaningful collaboration around a common task or shared vision.

School culture is such that it often under utilizes and underestimates the wisdom of teachers in terms of school improvement and school reform. Rather than create professional development experiences that tap what teachers know and help them to develop their professional voice, teachers are often removed from the decision making process that directly affects classroom practice and professional growth opportunities.

However, through networks—both physical and virtual— teachers are beginning to draw on external communities that promote divergent thinking. Some of these virtual networks develop into powerful learning communities that connect the ideas of educators from around the world as they explore together and push traditional education boundaries.

Relationships are Key to Change
Collegiality builds relationships. I personally belong to several of these external virtual learning communities and value the relationships I have cultivated there. For example, as Steve Dembo demonstrates within the twitter community there is a great deal for educators to learn from each other. Often, someone will throw out a need, only to have it met within minutes by several different members of the community. Though twitter we laugh together and sometimes offer prayer and words of encouragement- all part of the trust building that occurs in a community of practice. I also am a part of several Ning communities, Tapped In communities, Flickr groups, listservs, and the edublogospshere. All having their own flavor of community and each helping me to grow in my knowledge and further refine my online voice.

Something Seems to Be Missing
What is lacking though is the link from my external community to the  professional learning communities in schools. Teachers need to experience the same kind of collegiality within PLCs made up of their on site colleagues as they do out on the Web. Virtual learning communities can work just as well as a tool that connects colleagues who are together under the same roof as it does to bring educators together from around the world.

PD providers in a school or district should consider using virtual learning communities as a way to allow for anytime, anyplace development of personal learning networks. Teams of teachers within a school could collaborate and learn together with other diverse thinking educators from around the world. This type of professional learning community would allow for job embedded professional development that was shaped from a global perspective. In this setting, teachers could develop a change agent perspective and a voice in educational reform.

Change vs Control
This of course is very scary stuff for traditional education, steeped in the formal structures of the past. If teachers know how to lead, how to be effective in evoking change, then that creates problems. Teachers start asking questions. Things get messy. We awaken the sleeping giant and change is no longer incremental and controllable.

I use to say, "Change takes time." Well look around you, change no longer takes time, in fact change is happening at exponential rates. The challenge is to adapt to the rapid pace of change before as an institution we find ourselves irrelevant in the lives of the students we seek to help.

Second Life-Thinkerer Challenge Announced at Symposium

Got this from Alan Levine's NMC site.

August 15, 2007 (Thinkerers Quest, Second Life) - Thinkerer Studios - a network of residents in the virtual online world of Second Life - today announced the launch of an awards program to identify and encourage the development of creative products and services that use Second Life capabilities to enrich or empower experiences in Real Life. The first Award recipient will be made known at the end of September, 2007.

Recipients of the Thinkerer Challenge Award will receive 30,000 Lindens - the currency of Second Life - and the use of a parcel of virtual land (or an equivalent arrangement) for one year. In addition, they will be invited to become judges of future Thinkerer Challenges.

Cash awards will be funded by the founder of Thinkerer Studios, Thinkerer Melville. Awards will be given as often as once a month, depending on the volume and quality of nominations. Honorary Awards will also be presented on occasion, depending on merit and circumstances. All winners and their projects will be publicized and promoted, both in and off-world.

For more info: http://sl.nmc.org/2007/08/16/thinkerer-challenge/

The Art of Building Virtual Communities

This is cross posted over on techLEARNING. Come join in the conversation.

Anyone who has ever thrown a party or held a meeting has had this unvoiced fear: what if after all the work of preparation, nobody shows up? Or worse, people show up, take a quick look around, decide it isn’t worth their time and leave!

You'd think developing a virtual learning community (VLC) or online community of practice (CoP) would be easier.  After all, it's virtual- nobody even has to worry about what to wear! However, with the rise of virtual learning community platforms like Ning and Elgg it is becoming evident that many CoPs are dead on arrival and many others die of neglect early on, in their toddler stage.

The burning question for many of us trying to establish educational CoPs is how to design a VLC that is compelling enough that it will compete successfully for the attention of busy educators? Because communities of practice are voluntary, to be successful over time they need the ability to generate enough excitement, relevance, and value to attract and engage members. This is easier said than done.

Member Roles

One model that holds merit an be found on the Learning Circuits Blog.
It is developed around the roles and interactions members of a community have as participants in that community. It is titled 4L Model (Linking, Lurking, Learning, Leading) and was inspired by comments made by John Seeley Brown in an interview with Marcia Connors for LineZine.

According to David Lee's model the roles basically fall into four blurry types. What role a participant plays in the community is both determined and defined by the participant so they are not strictly defined.

Linking  These are visitors who find a community by one means or another. They may have have bookmarked the site or added it to their RSS reader. They are in a “testing” mode to determine if this community if of interest to them and worth giving more of the time and attention.

Lurking Often the largest segment of a community, these individuals pay attention to the activity of the group and occasionally participate in various activities. Wenger calls this group Legitimate Peripheral Participants (LPP). They may be interested in greater involvement, but either don’t feel worthy or don’t know how. For others the content may only be peripheral to their work. 

Learning These are regular visitors who contribute to the community regularly. They are considered “members” of the community. Occasionally , they may take on a project or event leadership role as either an “audition” for a more core role or as a way to lead despite overall time unavailability.

Leading At the core of a community are the Leaders of that community. Leadership is a matter of commitment and willingness to contribute on a consistent basis. Leaders may or may not be designated via title. Roles, other than community coordinator, may evolve as needed. Wenger says it is the responsibility of leadership to “build a fire” of activity that is strong enough to draw people to the community and encourage greater participation.

Participating in an Online Community

Around the world, another blogger friend and colleague Derek Wenmoth created a similar  framework to Lee's role-based model to discuss the ways in which people participate in online communities that develop around blogs.  His diagram attempts to illustrate how participants in the online environment move through phases as they gain understanding and confidence.

His phases are as follows:

consumer - The first phase is where participants (often referred to as lurkers) simply read and explore the posts of others. Far from being passive as the word lurker suggests, consumers can be very active participants in an online community - just not yet visible to others.

commentor - as this label suggests, these people make comments on others posts (either on blogs, or in discussion forums), often seeking clarification, agreeing with a statement, or offering a suggestion or link to something similar.

contributor - as this label suggests, contributors are those who have started their own blogs or who initiate new threads on discussion forums. They are confident about putting forth their own ideas etc.

commentator - a commentator is someone who frequently takes a 'meta' view of what is going on, providing a level of leadership within the community. Their contributions will often draw attention to the 'bigger picture', making links with other work - analysing and synthesising the contributions of others.

Passion-Based Communities 

Ted Rheingold, in his presentation entitled The State, Future & Business of Passion-Centric Online Communities, shares that passion centric communities consist of like minded people who come together to amplify their passion. Rheingold says that in the future there will be tens of thousands of these passion-based communities. They will be everywhere. The web is just the launching point. Think cell phones/MMS, PDAs, console-gaming, hand-held games (PSP/DS), DVRs, carbased computers. Communities will meet where their members are. That the VLCs of the future will not be web communities they will be networked communities.

UPDATE:
The Venn diagram photo which accompanies Ted's piece  is sourced here:http://flickr.com/photos/91506145@N00/255028065/ and was part of a talk published here:
http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community/
by Nancy White, a well known and highly respected e-facilitation and e-community specialist.

The natural cognitive connection for me was to passion-based learning. Creating online communities with content experts that correlate to the units of study that are driven by student interest and passion that we deliver in our classrooms.

The Art of Community

In response to a recent post by SETH GODIN, bestselling author and agent of change -where Seth said that the #1 job of the future will be that of online community organizer, Peter Gulka started up People Weavers - the community for community organizers. http://www.peopleweavers.com. Peter feels as this field emerges, we will need a venue to be able to work with each other, discuss best practices, recommend tools, and collaborate on the hurdles we all face.

While perusing his site I came across a clip called The Art of Community - OSCON 2007 which is a panel discussion led by Dawn Foster, Director of Developer Relations at Jive Software. The panel discusses some of the theory and practice behind online communities. Here are my notes and reflections from this clip.

What makes a healthy community?

• Really active and consistent participation within the community. Community members really start to moderate themselves. It isn't just the moderator that handles issues. And members greet someone when they are new and answer questions and do not just point newbies to a FAQ doc.
• Gathering data is the first step to knowledge and wisdom but sharing data is the first step to community.Henry Gates
• Size of the community isn't as important as results. Participants ask themselves what is the benefit of membership? What is the value added? How good a job does the community do of taking all the information and redistributing in an effort to give something back?
• Don't freak out when you have a problem in the community. Communities, like families, have problems. You can work through them.
• Healthy communities are self-managing and self-governing. Members have a sense of ownership.
• Community organizers should view their role as part of the community, not feel they own it.
• The way to get status within the community will be from love and kindness if the community values are structured in such a way that status is gained through good community citizenship rather than showing off. Ranking should be made on the value of the contribution, not the number of times you post. If it is just the number of times you post, then a person who is a drag on the community might be considered high status because of frequency of posting.
• Better title for the organizer is community instigator. Have the philosophy that everyone is a leader. Ask what do you bring? Where are your talents? There is a place for everyone and everyone in their place.
• Brownie point cards are handed out when organizers catch you being good, this encourages people to do nice things for people within the structure. The cards can be redemed for prizes.
• There was push back that Karma points-- reputation points- are doomed to failure because it is based on extrinsic not intrinsic motivation.
• Is there such a thing as a community that is too large? If it is too big, you have to think through how to break down areas and build community for the new subset communities.
• Community doesn't scale ever. Hierarchy principles and leadership are different. You can have 50 people who are getting their needs met and 2000 that are frustrated. Which is community?
• Are communities commodities? Do we set up a market when we create a community? The value isn't in the community it is in the commiters. The value is in the community members that are producing. 

Finding Our Way

I'd like to end this post with a quote.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

Alan Cohen

And as we attempt the adventurous and exciting Craig Bellamy has shared an Online Community map that is sure to light the path.