Collaboration through Technology: Using Social Networking to Enhance Professional Learning Community

West Virginia Institutes for 21st Century Leadership Spring Session 2008

David M. Quinn, Ph.D.University of Florida

What do you think?

When you hear the words Facebook or MySpace, what comes to your mind as a:

Educator Parent User - do any of you belong to a social

network?

Why are online social networks so popular?

What is Social Networking? A social network service uses software to build

online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.

Most services are primarily web based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups. Wikipedia.com

What is Social Networking?

Popular Social Networking Sites Facebook MySpace LinkedIn Friendster Orkut Bebo Classmates MyFamily

Webkinz Second Life

Create Your Own Social Network

Ning Social Network Examples http://teachers20.ning.com/ http://21steachers.ning.com/

Get a Ning ID!

Create Your Own Social Network

Set Up Your Network

Add Features to Your Network

Change Appearance of Your Network

Invite Others to Join Your Network

Invite Others to Join Your Network

PLC Characteristics

Shared Mission, Vision, and Goals Collaborative Teams Collective Inquiry Action Orientation/Experimentation Commitment to Continuous

Improvement Results Focus

PLC and Social Networking - Timeline 2:45-3:45 Collaboration through Technology: Using Social Networking to Enhance Professional

Learning Community

Introduction: Chuck Heinlein, Residential Director Keynote Address: Dr. David Quinn, Elementary Critical Friend

4:00-5:00 Combined Programmatic Groups: Applying the Skills of Electronic Networking Elementary Group I and II Middle School Group High School Group

5:00-5:45 Dinner

5:45-6:30 Tech Time Applying the Skills of Electronic Networking (continued)

6:30-7:00 Share, Analyze, Reflect Groups share the results of their collaborative tasks, analyze the process, and reflect upon the

learning experience.

PLC and Social Networking - Purpose The purpose of this activity is to link

our study of Professional Learning Community and provide an opportunity to develop and use electronic networking to support collaboration.

PLC and Social Networking - Context In this activity you are functioning as a small PLC

team in your school. For this task, one member of your group will serve as the principal and the other members will serve as teachers on the team.

Select your principal and determine the professional role of each member of your team (e.g. third grade teacher, HS math teacher, MS counselor, etc.).

Do not take the time to develop specifics about your school as might be the case in most simulations. Just assume you are a team from a typical West Virginia elementary, middle, or high school and you are in your first year of trying to become a professional learning community school.

PLC and Social Networking - Task Your responsibility is to use the Ning social

networking utility to design a plan that describes how your faculty will address a critical challenge in your school.

Define the critical issue your school faces, using the challenge you discussed yesterday in your small groups. Provide a more specific explanation of what you see as the issue the school must address.

PLC and Social Networking - Task Design a plan to address that challenge. Some of the issues

you may want to consider as you design your plan are:1. How will you create among faculty a level of awareness about the issue

(challenge)?2. How will you create among faculty an in-depth understanding of the issue?3. What knowledge-based resources will you need to support your plan?4. What other resources will you need to implement your plan?5. What is the timeline for the plan?6. Who will be responsible for developing the faculty learning experiences

and who will lead/facilitate those learning experiences?7. What forms of data do you have and what will you need to collect?8. How will you monitor implementation of the plan and adjust the plan as

needed?9. How will you formally evaluate the success of the plan?10. Will you as a team develop the entire plan or will you engage the faculty in

the design of the plan once they develop awareness and buy-in?11. How will you know when the faculty has developed a “buy-in” to the issue

and support addressing it as a school?

Starting Point and Rules You will begin your task by creating your social

network. That means getting everyone online into your appropriate Ning group (use the principal’s Ning).

Once each member of your group is online, your group must disperse across the room, with each member working at different tables so the only form of communication you have as a team is electronic through the Ning social network.

For this activity, you will be using some of the basic social networking tools in Ning such as blogging and discussion forums.