Communities of practice : learning, meaning and identity

A while ago I started reading Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger. I am now writing this blog because I see us, teachers, trying to get a hold of the digital world, as a Community of Practice, and I feel it would benefit all of us to know a little more about this subject. I would like you to see what we are doing and that some of our struggles are acknowledged. The book is quite difficult to read, so I also thought that maybe it would help me understand it better when I write it down and try to explain it to you.

The four components of social participation

Wenger starts with pointing out what has been rather obvious to some of us: many people these days believe that learning is an individual process. There is a beginning and and end and learning is separated from daily life. Learning is the result of teaching. The assumption that learning is a social activity would mean we need to change these core processes and it also explains why many students consider our teaching irrelevant (because it has nothing to do with social activity). If we believe that learning means that pieces of information need to be stored in our brain, our current educational approach as described in the first sentence of this paragraph will work. However, if we join Wenger's train of thought we might come to the conclusion that this isn't so appealing for students. We need new and inventive ways to engage students, we need students to participate and we want to make sure that students can influence their own learning so that it becomes more meaningful.

Wenger compares learning to social participation and provides us with four components:

1. Community : learning as belonging
2. Identity : learning as becoming
3. Meaning : learning as experience
4. Practice : learning as doing

This kind of learning is not limited to a class room but happens everywhere: families, workplaces, schools, friendships.. These situations are all Communities of Practice. We belong to them, we are part of them, we experience emotions and valuable moments in them and we actively participate in them. You don't GO to a Community of Practice to be one, it simply happens when you're there. Communities of Practice help make your job easier because they help you deal with a job that is constantly changing.  

So what happens if I project this onto my own workplace and our digital development? All teachers belong to this community and the way we view digital development belongs to our community too. This opinion allows us to become the teachers we are: digital or analogue. As a team we experience the digitalisation of the world. We experience failure or success when we experiment with applications. And when we do, we deal with these situations by trying out something new. We do... 

Levels of participation  

As you can see, members have different roles in a Community of Practice. The core group is a small group of people who have a real passion for their goal and who energise the Community. Active participants are members who are actual participants whose opinions on what the Community is about may differ from the perspective of the core group, but they define the group. Occasional participants are members who only participate when the topic is of special interest, or when they have something specific to contribute. Peripheral participants are people who have a connection to the Community, but there is less engagement. This may be because they are newcomers or because they work somewhere else and see the Community as part of their network. Transactional participants are outsiders. They interact with the Community but they are not members of it. They use the Community as a resource for tools, documents or services.

Now take a look at your team of teachers. Do you recognise these roles? In which circle are you and where is the rest of your group when digital development is concerned?

Meaning

When you learn something, you want it to have meaning. But meaning can be different for all of us. A painting, for example, is just an image but the experience of the painting provides meaning for the painter as well as for the viewer. This meaning has to be negotiated: it's not just in a person or in the world or in a thing, but in the dynamics of all this. People help negotiating this meaning by bringing experience to the table. This is what Wenger calls participation: you bring your history of participation and negotiation to a new community. A document can also do this, and when it does Wenger calls it reification. Reification means that something turns an abstract object into something specific. This sounds a bit strange, but compare it to what newspapers do. A headline could very well be 'The economy took a blow'. 'The economy' is an abstract thing, but the word reifies it and turns it in to a more concrete object. Participation and reification are a duality: they exist next to each other but cannot replace each other. What does that mean in education? You need to use both: If you lecture too much, there is too little participation. If you do not lecture at all, there is too little reification. What is said always implies a level of participation.

What does a Community of Practice need to function as such?

•  Mutual engagement: a Community of Practice can exist when the members are engaged in the meanings they negotiate with each other. This engagement is made possible by many things: coming to an office, sending e-mails, having dinner together... People who are included in this feel connected and engaged but this group of people doesn't require homogeneity. This means that a manager can also be part of this group. Do we have mutual engagement as a group? Yes, we send each other e-mails, we come to work and we create Facebook groups and Pinterest pages!
• A joint enterprise: a joint enterprise is basically a goal which is negotiated by the members of a Community. The members can disagree with each other on the path they need to take, but the goal is mutual. It is THEIR enterprise, they are responsible for their goal. These members, however, have a place in a bigger system: the company they work for has certain demands and employees find ways to deal with this. I believe we (teachers) have a goal in using more IT applications, but I do not believe the goal is mutual. Yet.
• Shared repertoire: the members of a Community of Practice have, over time, created a shared repertoire of seating arrangements, words, routines, tools and so on. As you can see, this repertoire combines participative and reificative aspects. I do believe teachers have a very strong shared repertoire, but some of it is a bit outdated.

How am I doing so far? Am I making any sense? Let me know!

To be continued ...

Social networking for schools: Edmodo

This blog is for everybody, obviously, but mostly for colleagues who work with students that go abroad or who are involved in distance education. Meet my new best friend: Edmodo!




What is Edmodo?

Edmodo is a safe place where teachers, students and even parents or coaches can collaborate. They can post and share material and educational applications and they have access to assignments, grades and group discussions. Edmodo's goal is 'to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner'.
As you can see in the video, Edmodo offers many opportunities and I think it will appeal to students because it looks similar to Facebook, only especially  focused on education.




What do I like about Edmodo?

• I am so Dutch, it hurts so this obviously means I enjoy free stuff! Edmodo is free. 
• Edmodo contains a social aspect and therefore makes it easy for students to communicate with me and with the rest of the group. Improved communication means less confusion, which in turn means more time for students who have dificulties grasping a subject or students who are capable of taking it to the next level! You can provide students with badges for achievements and contributions. 
• You can create smaller groups within your groups, for example for students who work together on a project. 
• Teachers and students can post links to websites, documents, Youtube videos and so on and share them with each other. This enhances the feeling of learning together. 
• Teachers can post assignments (with a due date) that students can turn in via Edmodo. Students can keep track of their progress: they can see exactly which assignments they have already handed in and which they haven't handed in. 
• Teachers can grade work and provide students with feedback. All of this is recorded in Edmodo. 
• When a student has a question, it can be directed to the teacher or to the whole group. This makes learning possible for not only the student that asks the question, but for the rest of the group as well. I love that! 
• The teacher is in control of the online class rooms and can see all the messages their students post. This is possible because students have only two options when sending messages: to their teacher or to the group. There is no one-on-one interaction between students and therefore online bullying is pretty much impossible. 
• Teachers can disable and reset students' passwords (when they misbehave for example) and they can reset their group codes. 
• Edmodo has a schedule option which teachers can use and add to. 
• All files and links are saved in the Library so you can find them easily and use them again. 

Disadvantages?

• The badges may seem a bit childish, but as a teacher you can create your own badges so this is avoidable. 
• Edmodo does not offer the possibility to weigh your grades. It can be used as a nice overview to show you who needs to do some catching up and who you need to talk to. 

I have been working with Edmodo for about a month now and I am superexcited about it. I also get the feeling that my students enjoy it too, but they still have to get used to some of it. I will keep you posted! 

Do you want to give it a go? In that case I proudly present: 

A step by step guide to Edmodo! 

Step 1: visit www.edmodo.com and click the blue button that says 'I am a teacher'. 

Fill out the forms, click 'Sign Up' and voila, that's it! No e-mails with codes you need to verify, no junk mail, you just get an account !

If you want to, you can now create your profile (upload a photo, give information about yourself) but you don't have to do this right away. We are first going to create our first group, basically your own online class room.

Step 2: You can see a header called 'Groups' on the left side of your screen. You can click eiter join or create. We're trying to make a new group so we're going with Create. 

A pop-up appears and you can fill out the form. Choose the name of your group (Tourism, English Literature...), the level and the subject area. Click 'Create' to proceed.

This takes you to the next screen where you get your Group Code. This is the code that gives students access to your class room. 

Students do the same thing as you just did to create a profile, except they click 'I am a student'. They put in the Group Code, their name and a username and they are ready! Students can give their e-mail address but they don't have to do this, so again no junkmail! Easy as beans!

Possibly you have already noticed the icons in your screen: 

• The small house sends you to your home screen. This is similar to what you see when you log into Facebook, so the most recent activity is first in the list. 
• The calender icon sends you to your schedule. You can enter tests and due dates for example. 
• The folder with the V sign shows you the progress your students have made. You can see which assignments have been turned in and how you graded it. 
• The button next to it is the library. All your documents and links are saved here and you can rearrange them by group if you'd like.

Step 3: We're going to post a note now. To do this, go to the left side of your screen and click on the name of your group. You will see this in your screen: 

This bar will change slightly when you click the part that says 'type your note here...'

As you can see you can attach a file from your computer, a link to a website or a document from your Edmodo library.

The name of the group is now in the Send to bar. This means that the message you're about to send is going to be visible for the whole group. If you want to send a note to a specific student, click the x next to the group name and enter the name of your student. This obviously only works for students who have registered to your group.

The arrow is now on Note, but there are more options. If you click 'Alert' you will send a message similar to a Tweet on Twitter (max 140 characters), but you cannot attach anything. You can post a short announcement for example. You can send the message right away or you can schedule it for a later time so Edmodo can send it later. 

'Assignment' will let you post an assignment. Really? Yes, really... Choose a title, describe the assignment and choose a due date. You can attach a file and schedule a date to post the message. 

It is also possible to post a quiz which seems to be fairly easy. 

Would you rather create a poll? Sure you can! Again, this seems fairly easy to do... Type your question, choose two answer options (or more) and click send! 

Step 4: So, you have posted an assignment. Your students see it and do the assignment. When they're done, they can turn it in via the 'Turn in' button, which they will see in the middle of the post containing the assignment. Teachers will notice a 'Turned in' button in their assignment, which shows them the due date and the number of students that have turned their work in.

A short example: I did a writing assignment with a couple of students today. I have added a photo below with short instructions and the file containing the assignment. You can also see the due date and you can see that 7 students handed their work in. 

If I click on the 'Turned in' button, I can see who turned it in. I can click the student's name and open their work. This is where you can grade any work you would like to grade. I can do this in the top right corner of the screen, in the two squares divided by a slash. Put in the score, click 'Grade' and you're done. You can now choose an emoticon to show your student what you thought of their work.

For this assignment I chose to grade the work and to provide students with feedback. You can send your students a corrected version of their work with feedback via a note or via a reply to their assignment. 

Teachers can also award Badges. Edmodo provides you with 8 basic badges, but you can create your own badges too. It might seem a bit silly, but remember how badly you wanted a sticker on your work when you were younger? ;-)

Well, I think this is enough for today. I have to admit that I haven't tried all the options yet, but from what I have done and seen I can see that I really enjoy working with Edmodo. It is easy to use for me and students think it's easy and fun! Let me know what you think!

Oh and this might be a bonus:  Edmodo has an app for iPhone and iPad!  

Regards, Lotte

Flipping the classroom

First, I have to say that this blog was initially written in Dutch (by me) a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have given it more thought and therefore the content of this blog might differ with the Dutch one. No harm done, it only got better since I only got more enthusiastic!

Flipping the classroom sounds very interesting... I first encountered this term on inspirational heaven 'Pinterest' and was intrigued.... I started to come across it so often that I had to find out what the fuss was all about. I immediately loved the concept because it gave me a different vieuw of education and that is totally inspiring. Flipping the classroom could give students the motivation to start working on their own, they could create their own insights because of it and their attitude could change from consuming to thinking for themselves. In a nutshell: I love it! If you don't know what it's all about (surely you wouldn't be  reading this blog otherwise ?) watch this video to get an idea.

Now, this video below is a Ted talk where Salman Khan speaks, it is quite a long video (20 min.) but it is worth every second of it. I would almost say that watching it is mandatory! PS: watch closely behind Khan at 20:08, Voldemort is in the audience....

Feeling inspired? I am! Unfortunately as a language teacher I cannot use this website since it has no Language content. So Mr.Khan, if you are reading this, I (and I'm sure Lotte would too) would love to help you with that :).

Have a look at the infographic below of you are more of a visual person:

In a nutshell:

As the word 'flip' already says a ' flipped lesson' is a lesson which is turned around: homework happens in class and lectures happen at home. Students watch videos at home where their teacher or someone else explains what they need to know through video (youtube, Khan academy, etc). They then come to class to make their ' homework' which is doing assignments, projects, experiments, etc ; simply applying what they have learned from the videos they have watched at home.

The benefits of Flipping the Classroom are:

• Students can watch the video's at their own pace. They can watch it more than once whenever they feel the need. They can pause or rewind it. 
• Students don't have to feel embarrassed about asking a what seems like obvious question, they can simply rematch an explanation again online. 
• Students get the chance to educate themselves if they are not able to come to class.
• Students can ask questions to each other or the/a teacher or coach whenever they want, online. 
• Teachers are available when they are needed most: when students apply what they have learned. 
• Teacher have more time on their hands for helping students since they can use content of other teachers like videos, online assignments, etc to prepare their lessons. 
• The quality of the teacher-student relationship is improved because no time in class is spent on explaining things which is very time consuming. Also, the teacher can moderate students' progress online thus knows exactly who to help and with what. 

Disadvantages could be:

• Students won't be able to do their work in class if they don't do their homework ; watching a video online. Handling this could create some problems. Depending on what website the teacher and students use, the teacher can or cannot view students' activity and progress. If they cannot view these they will not know if students have done their bit at home. This will only become obvious once a students starts trying to apply what they haven't learned when they are already in class. This could create a more serious problem since one teacher could approve of this behavior and say "Watch the video now and then get to work" where another teacher would remove this student from class, the ticket to class being having watched the video. When teachers disagree about how to handle this situation it could bring down the whole concept of Flipping the Classroom. 
• Finding quality videos where the instructor speaks according to the students' language level can be a difficult task. This could be solved by making your own videos and sharing them with colleagues. However, making a really nice video could cost a lot of money and time and most of us don't have too much of those. 

OK. I hope you now have an all-round view of what flipping the classroom is. The big question is if you feel like you can start doing this in your classroom. If you do think about the following things: What will students watch at home? What will they do in class? How can I monitor their actions and progress? Which materials do they need? What is the main form of communication online?

Another possibility of flipping the classroom is through ed-ted. Watch the following video and find out!

With ted-ed you can flip your classroom using a video made by ted-ed or by using a youtube video. Isn't that great!!

Here are some other resources that you can use to find material:

• Youtube for Teachers
• Youtube for Schools
• Youtube Spotlight
• Ted.com
• You can also have a look on our Pinterest page for materials

Let's get flipping!

Roos

Blogging with Blogger

Since we've been spreading our blog on Pinterest, we decided that this is the time to start blogging in English as well as in Dutch. The digital revolution is a world wide revolution, right? We are going to test websites and applications with educational value here, so I decided to start with Blogger.com. 

What is Blogger?
A blog is an online medium, which is usually about interesting developments, news items, personal issues.. A blog can be about anything, really. Compare it to the diary you used to keep, except this diary is available online and can be seen by anybody (if you allow this, you can also adjust privacy settings and keep it more personal). A blog is different from a regular website because the update interval is shorter: usually a blog is updated more regularly and more often. 

Blogger is a service provided by Google which makes it possible to start your own blog for free. A lot of other websites provide this service as well, but I have experienced that they usually post advertisements on your blog. This is something that Blogger does not do! To create an account with Blogger you can use a Gmail account, which is free too... I love that. 

So what is the educational value of a blog?

There are many reasons for students and teachers to blog. Blogging can get you to start reflecting on your learning or on your professional development. Teachers often reflect on classroom situations and wonder what they could have done better or differently. Blogging can help you with this because by blogging you automatically create a portfolio for yourself in which you record such events. This can benefit any kind of evaluation with your manager! 

For the teachers who are not very ICT savvy yet: blogging can help you get started. Imagine you start blogging and as it turns out, you like and and are rather good at it! Perhaps this is a signal that you can do so much more and this could get you to try out other applications as well! I really hope so! Blogging can also provide you with useful feedback from readers. If you are open to this, this can really benefit your professional development as a teacher. 

Blogging is a creative process, just as writing in your diary used to be. I have found that by writing things down, I catch any fillers I'd much rather avoid. Writing also forces me to expand my vocabulary, which I think is always a good thing. But remember, blogging doesn't have to be about text only. Obviously you can try to transfer your point by using images, music, or video! 

There are plenty of reasons why I think students should blog. If you would like to read more about this, please click the link and visit 10 reasons why I want my students to blog. 

I understand that creating an account might be easy for me, but it isn't easy for everybody.. So that's why I present the following chapter: 

A step by step guide to your first blog! 

Step 1: visit www.gmail.com and create an account. You can do this by clicking the red button that says 'Create account' in the top right corner of your screen. 

This is where you put in your data. Gmail asks for your phone number but because this is optional, I decided not to put it down. I don't really like leaving my phone number because I am always worried call centres will know how to find me... After putting down your data you can add a photo to your photo, but this too is optional. 

Basically, this is all you have to do to create a Gmail account. Make sure you remember your username and password, because you have to use it to log in with Blogger. You can also use this for other Google services, such as Picasa photo albums and Google Docs (kind of an online version of Word, in which you can work on a document with several people at the same time). 

Step 2: visit www.blogger.com and use your Gmail address and password to log in. After you do this, you will see the following screen. 

Step 3: You will see a button on the left side of your screen which says 'New blog'. This will take you to the next screen, where you can choose a title for your blog and its URL (the link). You can also choose a format here, which mean you can pick a look for you blog. 

Scroll down and click the orange button that says 'Create blog'. 

Step 4: You will see that your blog has appeared on your dashboard (your home page). If you want to publish your first blog message, you can click the orange button with the pencil on it. 

Step 5: you are ready to get started! As you can see, Blogger looks similar to Word and we all know how to work with Word right? Right! This is one of the things I really like about Blogger: you can make something that looks quite fancy even if you have limited technical knowledge. 

You can type a title next to the word 'Message' which is written in orange. If you decide not to do this (or if you forget) Blogger will name it according to the date of publication. I think this is rather inconvenient because I think I would lose track of my blogs. Well, you're good to go now, you can just start typen. It is smart to save your message while writing it, just like you would do in Word. 

The buttons are similar to Word so I am not going to discuss all of them. The buttons I used for this message are: 

• Link: this will create a link to a different website. 
• Image: this is the button next to the link button. It allows you to browse images on your computer, but you can also use an image from a different site by choosing 'from URL'. 

If you want to see what your blog looks like without publishing it, you can click 'Example'. Are you ready to publish your blog on the world wide web? Click the orange button that says 'Publish'! 

If you want to make changes after you have published your blog, you can. To do this, go to your home page where you will see the name of your blog and het amount of messages. Click on this. If you put your mouse over the title of the blog you want to change, you will see that several options appear below the title. One of the options is 'edit'. Click this and you will be right back in your Word-like version of your blog.

Is Blogger useable for teachers? My answer is yes. 

• Blogger offers possibilities for teachers and students, so I see a win-win situation in this. Since Blogger is free, it is not unthinkable to get your students to blog. The work your students turn in can be corrected at any given time and place, and you can provide them with feedback via the blog too. Blogging also offers possibilities for students to work on their global citizenship, which creates an authentic learning environment and a global audience for your students. 
• Blogger is easy to use, especially for teachers who are already familiar with Word (that's all of us right?).
• Blogger can make your work as a teacher easier. It will take some time to get used to it at first, but in the end you and your students can create an online portfolio which will make job evaluations easier to prepare. 

I hope this explanation provided you with a small insight into the world of blogging and I hope you are willing to give it a try! Perhaps it is an idea to keep a blog that records your steps into the digital word? 

Have fun and keep us posted! If you would like to provide us with any feedback, please do so in the comment section or send us an e-mail! 

Regards, Lotte