PLN’s CoP’s and Padlet

Posted on Jul 24, 2014

I am completely jazzed about creating my very first Padlet page.  Mostly because a week ago I had no idea what Padlet was. I have presented many teacher trainings using PowerPoint and a couple using Prezi. Padlet was SO much easier, more user friendly and therefore instantly gratifying.

I started my project by deciding I wanted to learn about CoP’s.  In this class jargon is thrown around with the assumption we all have the same technological schema.  I have stepped out of my comfort zone, out of my area of expertise, and it is like learning a new language.  My goal was to gain an understanding of CoP’s or Communities of Practice, and share this new understanding with the other students in our class.

Social Anthropologist, Jean Lave of Berkley California and Etienne Wenger a teacher with a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of California at Irvine, formed the basis of a “significant rethinking of learning theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” Their model of Situated Learning proposed that learning involved a process of engagement in a ‘community of practice.’ (infed.org) Lave’s reasearch led her to state that ‘learning is ubiquitous in ongoing activity, though often unrecognized as such’ (Lave 1993: 5). What they believed is that learning did not occur within a certain time frame, within a specified building or institution of learning, but that learning occurred everywhere, at all times, not as an individual pursuit, but as a collective process of sharing knowledge and ideas with colleagues, peers, friends; any group with a shared interest.

I began researching for this project through the assigned readings and videos.  I became interested in the concept of Curation, Connectivism and CoP’s and continued to search online for resources for all 3, but struggled with the PLN I would use to collect and present what I had learned.  I looked up Padlet and watched two videos on how to use them:
http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/media-reviews/padlet-a-blank-slate-on-the-web-to-collaborate-with-others/ and at padlet.com under features, this very concise tutorial: http://padlet.com/features.  I can’t believe how simple the concept for Padlet is, how user friendly and easy it is to share the final product. I was hooked and even gave a demonstration to my daughter at midnight.  (She was thrilled.)

I saved several articles and links to POCKET to retrieve and refer to for this blog.  I am blown away by how much there is to learn, know, use, teach, share regarding PLN’s, and am especially interested in seeing more collaborative learning throughout our schools.  I hope my son is provided opportunities in 8th grade to share information and ideas in school through CoP’s.  He has created his own CoP’s through a Minecraft gaming community, through Skype and his annual week at IDTech Camps. I have observed over the past two years how much he has learned through these online exchanges of information.  Friends Skype him for help with Minecraft and 3-D graphics, and he learns from experts he follows on YouTube.  His learning is self directed, and his thirst for more knowledge leads him to many other topics outside of gaming.  He and I have had very interesting conversations lately about Dub Step Music and women’s rights, all based on information he learned online through CoP’s.

Brain Development, and Metacognition are  areas I find fascinating as an early childhood educator.  We know that children learn best through play and discovery.  We also focus much of our efforts on teaching social skills, such as how to play with friends, conflict resolution, and working together to solve problems.  I have stated many times in class we want to push these concepts up into K-3rd grades, and take the focus off standardized testing and test prep for these young children.  We know children do not learn in a box, yet we are expecting that, when we base most of their assessment on test taking.  Rich, hands on experiences are the best teachers.  Students will long remember the solar system they made in the classroom, hanging from the ceiling better than the chapter they read form a textbook, just as older children will brainstorm and think more deeply and critically about topics they are collaborating on and discussing.

It is exciting that there are so many technological tools for students to create and share, to engage in critical thinking, discussion and collaborative work.  I only hope that more educators are made aware of the many varied tools available, their ease of use, and the powerful experiences they can create for their students.

Please check out my collection of information on CoP’s on my Padlet wall:  http://padlet.com/wall/Corbett

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