Sep 02 2007
Professional Communities
I am catching up on my reading…still behind everyone by a few weeks. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach posted about virtual learning communities and communities of practice. I found her post interesting considering my charge this year to develop a personal professional development plan. I’ve been a member of a few communities, but never got past the linking or lurking stage. David Lee’s explanation of these roles describes exactly where I was coming from in my membership. I find it interesting that while I felt the need to join these groups as a matter of my own professional development, I never considered my role or the need to become an active participant until challenged to “take it to a new level” by my boss. I then had the task to decide which community I would become an active participant of. I belong/subscribe to several: an ITRT Yahoo! group, The DEN, VSTE forums, TiPS, and Classroom 2.0. If I was going to make the move from consumer to commentor it had to be in the right community. The choice wasn’t hard. Three of the five aren’t active enough to merit a change. I’ve always found participation at the DEN to be challenging, so I went with Classroom 2.0. It’s got all of the hallmarks of the healthy community that Sheryl mentioned. When I joined I was immediately welcomed by several members and the topics of conversation are really relevant to what I am doing. In the week that I have been a more active participant, I have learned an aweful lot.
- I got an idea for a lesson for a fifth grade class that I’ll be working with.
- One discussion helped me connect some ideas I have for a teacher workshop that I am developing.
- I’ve been challenged to change my pedagogical ideas about instructional blogging.
As I told my boss on Friday – it’s already changed my practice. As Sheryl puts it, I’ll be around Classroom 2.0 a lot – not just because it’s part of my plan – it’s worth my time.
