How to digitally supplement a PLC
Ed. Tech. April 23rd, 2008
I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around an idea, so I thought I’d throw it out to the edublogosphere (hello? anybody home?).
I’m trying to figure out the best way to support a face-to-face professional learning community with an electronic personal/professional learning network. So, imagine that in my workplace we have monthly f-2-f meetings to discuss a book or a journal article. I’m looking for the best way (digitally) to foster additional (synchronous/asynchronous) communication between those sessions. We could enroll everyone in a Blackboard course, but Bb just isn’t right for that. I could also develop a Google Space for us. But, I’m certain that folks don’t want another place to have to “go” to see if there is new information or new communication.
Is Ning the right answer? Or, is that overkill? What is the best way to electronically supplement a professional learning community?
Tags: network, PLC, technology
Jon: I might turn the question around. Solving the “folks don’t want another place to have to “go” to see if there is new information…” issue is simple if folks learn how to harness RSS and use Google Reader. Then, something like a Ning site that has RSS feed available becomes a viable option, and any inputs at the Ning site show up automatically in all the subscribers’ GReader. I track my participation in several Ning sites that way.
[...] I had just commented to Jon Becker in his blog post about “How To Digitally Supplement a PLC” that the key was using the power of RSS to bring the conversation to the [...]
Um, e-mail listserv? Blog? Doesn’t it depend on what your group wants to be able to do in between F2F sessions?
Gotta agree with Scott here. How simple is it to use a listserve? It has taken me a while just to get a group of adults comfortable with checking e-mail consistently (some much more than others), so I understand difficulty in getting others to access something that requires “another” step. F2F is still MY personal favorite, but a simple e-mail would allow me, and others, to stay current with what you want to accomplish or have available.
Jon,
I’m looking for the best way (digitally) to foster additional (synchronous/asynchronous) communication between those sessions.
I am not sure I have the perfect solution, because, as you state, there are many folks involved who have different comfort levels.
For one, I hate e-mail list serves. That’s just me. I find I rarely want to deal with what’s in them (I’m a lurker), and it is like getting junk mail.
For synchronous communication, we often use group iChats. You select multiple names, and it creates a ad-hoc “chat room.” We can exchange files, etc. Of course most chat clients support group chats.
How public/private is this group? Yes, I think for short term, something like Ning or Blackboard, or Google Spaces is overkill. For just learning, I’d prefer the Google option among those three.
But I think a community blog or a wiki might be more apropos. The new PBWikis offer more structure than before. And of course, a favorite free-form friend of mine is drop.io, which can be a common space to dump ideas, digital media, and more. And, it’s all RSS-powered up, so you have your skin/blood/bone finger on the digital pulse.
Cheers.
Thanks, John. I’ll definitely check out Drop.io (and ScreenFlow!).
JB