Ning+of+Dreams

Thanks for this info- And thanks for attending! I have not read the resource...but will check it out- Katie March 12, 2010 Notes from March 11th Elluminate Session. Hi Group! Yesterday afternoon I attended an optional Year 2 PLP Session with a small group (10 of us total) presented by Michigan’s own Nancy Flanagan. The topic was one useful to us for upcoming presentations – how to bring Unions on board for the shift.

From the perspective that was presented, Teaching Unions are an impediment to changes in technology, usually for fear of job-loss. Data was presented that supported this generalization, included in the power point that I will pass along when the archive of the session is posted. The GIST is that in states where unions are weaker, the existence of online courses is increased and “technology scores” are higher overall. Online teaching was the focus of a large part of our discussion, with the viewpoint of “this shift is coming, so what are we going to do **to be a part of it.”** I’ll skip ahead: The message I got from this is that we need to know how to respond/convince when it comes to a Union that is designed to protect jobs. When we say that this new technology will change the classroom, people that have been in the classroom and fear outsourcing (which Wendy herself said was possible with current advances) tense up to rally against the idea. When I mentioned this perspective as a halt, Sheryl NB expressed that no matter what, it is going to happen, so a Union should look at is as such: Jobs for online courses will create more schools, and put more highly qualified teachers to work. Rather than focusing that these jobs could be given to someone in India with a webcam and a certificate that we don’t recognize, we focus on the positive reality of the situation, which I sum up as being: 1. We still have a say, so we make sure to lobby for restrictions that protect Michigan Jobs, Michigan Highly Qualified Certification for all teachers that are involved in online teaching. 2. We recognize and promote that the chance for kids to connect and discuss information with a person from another culture or country is a learning experience, not a job loss possibility. These are tough sells, but if people are on board than we can be the proponents of the change, rather than forced along with it when it comes. I’m including a link to a book that I was recommended when I said we needed help with the pitch – //Disrupting Class// []. It looks fantastic! Have any of you read it or heard of it before? If you have any questions about the session, let me know! I’m sure this will help with quite a few of our upcoming presentations. Frank

3/8/10 Katie Here are the tasks and assignments so far: please sign up for 2-3 spots. Thanks, Katie Here are the tasks with additions: a) Hart Ning; look & set up- much has been started here (Frank and Katie) b) Initial activities for staff to complete (Rachel, Frank) c) Development of timeline (Katie and Wendy) d) Presentation (Prezi) (Katie and Wendy) i) Staff ii) RCS Administration iii) REA iv) School Board e) SB-CEU’s (Dale) will be changed by State of Michigan f) Research relevant to our project (Sandy and Rachel) g) Documentation/Survey (pre/post; diagnostic continuum)Dale h) Evaluation process (Wendy)

2/6/10: Katie Scoping the ning for info- thought this might be helpful to consider when hammering out the initial presentation to staff. From SN-B in a PLC group forum about motivating staff to participate in an online venture. Am also trending towards physically using the outline below to formulate our project steps. We may want to take some time to collect our thoughts and record information so we have a written plan of attack...I have information from Ginnie Holloway outlining what they did in the beginning steps of selling the TL model that will be useful in our planning stages; they organized their plan and presented to various peeps in the district; admin-union. We have Jeff behind us, but I really believe that in order to be successful across the board we are going to want all sorts of district people to know what we are attempting to do and also have some basic understanding.
 * 1) **//What’s in it for// me//? – WIIFM motivation; individualistic learning//**
 * 2) **//What’s in it for// us//? – Teamworking; project and goal focused//**
 * 3) **//What of// us //is it// it? – //Collaborative learning and production//**
 * 4) **//What of// me //is it// it? – //WOMII motivation; community and process focused​//**

Posted by Sandy: Sorry I missed the meeting!! However, I'm so glad I didn't expose any of you to this HORRIBLE flu bug. It was awful! I have reviewed the notes from the meeting and had a few thoughts. First I think we will walk a very fine line between...who cares...who are you...what are you talking about .....and how do I sign up? I hate to sound negative...but I sure have watched it play out recently. What if...instead of us introducing "our experience", we introduce the Ning of Dreams as suggesed but use one of the videos such as the learn to change change to learn that is on our Ning. I also really liked the visitor vs. resident video but I can't find the link right now. The task can be to ask the staff to respond to the video with their thoughts right on the Ning. Now....we can do this on their own time OR we could have the netbooks lrevved up for each staff member (or pair of staff members) and ask them to listen and respond before they leave. (We could even have them use the headphones). This way we are setting up some introductory prior knowledge for the "what are you talking about" group....we are moving in slowly for the "who are you group", we're setting the foundation for the "who cares" group and we're drawing out the "how do I sign up" group. I'm happy to help in anyway I can but I did want to get these thought out there before the week started.

Why don't we start drafting a post for the Team Project Room? What do we want the initial post to look like? Uh, just made a quickie reference in the Team Project Room...but we can certainly add more later...the good news is maybe someone will jump in with something and give us some great resources! Thanks for getting this started! KA

This is the [|presentation] "21st Century Influencer" that Leslie Accardo referenced in her response to Rachel's post. It's long, but there are some slides might be useful for us...

School teams have an opportunity to showcase, reflect, and celebrate the success and outcomes of their learning at our culminating event.


 * Project focus should be: (choose one)**

1. **Professional development**- to share/scale what the team is learning with the rest of the faculty.

Your development of the project will be transparent so others can follow and replicate if desired and so you can get feedback from the network along the way.
 * Documenting Your Project**

1. **The problem or question.** What is the problem (or opportunity) you wish to address with your project? Describe what you wish to change, for example, aspects of content (e.g. test scores), process (e.g. ability to collaborate), climate (e.g. morale), or tech use (e.g. embedded use of technology in instruction). Be as specific as possible in describing what you want to change. The problem: finding a communal location for problem solving and resources that is malleable enough to adapt and amend as needed What is the vision? This is the medium for the 21st Century interaction for staff Learning environment vs. storage facility Audience: Are they ready? Booster seat within the Ning. What do we want to change: give staff platform for achieving success with 21st C Learning tools, better collaboration, collective efficacy. Dale is going to research her diagnostic tools creating a continuum. Diagnostic tool-Continuum-Create Need-ISTE standards-SHIFT-Ning
 * Steps**

2. **Objectives and Assessment** Develop objectives and authentic assessments for determining what you want learners (adults or students) to be able to know and do after the project and how you will determine they have indeed mastered the objectives your project laid out. Participation in the Discussion Board, Transfer tools to classrooms, creation and participation of learning related issues, checklists: what have I tried lately? Follow up on diagnostic tools

3. **Networked Design** Then think about how you will design your project so participants can share, connect, collaborate, or move to some type of collective action. Ning for specific tasks, common and shared purpose, building content, collective ownership, transparency, use, make, expand, learn, engage? 4. **Set the Context** What have others done (at your institution or elsewhere) to address this problem? Do some research as a team to see what others have done. Get ideas. Divi up different research roles to individual team members. If our goal is PD oriented, and have staff be transparent….we have tried full and half day trainings for HAP, redesigned PD, Blackboard, etc. What will make ours work better? Our NING will replace some mandatory meetings and required attendance at various functions. We have an opportunity to shape something before it happens to us. We need to make ourselves unable to be outsourced. 5. **Proposal** How will you plan to solve the problem or answer the question? Describe what you will do to address the problem/opportunity described earlier. Are you doing anything differently than others have attempted? Why or why not? Why do you propose that your approach will succeed better than prior attempts or will work better with your students or faculty? Ning of Dreams: different; experience

6. **Evaluation** How will you determine the success and effectiveness of your solution and the impact of your project? Do you plan to determine pre and post results? How will you know that the behavior of your students/faculty has changed/improved? Note: You may not be able to obtain your results by the end of your year. However, you should have a plan in place to evaluate your project and report on the results. The idea is to develop a solid plan to share with others. If you implement this year or next is entirely up to you. When possible make this an action research project.

7. **Timeline** How will your project progress? Indicate the dates of project initiation and completion for each step of your design, implementation, and evaluation.

8. **Documentation** How will you document your progress along the way? Will you share in your team group room in NING? Will you create a collaborative blog? A wiki? A Google Doc? Choose one and then everyone will use the document to make the process transparent.

During this next PLP phase-(until our next E sessions) ask questions, explore ideas, research and plan. You may not know what you do not know. Or at the least be prepared to revise, revise, revise. Be transparent in your planning and experimenting. Ask the community for help. Use the PLN you are starting to develop or will develop over this next phase.

Your team should be in high gear in terms of project plans late February.

Your team will develop a learning showcase for our PLP Culminating meeting where your team shares your project and the results of your project plan.

The big goal is to take what you have learned and apply it to changed classroom practice (we cover instruction in the E-3 session) or a scaling type project spreading what you know with faculty.