Education Innovation

The "Killer App"- Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives

Back in 2002 in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Howard Rheingold predicted that, “The ‘killer apps’ of tomorrow’s mobile infocom industry won’t be hardware devices or software program but social practices. The most far reaching changes will come, as they often do, from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible.”

The prediction, as we now know, was spot dead on. (Nothing new for Howard) The technology has transformed our relationships, how we are able to collaborate, how we now define communities, and what kinds of work we are able to do.

This get to the very heart of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative (PNLC) No longer is the work of educational teams limited to face-to-face over the table collaboration. No longer is email viewed as the technology of choice for collaboration. No longer are teams limited by geography.

The true difference in the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative does not lie in the technology. First, the technology enables different types of relationships. Virtual relationships are now possible and have become commonplace outside of educational settings. Networks of all sorts (Facbebook, Ning, Twitter, etc.) webcams, etc. have changed the very definition of presence.

Second, technology has changed who is part of the team. Team members can now be virtual. Members no longer tied to geographic limitation can provide input, ideas, and collaborate in real-time for any location on the globe. The Professional Learning Community succeeded because it viewed its membership of the grade level/subject matter and the school. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative enabled through technology expands the ring of membership to include specialist, consultants, district staff, etc as part of the team.

Further, each member of the PNLC will have his or her own developed Personal Learning Network from which to draw on. As each PNLC member’s PLN network overlaps with other team members it becomes much different from the local context of a community. It Overlapping Personal Learning Networks form a collaborative that is a normal functioning part of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. We have moved from face-to-face community of physical space to the technology enabled virtual and physical space collaborative.

Third, the very enterprise of the typical grade level or subject matter team will be different as technology enables networks to allows for new levels of data analysis, planning, lesson design, etc. The reality is that what grade levels or subject matter teams will be able to do compared with what they do right will not just more or better… it will be different.

Finally, the PNLC model it not going to be limited to the technology that currently exists for two reasons.

First, the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is what I call a “Change is Normal Organization”(CiNO). It is designed to change and adapt. The values of the PNLC of ICE3:Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship ensure the PNLC will change.

Second, the technology that we now use to collaborate virtually or network on is going to change. But, the hardware we use to access these platforms is going to move off of the desktop or laptop on to our phones. I describe this as the 4th Way. As Howard Rheingold so presciently foretold in 2002, “These devices will help people coordinate actions with others around the world—and, perhaps more importantly, with people nearby. Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power, new ways to organize their interactions and exchanges just in time and just in place.”

He asks, “How will human behavior shift when the appliances we hold in our hands, carry in our pockets, or wear in our clothing become supercomputers that talk to each other through a wireless mega-Internet?”

Howard provides an answer. He says, “They will enable people to act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before.” 

The PNLC is not just better…it’s totally different. It's the "killer app."

Crowdsourcing Education Reform Via Twitter and #edchat

Note: This post was originally posted on Edutopia-Igniting Innovation in Education through Collaboration

#edchat's "small sparks"

Keith Sawyer, author of the book Group Genius wrote, "All inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks...Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation."

Educators need no longer be content to passively wait for others to discover the "small sparks" that are needed to solve classroom or school issues. The technology now exists for educators to share their own "small sparks" at the grassroots level together through networks such as Twitter, and on Twitter that means #edchat.

During the 7/6/10 weekly #edchat my final tweet of the discussion was a fictitious news headline: "Twitter group known at #edchat becomes a powerful source of new directions and innovation in education."

What preceded it was a discussion with others about how #edchat could become a recognized source of educational problem solving, ideas, experimentation, and innovation. For those educators who are on Twitter, #edchat has quickly become the go-to place for discussing educational issues, sharing ideas, links to articles, and posting questions. It is not limited to the Tuesday topic-driven chats, but is happening 24/7. #edchat is producing a lot of "small sparks."

Is it possible that the #edchat conversation on Twitter could evolve into a recognized leader in open source educational ideas, innovations, and solutions? I believe it is.

First, educators need to recognize that #edchat is more than just a Personal Learning Network (PLN) or an on-line Professional Learning Community. It is actually a pNLC- professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

Second, the #edchat pNLC needs to put the ideas, innovation, and solutions into action to produce real tangible classroom or school based results and then give #edchat the credit.

Professional Networked Learning Collaborative- pNLC

The #edchat professional Networked Learning Collaborative (pNLC) will allow teachers access to a greater flow of knowledge and information than ever before. Using a network such as Twitter, teachers will be able to form collaboratives that actually implement the ideas shared via the network. It moves ideas from the digital to the physical.

The essence of the pNLC is that the "who" of potential members and collaborators is increased exponentially because of individual members networking through collaborative technology platforms such as Twitter. Thus, more "small sparks." The pNLC allows educators to "crowdsource."

Crowdsourcing

Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why The Power Of The Crowd Is Driving The Future of Business, points out that there are two shared characteristics of a crowdsourced project. First, the participants are not motivated by money, and second, they are donating their free time. "That is, they're contributing their excess capacity, or 'spare cycles,' to indulge in something they love to do." Clay Shirky would say they are using their "Cognitive Surplus."

The #edchat pNLC is able to crowdsource learning solutions, solve problems, generate ideas, and create innovations for the classroom or school.

#edchat works because virtual teams can form up around educational problems or issues easily. #edchatters are free to pursue their own interests and passions, and thus, are highly motivated. #edchatters can contribute regardless of their professional experience or expertise. That means anyone could provide insight or valuable ideas on a topic or issue they are passionate about. This is why the "p" in pNLC is lower case.

If it is true, as Peter Steiner said, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," then in the crowd, nobody cares if you are a credentialed expert. It assumes that everyone participating in the #edchat has something of value to offer. All that matters is that one is motivated and knowledgeable.

#edchat Evolution

Wikis or Google docs could be used to post specific issues teachers are seeking help with. Designated hashtags could be generated for each issue creating a sort of #edchat task force. For example, technology topics could use the hashtag #edchat-tech. California teachers could use #edchat-CA. These collaboartive teams could then divide the labor, focus the ideas, and channel the energy.

Evolving the #edchat hashtag into more focused or specialized topics would not only help to focus energy and ideas, but also attract other people who have an interest in those topics. Results and evidence of the work can be posted as YouTube videos, magazine articles, blog posts, and the main #edchat Twitter conversation.

Serendipity

The simple definition of serendipity is finding what we didn't know what we were looking for. It is unexpected encounters with people and the knowledge they possess. But what if, instead of accidentally stumbling into a serendipitous encounter, you could attract or draw these people to you--a form of purposeful serendipity?

The #edchat pNLC does just that. Participating in #edchat will allow an individual teacher to form a learning collaborative--to reach beyond the walls of their classroom or school and into the "crowd" and gather up all those "small sparks." All it takes is some imagination to see the possibilities.

The Power of Attraction- Attracting What You Need Into Your Learning Community

Have you ever run into the right person at just the right time? Have you meet a person who has the knowledge to help you solve a problem, or who provides the right information to help you with an issue you are trying to tackle at school. You may have not been looking for the person, but you just stumbled upon them. That is serendipity.

Attracting What We Were Not Looking For

Serendipity- The simple definition of serendipity is finding what we didn’t know what we were looking for. It is unexpected encounters with people and they knowledge they posses.

But what if, instead of accidentally stumbling into a serendipitous encounter, you could attract or draw these people to you--a form of purposeful serendipity? We would be able to attract whom we need to learn from—and attraction is a powerful force.

I have advocated that technology and other key drivers have created an environment in which individual Professional Learning Communities can be networked with, not only other Professional Learning Communities, but useful individuals such as specialists, district personnel, researchers, consultants, etc., physically and virtually.  I call this model the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

Authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison explain why attraction, or purposefully shaping serendipitous encounters is so important in their book The Power of Pull. The reason that the PNLC is so powerful is because is seeks to attract the people with the knowledge we need to meet our student’s needs. 

A PNLC attracts those people who know what we need, who have wrestled with our current learning issues, and who have the tacit knowledge we need to meet the needs of our students.

The PNLC attracts the people who posses the tacit knowledge we need.

Attraction- “…techniques focused for drawing people or resources to us that we were not even aware existed but that prove to be relevant and valuable.”

The Super Node

Each member of a PNLC becomes a super node. The person is the portal to the network. The person is an autonomous communication and collaboration node. Each member can potentially leverage not only their network, but also the network of others who are in their network. This principle is known as Metcalfe’s Law. The number of potential connections between nodes grows more quickly than the number of nodes. The total value of the network where each node can reach every other node in the network grows with the square of the number of nodes. In other words, when PNLC members connect their networks, it creates more value than the sum of networks independently.

Our networks can help us attract serendipity.

Why Serendipity

“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas these people carry with them and the connections they have. People carry tacit knowledge. You can’t learn brain surgery just from a text…you need to stand next to someone who already knows and learn by doing. Tacit knowledge exists only in people’s heads.”

Serendipitous encounters become a rich flow of tacit knowledge.

“…serendipitous encounters with people prove to be more fruitful that an isolated encounter with new objects or data. We not only have the opportunity to access the tacit knowledge other people have gained from their experiences—and to share our own—but can begin to create relationships that may themselves spawn new tacit knowledge as we begin to collaborate on areas of shared interest.”

Think about the number of educational articles you have read about literacy, mathematics, technology, RtI, common assessments, educational leadership, or Professional Learning Communities. Think about how many times you have attended a staff development session and left thinking, “Okay, but what do I do next.” You need the tacit knowledge of someone who has been there and done that. You need someone to show you how, share his or her experience, and put it in real life context for you.

PNLCs help attract people who have knowledge in the educational challenges, problems, or situation you face. They are fellow travelers down these educational avenues. And, as the authors state, fellow travelers amplify us.

“If you are exploring a new territory—an edge—it’s very helpful to learn from the experience of others in similar contexts. Serendipitous encounters thus help amplify our efforts by connecting us with our fellow explorers—exactly the people who can help us in our own explorations.”

One of the benefits of tacit knowledge flows from our fellow travelers is that it cuts down on the time we might waste. We know that every moment is precious. There is not a moment to waste when it comes to meeting the needs of our students in the school day. Attracting tacit knowledge through our network creates a high rate of return on our attention.

Return On Attention- ROA

“In a world where attraction and return on attention—defined as the value gained relative to the time and attention invested—are becoming increasingly important, those who master the techniques required to shape serendipity will likely profit far more than those who simply wait for it to surface.”

Shaping serendipity involves the blending of three elements: environments, practices, and preparedness. We will look at those in a coming post.

Ongoing Connections- Building Relationships

The other benefit to attracting people through our PNLCs is that we create more than just one time encounters, but mutual reinforcing and benefiting relationships. While you may learn something today, you may have something to teach tomorrow.

 “Serendipity becomes much more than a one-time encounter or an end in itself: It becomes the crucial means of access to rich flows of tacit knowledge both now and in the future.”

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative attracts serendipitous connections through our super nodes of multiple connections to provide the tacit, real world contextual knowledge we need to meet the needs of students. 

See also: 

Edge Perspectives With John Hagel

John Seely Brown

The Edgerati

The Power of Attraction- Pulling Those You Need Into Your Learning Community

I have advocated that technology and other key drivers have created an environment in which individual Professional Learning Communities can be networked with, not only other Professional Learning Communities, but useful individuals such as specialists, district personnel, researchers, etc., physically and virtually.  I call this model the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

The essence of the PNLC is that the "who" of potential members and collaborators is increased exponentially because of individual members networking through collaborative technology platforms, the "what." It provides scale without mass.

Authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison explain why this is true in their book The Power of Pull. The reason that the PNLC is so powerful is because of the access it provides. 

A PNLC provides access—helps us find people, information, data, ideas, and resources on demand.

Access is, “…the ability to fluidly find and get to the people and resources when and where we need them.” 

Stocks of Knowledge vs. Flows of Knowledge

Access is key because we are finding that the many of the challenges and problems we are dealing with in education we were simply not trained to confront in our teacher preparation programs. We were given a “stock” amount of knowledge, but it isn’t enough.

“We are often disappointed to find that the education we invested so much time and money to pursue has failed to prepare us for the lives we are now leading.” 

Think of all the skills many educators have had to learn since leaving their college teacher prep programs—data analysis and management, conflict resolution, technology implementation, increasing numbers of learning issues and problems, etc. 

The challenges that we face in education today require that we tap into an ever refreshing stream of knowledge. 

“To succeed now, we have to continually refresh our stocks of knowledge by participating in relevant ‘flows’ of knowledge—interactions that create knowledge or transfer it across individuals. These flows occur in any social, fluid environment that allows firms and individuals to get faster by working with others.” 

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative provides a stream of new knowledge and learning that can help us meet the challenges and needs of our students, our schools, and the environment surrounding education. 

Passions and Interests

“People are seeking out others for mutual support around common interests and passions more actively than ever before. What’s also different now is the reach and scale of these networks—their actual size as well as the diversity of participants they attract and mobilize.” 

Think of a PLN- Personal Learning Network mashed-up with a PIN- Passion and Interest Network, combined with a PLN- Professional Learning Network and you have a PNLC- Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

The cognitive diversity that a PNLC is able to attract is a major advantage compared to the old PLC model. The ability to attract physically and virtually those who share our passions, interests, and, I might add, problems, is a key lever of what make the PNLC so valuable. 

Breaking Down Silos and Barriers

The authors point out, “…there are a lot more smart people outside any particular company than within it.” 

We need to tap into all the knowledge and expertise that is out there. The people sitting at the table with us are important, but so are all the other useful outsiders, the “smart people” who exist outside of our classrooms, our schools, and our districts. And technology can attract them. 

“As the number of people we can connect with expands, our ability to pull from that network the resources and people we require to address unexpected needs expands along with it. Using tools and platforms emerging today, any of us can now find a person in a remote part of the world who just happens to have the knowledge or expertise required to help us.” 

At its heart, the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is ambidextrous. It seeks those who we can physically connect with and those whom we can virtually connect with. It makes it incredibly flexible. 

“Flexible access to people and resources can be enormously powerful in a world driven by changes that, more often than not, lead us in unanticipated directions.” 

Thanks to Pull—and John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison for so eloquently describing what I have been trying to describe for the past year—the “pull” of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. 

Also See: 

Edge Perspectives With John Hagel

John Seely Brown

The Edgerati

Question Your Assumptions--Who Is Missing At Your Meeting?

“The wrong people meet regularly in our schools. Instead of meeting by department, what if we were to meet around problems? What if we were to meet strategically with the best people to address the problem?” So asks Heidi Hayes Jacobs in her book Curriculum 21: The Essential Education for a Changing World.

Begin with “why” and the “who” takes on new meaning.

Heidi explains, “For example, if issues arise related to poor performance on 8^_th grade math tests regarding balancing an equation, then the group that is most likely to meet are 8th grade math teachers. A more strategically planned group would be the teacher in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 who would meet virtually to examine curriculum maps and consider the requisite building of skills; furthermore English teachers should be involved to help determine if, in fact, the test results reflect a reading problem rather than a math problem.”

Teams need to be scalable. Teams need to break through silos. Teams need to be strategic in their thinking. Teams need to network.

It is for the very idea that Heidi Hayes Jacobs describes above that a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is the model of the future.

The ability to configure unique teams virtually, physically, or both; the ability to scale up membership and break out of pre-configured and or assumed silos, combined with the strategic thinking, will meet the challenges of the future and leverage the network effect that virtual technologies have made possible.

Start with “why” and then determine the “who.”

With the PNLC the “who” is anyone in the network and not necessarily those who are we assume must be a part of the team or whom we have organizationally pushed onto the team. The PNLC pulls from the edge of the network and assembles a team based on the need, the strategy, and the knowledge needed.

The PNLC "pulls" together those we need-- "who"--and their ability to share and or co-create the needed knowledge-- "what"--that addresses the need--"why."

Instead of the "wrong people" meeting, the right people connect and network to strategically solve problems and meet student needs. We question assumptions about what we think team or group must be or is pushed to be, and pull from the network to create what should be.

Check out
Curriculum 21

Curriculum Designer Inc. 

edgerati: People Exploring the Edge

Education’s Big Shift: Institutions of Learning to Learning Institutions

Education’s Big Shift: Institutions of Learning to Learning Institutions

In their new book The Power of Pull, authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison describe what they call the "Big Shift."

The Big Shift for Education

“Our educational institutions are grappling with the need to move from being institutions of learning to learning institutions that rapidly evolve in response to the quickly changing learning needs of students and the find ways to extend the learning process well beyond the walls and semesters that define courses today.”

Personal Implications of the Big Shift

“We discover, to our dismay, that the significant investments we made in education in the early part of our lives was just the beginning. In order to stay successful in a world of accelerating change, we need to find ways to learn faster, often in areas that we once viewed as quite peripheral to our professions.”

“What we knew yesterday—either as employees or in terms of what our institutions as a whole knows about its business—is proving to be less and less helpful with the challenges and opportunities we confront today.” 

When I reflect back on my teacher preparation program and the skills I learned there, and then compare them with the skills I rely heavily on today, there is quite a gap. Take just two examples, data and technology.

Data- I have had to learn how to collect data, organize data, and use it to make instructional decisions. I have had to learn how to create effective assessments to collect data and how to analyze the effectiveness of my data collection tools, but the validity of the results.

More districts are exploring taking classes out of the classroom and moving them online. Are you ready for that? Do you understand the instructional principles at work in a virtual learning environment?

Technology- At one point I was teaching an Apple 1to1 laptop classroom. I had to quickly learn a new set of skills to meet the instructional needs of my students. I have had to learn how to develop a Personal Learning Network and how to use Web2.0 technologies.

While I could go on, I think you see the point. What we learn is quickly becoming perishable. Static knowledge has a role, but things are changing so fast, and we as educators are being called upon to do more and more, we need to develop a stream or flow of tacit knowledge.

Most of the new things we will need to learn are best learned while working with others, not from a textbook. You need a network and people to collaborate with, to co-create new knowledge and learn from. You need the explicit knowledge that comes from collaborating and learning from others. Just as someone can’t tell you how to ride a bike, no one call tell you how to create effective instructional routines based on hearing a student’s percentage score.

You need…a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. It's the difference between a search engine and a network.

Search Engine	The Network
The Lesson Plan	The Lesson Designer
Book	Author
Photo	Photographer
Data	Researcher
Idea	Innovator
Music	Musician
Invention	Inventor
Program	Programmer
Historical Event	Participant who experienced it
What to do	Voice of experience that tells you how to do it and why
Public information	Behind the scenes
We have to know what we are looking for	Anticipates what we need and directs or provides it for us
Created	Co-create new knowledge
Find it	Attract it
Algorithm	Thinking
Static information that is locked on-line	Dynamic knowledge that can cross over into touch space (face-to-face)
Explicit Knowledge and Information	Tacit Knowledge and Know-how

It's the Professional Network Learning Collaborative that can take a school from a institution of learning and transform it into a learning institution--from a search engine into a network. That's the "Big Shift"

That's Education Innovation.

Why Networked? The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

When I explain the concept behind the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative one of the biggest misconceptions I have to overcome is educators’ understanding of how a network is different than just searching the Internet. Some educators ask, “Isn’t this just a PLC using a search engine?” Or, “You mean using the Internet during a PLC meeting.”

So I thought I would try to explain why the Network is different than just using a search engine, and why, for those of us working in Professional Learning Communities, the network is so powerful.

Search Engine	The Network
The Lesson Plan	The Lesson Designer
Book	Author
Photo	Photographer
Data	Researcher
Idea	Innovator
Music	Musician
Invention	Inventor
Program	Programmer
Historical Event	Participant who experienced it
What to do	Voice of experience that tells you how to do it and why
Public information	Behind the scenes
We have to know what we are looking for	Anticipates what we need and directs or provides it for us
Created	Co-create new knowledge
Find it	Attract it
Algorithm	Thinking
Static information that is locked on-line	Dynamic knowledge that can cross over into touch space (face-to-face)
Explicit Knowledge and Information	Tacit Knowledge and Know-how

It is the Network and the power of learning, sharing tacit knowledge, and co-creating new knowledge, the “network effect”, that makes a difference for the educators and the students they serve. It is the network that transforms a PLC into a PNLC.

The Mission of a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

If I was looking for a mission statement for a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative, this statement from John Seely Brown comes very close.

"...a passionate pursuit of extreme performance with a deep questing disposition."

I might modify to..

A passionate pursuit of extreme performance with a deep questioning and learning attitude.

Sounds like Education Innovation to me.

Because Friends Don’t Let Friends Stay Ignorant- The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said, …”there are known 'knowns.' There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.”

He was basically describing 3 levels of ignorance. (Lack of knowledge or information)

The 3 Levels of ignorance look like this.

Level 1-There are things you “know.” 

For example, I can use an LCD projector in my classroom. I know where the school cafeteria is.

Level 2-There are things you “know you don’t know.” 

For example, I don’t know how to use Wolfram Alpha. I don’t know what the cafeteria will be serving next Tuesday.

Level 3- There are things you “don’t know you don’t know.” 

Sorry, hard to provide an example for that one.

But Innovation expert Steven Shapiro in a recent post, thinks there might another dimension, another level if you will.

Level 4- The things you “don’t know you know.”

Steven explains it this way. “Inside of organizations, there is so much untapped knowledge.  To combat this, over the past two decades, companies have invested millions of dollars in knowledge management systems.  The objective has been to capture the company’s knowledge."

But as Steven explains there is a problem. “The problem is, the knowledge management databases usually become so large and unwieldy that they are unusable.  I can attest from experience that these systems often end up becoming digital piles of untapped information.  Finding what you want can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  Or, more accurately, it is like finding a specific needle in a stack of needles.”

What’s Steven’s answer to this dilemma you might ask? Reverse Knowledge Management.

“Instead of posting knowledge which sits passively in a database waiting for someone to find it, you post your question to your “community” so that it can be answered at the time of need.”

This is at the very heart of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative model. The PNLC consists of educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning and achievement while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously. PNLC members will fluidly move between the physical and virtual networks to communicate, collaborate, and share ideas, data, strategies, knowledge, and information. Education is not immune to the problem of finding the right needle.

As I have mentioned before, Professional Networked Learning Communities use AWARRENESS.

• A student focus
• Lateral Wisdom
• Abilities
• Roles
• Response-ability
• Relationships
• Education
• Networks
• Experience
• Skills
• Scalability

Of those, lets look at Relationships and Networks.

Often times we forget just how important the relationships outside of our grade level or department can be. Each member has a network of relationships that can be leveraged to provide insight, help, advice, knowledge, and wisdom to the work of their PNLC. The relationships developed by each person can provide a myriad of useful outsiders to help the PNLC accomplish its work in improving student achievement.

PNLCs have the advantage of the “network.” The vast array of connections and “weak-ties” that are combined and blended to make the PNLC networked. PNLC members will fluidly move between the physical and virtual networks to communicate, collaborate, and share ideas, data, strategies, and information. Each member being a portal or node to their individual network makes the PNLC exponentially stronger, knowledgeable, and wise.

PNLC are able to maximize individual members’ Relationships and Networks to the advantage of the whole.

Steven says, “Sometimes the solution can be sitting in your knowledge management system…and you don’t even know it because it is too difficult to find.”

The knowledge management system for education is the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. It is literally each other. The PNLC leverages physical and virtual networks to communicate, collaborate, and share ideas, data, strategies, knowledge, and information. It leverages each other.

The answers we are looking for, the knowledge that we seek, may reside within our relationships, our networks, and ourselves. We may be surprised to find out that we have been dealing with Level 4 Ignorance all this time.

By practicing a little “reverse knowledge management,” we may be surprised to learn what we already knew. And, as G.I. Joe used to say, knowing is half the battle. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is the knowledge management system of the future for schools and teachers and combats all 4 levels of ignorance.

Because friends don’t let friends stay ignorant.

 

Learning what you already knew…that is Education Innovation.

GEARR Up Your Professional Learning Community

Having the right equipment can make all the difference. Attempting endeavors such as climbing a mountain, scuba diving, flying a plane, racing a car, or painting a great portrait, it is important to have the right gear. The gear we have is important to accomplishing the task.

Professional Learning Communities have their own gear too. Each member brings some unique gear to their PLC and this gear helps the entire PLC accomplish its goal.

When I refer to gear, I am actually referring to GEARR. Each team members' Gifts, Experiences, Abilities, Roles, and Relationships.

Gifts
Gifts are those naturally occuring strengths we each have. Some of us have the gift of leadership, organization, empathy, insight, communication, encouragement, consistency, etc. These gifts give each of us a unique combination of strengths that PLC can leverage to make the team stronger.

Experiences
No two team members will have exactly the same experiences. Experiences is the stuff you have been through that have helped you become the person you are today. Experience is unique to each of us. Each teacher has had experiences as a learner and as an educator. Our experiences as students, as teachers, as parents, etc. give each of us a background the we can draw upon to help the PLC better the meet the needs of our students.

Abilities
These are the skills that we are good at. Some have abilities in technology, others music or art. Some are excellent at collecting and interpreing data. Some can do magic with a spredsheet, while others can draw pictures on a chart perfectly. Other have abilities in making complex ideas simple to understand. Abilities would also include those many skills we have learned along the way in our time as educators. Every staff development session, conference, or training has provided team members wth necessary abilities to be leveraged within the PLC to meet the needs of students.

Roles
Each member of a PLC should have some type of role. Roles can included facilitation, note taking, time keeping, or any thing else the PLC needs to have done. It is through our roles that we share the leadership and the work load of the PLC.

Relationships
Often times we forget just how important the relationships outside of our grade level or department can be. Each member has a network of relationships that can be leveraged to provide insight, help, advice, knowledge, and wisdom to the work of their PLC. The relationships developed by each person can provide a myriad of useful outsiders to help the PLC accomplish its work in improving student achievement.

Every Professional Learning Community has their own GEARR. But, because every PLC has GEARR does not mean they are taking advantage of it. If you leave your gear in the truck it's not going to help you climb that mountain. PLC need to bring their GEARR with them to each and every session. The key is to surface it and then leverage it for maxmimum impact on student learning.

Note: The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is a powerful model for maximizing GEARR because of the network effect of having many more Gifts, Experiences, Abilities, Roles, and Relationships provided through each members physical and virtual network.