Chapter 6 Building Your Connected Learning Community
Building a strong team, reliable, dependable and trustworthy. I think that is something we all strive to achieve both professionally and personally. This is part of building our network “house”, relying on the good bones. The real power of the social web is revealed when you have a plan and a purpose for how you’ll build your network, reap its benefits, and then apply the knowledge you gain.
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I found interesting the chapter isn’t about resting on your laurels. It encourages, experimenting with different social venues but to also to use caution in the process. What do you want to learn? Who should you follow? I also found this was relatable to friendships, personally or professionally. Who do you want in your social circle? Choosing the wrong co-worker friend, can be professional suicide. The saying, “guilty by association”, extends to so many levels. This reminds us that growing and nurturing a network means engaging in conversation in safe and ethical ways. Through ongoing and reciprocal sharing, you develop relationships, and the possibilities for learning expand. The author compares relationships to tending a garden. Providing nourishment to our flowers, cleaning and eliminating weeds along the way. The network becomes more significant as relationships grow. Making correct and intelligent choices, can expand the network learning process.
Designing your connected community, points out that professional development in the 21stcentury can be a do-it-yourself-based on your needs, interests and passions. Connected learnings is a three-pronged approach to professional development using the local, contextual and global environments. Become an active member in your network community contributing your strength, skills and experience. Offer design suggestions from the real user experience. Focus on the people, not the tools, in your networks and communities, and while your interactions with them and expectations of them play out in online community, remember it is a human community. Relationships matter.
Citation
Nussbaum-beach, Sheryl, and Lani Ritter Hall. “Building Your Connected Learning Community.” The Connected Educator, Learning and Leading in a Digital Age, Solution Tree, pp. 91–107.
I found your post to be very inspiring! I enjoyed the part where you mentioned “guilty by association”. I feel like we all have stories in our work and school life that we learned from and became better people. Can you think of a time where keeping a distance from colleagues is a good thing?
ReplyDeleteI love the detail you put into your post! It made me think about the connections I want to make and how they will help and/or hurt my career. I agree that often it is not about focusing on the tool you are using, but also the people. We sometimes need to distance ourselves from co-workers, When do you think that is necessary? We have to create our plan to create our own success. That being said how do you plan to use this information and what tools will you use in your own career?
ReplyDeleteBeatrice, I think the connections you made in this post were insightful. I found it interesting when you used the phrase “guilty by association” in relation to your professional and personal networks. This is an important point because many people do associate you with who you are friends and connected with. Very interesting realization you made here. Your emphasis on the authors’ wariness of accepting all connections was important here. Caution is good within building your personal learning network. How do you think you can draw the line or disconnect with a colleague who you think may damage your reputation by association?
ReplyDeleteYou really did a great job of relating the text to real life and making some amazing connections! Remembering that it is a human community is truly important and I connected with that strongly when reading the text myself. I really was intrigued when you talk about choosing the wrong coworker for a friend can be social suicide. I feel the same way in classes now! When I am trying to make new friends in my degree it's hard to see in the beginning if people are similar to you and so you really have to focus on learning more about the person before getting closer to them and connect with them, because this can have serious repercussions! Do you have any suggestions on how to learn about people and decide if you would like to further the relationship?
ReplyDeleteHello Beatrice,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog because it gave me a different perspective. I totally agree with you that we do have to be precautious when connecting with individuals. They may not be "real" or they could potentially be harmful offline and online. And their stories/experiences in any professional field could be corrupted. Relationships with other colleagues is definitely more important than the tools or resources being reviewed in a community. While plucking out the weeds, it is important to nurture the plants along the way. I liked this example because it makes me think that in a community, you should not let your failures or mistakes bring you down. Just keep watering the flowers and letting them grow - let the community mature and develop into a healthy community.
Do you think "lurkers" or "linkers" have a risk of being harfmul to a community since they do not communicate much?