Communities of Practice are is needed in a professional world where we are all connected, but don't take or have the time to share our experiences. Social media, the open access to your personal thoughts and ideas are a bit frightening to most of us. However, the world we live in continues to evolve whether we like it or not. The ability or should I say opportunity to engage with others who are dealing with the same issues I am dealing with and openly share their experiences with me is exhilarating. I learn best this way!!!
My relationship with technology has grown and developed immensely since the beginning of my doctoral journey and the assignments Jeff Heil has required. As a think about a community of practice...it gives me motivation to develop one for my profession in the county I work in. I am supper jazzed and going to develop one. In the past (it's been a long time) we would meet for lunch in a central location and meet to discuss our current practices and how we deal with similar situations in the personnel profession. Well we hadn't had a meeting in soooo long, because its so hard to take time out to meet...but doing this electronically, the odds of fostering the shared collective knowledge are pretty high. It can happen at any time, anywhere. I am so excited!!!
Since I joined twitter in January of 2012 I have expanded my professional learning network to about 250 people. When I have an opportunity to spend some time on the network; read, respond, and share my own thoughts of what I'm experiencing, I get in the zone. My brain goes into hyperspeed and my learning expands like it never has before. I love it...but it doesn't happen to often.
For the future I think this may be the way of higher learning by individuals who cannot be present in a traditional sense. As our public school educational system moves deeper into the 21st Century and California adopts the Common Core Standards, we must redefine how we reach our participants. Our students have a wealth of information at their fingertips, but do they know how to maneuver through all of the noise/information?
As I/we continue to advance...we must develop the people within our circle of influence to try a different way of learning. Learning through practice and joint activitites to discuss and share the solutions will only strengthen what we know and how we will practice what we know.
