BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING

Greetings Educators,

With the advent of popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and others we have instant access to online tools that can expand our connectivity with our friends, our peers, and those working in the same fields. Learning communities and communities of practice allow us to collaborate and share ideas and information with others without regard to boundaries or borders. Social networking is a tool that facilitates this activity.

As you may recall from a column I wrote a few months ago, I have become somewhat obsessed with, okay, *really* obsessed with Facebook.

In my last article I was struggling to get 100 friends and I am now pushing 200.

I started looking at who these “friends” are and I realized that many, if not most, are either family or people I know through my work at MSU.  As I travel and work in a number of foreign countries, many of my Facebook friends are colleagues and acquaintances from those countries.  We know that Facebook can keep us in touch, but what are some of the educational values that Facebook and other social networking sites provide?

In education we know that teachers often learn best when they learn with their peers and when they build “communities of practice” or “personal learning networks.” The potential impact of learning communities and communities of practice has grown exponentially over the past few years through online social networking tools. They have begun to define how we connect and interact with people; not just within our local “community” but also with people across the globe and in diverse cultures and environments. A community of practice can be defined as a group of people with a common interest and who have ways in which they can share best practices, ask questions, and share ideas. Living in a complex global environment, the idea of global communities of practice opens access to many who would have never before been able to communicate with others about educational issues relevant to them.

The MSU Educational Technology program has developed several ways for our students to connect to others in the field of educational technology, and remain connected long after they have completed our program.  Examples of some communities that we have established include the MSU EduTech group on MACUL Space and the MAET fan page on Facebook.

MACUL Space is a social network created on Ning for educators interested in educational technology to connect and share ideas related to the field.  Partnering with MACUL Space we have created the MSU EduTech group as a place for current, past and future students to share, collaborate and learn great ideas from each other in regards to educational technology.   Members use the discussion board area to share tips and tricks of using technology in the classroom.  In addition the 10 most recent articles from EduTech Today newsletter are displayed to keep members up to date with the program happenings as well as valuable research and information in the field.

We have also created the Michigan State University – Master of Arts in Educational Technology fan page on Facebook.  This fan page is another avenue for past, present and future MAET students to connect both socially and professionally.  The discussion board includes job postings as well as questions about technology updates.  The fan page also has links to recent articles, grants, and other valuable information related to the field of educational technology.

Some of our students have even created communities of practice to help continue their development of technology skills in the area of education.  Sergio Martinez (https://www.msu.edu/~mart1075/), a recent graduate of our MAET program, created a community of practice called the MAET Challenge on the social networking site Ning.  He states, “The motivation for starting this site was that I, as a first grade teacher, did not have the outlet necessary to maintain and/or challenge my tech skills. Hence the genesis is derived from a need to connect with other techies out there to constructively and safely display work for others to comment or simply to admire.”  You can learn more and get involved by accepting the challenge by going to http://maetchallenge.ning.com/.

Many social networking sites, such as Facebook, also provide you with the opportunity to join or create groups focused on common interests.

In doing the research for this column I joined an online community, “Teach for Lebanon” and found contact available with individual members, discussion forums, email, groups, and educators with common interests. We can share our ideas and share our needs and questions.

I would now like to challenge you the reader. Go on Facebook or Ning and find a group focused on your field or interest, sign up, and then report back to us what you found. What benefits does the group offer and how did you become a part of a “community of practice” or “personal learning network?” Think in terms of connecting with global communities and what both you and they can learn from participating.

And, if you participate in other communities of practice, share them with us and let’s learn as members of this newsletter’s community of practice as well.  We are interested in selecting a few examples of comments on this blog to highlight in future columns of our newsletter.  So we look forward to hearing from YOU!

Best Regards,

Joe Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program