6.+Competencies

**Competencies**
Discussion draft NOTE: Written for educators

** Competencies Bucket **


 * Leading and supporting technology-assisted learning **

Technology-assisted teaching presents a new frontier of opportunity for educators along a continuum that ranges from pedagogy and teaching approach to the hands-on technical and interpersonal skills needed to use technology in teaching. The higher purpose remains central and unchanged -- learning. As noted in a national vision for developing education towards its highest potential, teachers still must teach:

[click icon and get the doc]

“.... highlighting the important subject matter content, pressing students for explanations and higher-order thinking, tracking their students’ progress, and encouraging their students to take more responsibility for learning.” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010.)

What better way to understand, lead, and support technology-assisted learning then to immerse ourselves in the experience of creating and maintaining a personal learning network and environment. As we see it, this experience requires the ability to conduct online research, communicate and share information in multimedia formats, connect to and team with virtual partners around the world, and with the infinite amount of malleable content available through the Internet and all its residual perils, awareness of ethical and security issues.

The interpersonal qualities of operating in a networked environment are as important as the technical skills. Our experience in the virtual learning environment is characterized by energy, curiosity, and ability to thrive in ambiguity. And just as challenging, the ability to build bridges to others across which to communicate and collaborate. Just as the Internet puts an infinite amount of information and knowledge at our keyboard, so does it connect us to the most diverse spectrum of others we can imagine.

We want to flag that online networking is as similar as it is different to navigating and negotiating local relationships within a multi-generation workplace. A multi-disciplined team. A multi-ethnic community committee, and so forth -- any endeavor that we take on with other people. The extent to which we can embrace the diversity afforded by an online network, the extent to which we can build and move in and out of these relationships, enriches a local practice with a worldly reach and perspective. After all, it’s a small world.

In this module we identify clusters of competencies and present you with a tool for identifying the skills you want to acquire and develop to build and develop your personal learning network / environment. And, in turn, hone your practice of improving learning through a skilled approach to using technology. In a nutshell, what does it take to connect and engage with all the Internet offers: content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences.


 * Find, gather, and use content, experts, forums, and other resources **

//Online research skills//. Perhaps more than any other single first impression about the Internet is the infinite quantity and range of quality of websites supplying information and access to individuals from around the world. Choices, materials, sources -- the works -- available to any one of us at our keyboard searching for information and connections.

By way of a quick example, launch Google Scholar, the specialized search service of the all-too familiar icon of pop search engines, and enter the search phrase **[** click here to enter your search term, then select "search" ** ] **. Notice the number of returns, the range of sources, and the myriad of context your phrase returns? Wow!

We think that in the cluster of online research skills, belong the familiar core skills associated with research adapted to the Internet -- how to search, how to evaluate, and how to manage and cite resources efficiently and effectively. Along the lines of the research process itself this converts to:

◦ Selecting and using Internet search engines to find material ◦ Developing criteria and selecting tools to evaluate and collect material ◦ Choosing tools to manage and cite material ◦ And, using tools to curate and share search results

The search exercise, above, illustrates how the process of an Internet-based search itself has to be based on a well developed search strategy. Research on the Internet can be a black hole of without focus and a way to manage time, in addition to some advance thought as to how to integrate what is discovered online into offline activity as appropriate.

[search engine resource list could be interesting here as a sidebar, or clickable]


 * Communicate and collaborate with others online **

//Multimedia literacy skills//. While the array of search engines we share here to support your online research is terrific, so too is the selection of tools that you can pick up and use to create and share, solicit and present information. Images. Videos. Podcasts. Data, and so forth. We think in this cluster belongs the skills associated with

◦ Finding the right tool for the job ◦ Learning how use new tools that enrich digital communication and collaboration [ does “Finding” / “Learning” spiral direct to Tool Dork ]

Another area of familiarity we recommend is associated with social media. In these domains -- social networks, blogs, and such -- the skills are as much about creating and contributing to online forums, as they are moderating. These are sites of enormous potential for online community organizing. [By way of one of the most powerful examples we have seen recently is the what's it that was instrumental in the recent revolutions in the Egypt. / link to pertinent analysis.] These forums are shaking up the very core of how business is conducted. [link pertinent example here] Young people, often referred to as digital natives [do we risk stereotype], show us how adept they are at forming and creating social groups and effective messaging that in turn develops membership. And not always for the good. So in the classroom, teachers can unleash students onto the tasks of creating programs that more effectively reach the learning goals than if the program were to be supplied for them. And, while leading students towards constructive use of the Internet or technology-assisted learning.


 * Operate with ethics and security **

//Use, cite, and recreate available content//. [ I feel like I’m starting to overhaul the MAT ] //Be aware of personal and computer security issues//.


 * Manage roles and relationships **

The PLE/N experience is personal. It's customized. It’s person-to-person. And, it's a web of roles and relationships. As participants in online forums and communities, we assume a variety of roles from one learning project to another. From one content area to another. In one situation, we are central to the project. In another, on the fringe. We are looking for information. We are a resource. We facilitate. We guide. We interact. We also create, generate, share, consume. [ is this spiral towards Paradigms? ].

These are a lot of roles to move in and out of, and one thing to be aware of is what it takes to effectively move from fringe to center, support to lead, seeker to sought -- and back. Take the student-teacher relationship, for instance. As subject matter expert, or classroom manager, teachers are often called on to act as directors of learning, which at the heart of learning theory is not how learning materializes. Rather the possibility and potential of employing selected technologies into a well integrated design frees up and refocuses the teacher on the job of teaching. Less a director, more a coach.

Conversely, this is not to understate the shift students feel as the expectation for learning shifts back to them. A process that must also be facilitated through strong communication of expectation, and teaching design that supports a transition to step up and assume much more responsibility and enagement in personal learning than may be present in a large class where students are trying to cover the same material at the same rate towards the same golas. [ spiraling to classroom implications? ].

One area we think is worth noting, too, is the peril of a me-centric orientation [what is the peril? the unintended results of when learner-driven loses balance] in terms of how students support and contribute to online and offline community. Look to maintain balance and connection to others through teaming projects and other forms of collaborative experiences, either online or offline, that require students to act as group members.

Another related peril is the risk of physical isolation. Consider how this can or should be balanced with maintaining connection to the natural world.

//Embrace diversity.// As mentioned at the onset, the diversity of individuals -- age and experience, ethnicity and professional background, and such -- brings a richness of perspective, means used, language, and tools. Consider the value of an outlier’s view in building or "staffing" the PLE/N. The risk is blind spots. A vibrant network relies on diversity -- in this way it may differ from social networks.


 * Action plan to develop competency **

Within the context of [what, 3 areas of competencies?], we can turn our attention to building competence in the areas you identify as most critical.

[create / drop in a usable competency ID toolkit here]


 * Resources __include__ **

Edelman, L. Free Applications (2011). Hundreds of Apps with Potential to Enhance Professional Development, Technical Assistance, and Dissemination Activities and Results Accessed from [] Frauenfelder, Mark. Rule the Web: How to Do Anything and Everythi ng on the Internet: Better, Faster, Easier. St. Martin’s Griffin Gawande, Atul. The Checklist. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology (2010). Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology//. Washington, DC.