ThreadED is a networked learning initiative designed to promote connections between teaching staff, students and digitised resources, as well as to support teaching and learning at Massey University Institute of Education in New Zealand. ThreadED is framed around three strands (and related teacher and student competencies) identified by the Institute as important foci for their programmes: equity, cultural responsivity and digital literacy. Resources and artefacts such as website links, articles, videos and apps are being identified, developed and catalogued at various levels of granularity, and linked to key competencies. A platform to archive and curate artefacts and resources has been developed, incorporating design principles that focus on maintaining autonomy and freedom of access to resources, for all teaching staff. Templates were also developed to provide support and guidelines for the annotation of each resource. These resources and artefacts will be used and curated by teaching staff for different teaching and learning purposes, across courses within the Institute of Education. A number of benefits are anticipated when the initiative begins operation in 2018. These include the adoption of the three key foci across all of the teaching programmes within the Institute of Education; the reduction in work and duplication associated with staff each producing the same content in different courses; staff having a greater awareness of each other’s work and a strengthening of relationships; and the creation of synergies between staff that may lead to other opportunities in teaching and research. Finally, it is anticipated that ThreadED will enable personalised, self-directed and flexible teaching and learning practices by allowing teaching staff to select – from a range of quality learning objects – a resource that best meets individual needs and learning goals of the courses that are taught within the Institute. This paper introduces this initiative, discussing its key underlying principles as well as strategies used to facilitate staff’s participation and contributions to a joint venture of knowledge creation. The initiative aims at reframing isolated academic practices at the Institute of Education towards an evolving participatory learning community, where everyone is able to build on each other’s knowledge and expertizes, sharing resources and practices related to equity, cultural responsivity and digital literacy.
The primary responsibility of tertiary institutions is to prepare students in such a way that they enact authentic, effective and evolving practices throughout their careers. To achieve this, teaching and learning, including teacher education, have changed in recent years. 21st Century pedagogies are increasingly premised on principles of personalised learning that occur with others and in context; evolving understandings of inclusion and diversity; and a culture of self-directed, inquiry-based and lifelong learning (Bolstad et al., 2012). What counts as knowledge has shifted to encompass the collective views, intuitions and beliefs of participants (Dede, 2008, in Li, 2012). In keeping with these changes, there is never ‘one right answer’, and an increased need to co-author understandings with others._x000D_ Models of supervision have not kept pace with networked approaches to learning, and traditional models persist. Professional supervision continues to be framed as a dyadic interaction, usually conducted face-to-face by one expert and one novice. The present study acknowledges the place of traditional supervision, but argues that networked learning begets a framework for networked mentoring. Networked mentoring supports professionals in considering the learning and support they both give and receive at each layer of their ecology. Learning is thus seen as “the product of educational self-organisation. If you allow the educational process to self-organise, then learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen; it's about letting it happen." (Mitra, 2013, 16:32)._x000D_ In contrast with traditional approaches to mentoring, networked mentoring positions each teacher at the center of their ecology, intentionally and spontaneously recognising opportunities for learning with, from and about others. Teachers are empowered as the people best placed to solve their own problems and identify their own solutions in bespoke and networked ways. The role of the mentor shifts to supporting others to identify, cultivate and sustain their existing and potential networks: their sources of learning on- and off- line, in and out of their formal learning environments. _x000D_ The focus of this paper is research conducted on networked mentoring within one postgraduate programme in which teachers are encouraged and supported to take charge of their learning and then their networks of support. Key principles and pedagogies within the programme are outlined, to set the stage for the study of networked mentoring.
Networked learning (NL) is concerned with how students learn using connections enabled by IT: connections with other learners, with teachers and with resources. In contrast to school or university education, there is no place in the current conceptual model of NL for an administration or management function. This may be demonstrated by looking at the proceedings of the Networked Learning Conference. The aim of this paper is to develop the conceptual model of NL by proposing a 'manager' capability. The method consists of critical discourse analysis of a sample of the Conference proceedings to gain a better understanding of the problem. This is followed by a pragmatic exercise in which suitable concepts from other relevant disciplines are identified, assessed and added to the NL conceptual model. The most likely explanation for the gap in the theory is the collective ontological stance of the NL research community.
The space and pace of learning is changing. Traditional professional learning and development courses – with defined content in a set place and time – are arguably not working for many, as they are linked to outmoded approaches to learning. As societies have evolved from an industrial, to information and then social-age, we have shifted our understandings of learning and teaching. This shift is from disseminating information in formal institutions, towards open access to knowledge via the web. Current notions appreciate that learning is continual through our interconnections with others, as we co-create, communicate and collaborate. The shifts to conceptualising learning as open, continuous and social has a flow on effect of disrupting how we conceptualise professional identity development, and ongoing professional learning. Professional learning increasingly involves co-constructing knowledge with others in learning networks across different contexts and time. New technologies such as digital badging and ePortfolios afford opportunities to make learning more visible, and allow learners to collect evidence of their learning in network, which can be seen as learning nodes. These nodes can be acknowledged as evidence of ongoing professional learning and credentialed as such. Linking learning nodes within and across related networks enables mapping and integrating learning that is both personalised and social, informal and formal, as well as open and accredited. This short paper outlines a new professional learning initiative being introduced in New Zealand that is designed around networking and ‘node-working’. The initiative is for Special Education Needs Coordinators (SENCo), teachers who provide learning support to include all students in school. The professional network for SENCos consists of four learning hubs. Hub one is an open network where SENCos connect and collaborate with each other, face-to-face and online, regionally and nationally. In Hub two SENCos can subscribe to a professional network and join journal clubs, collaborative research projects, webinars, and share evidence-based practice. Hub three uses digital badging to recognise the personalised and collaborative learning that occurs in Hubs one and two, thus creating learning nodes as markers for credentialing learning across the network. Hub four allows for these learning nodes to be mapped within a professional e-portfolio, as part of a formal qualification. The research behind this initiative investigates the effectiveness of networked nodes of learning and the potential it offers to revision professional learning and identity development.
