THE CLCOMMUNITY ENTERS ITS NEXT PHASE

First of all I'd like to thank Sean for the fantastic job he has done in setting up all of the resources and creating a model of how to set up a connected learning community. He is now stepping back from the project and handing over to Diana Khabbaz and myself as we move the project into its next phase.

For a number of years I’ve been setting up learning communities using online journals but I feel that the CLC model offers something far more sophisticated- if we can get people past the twin obstacles of lack of time and mastering the basic skills.

Over the next few weeks a few of use are going to be taking the model of the connected learning community and showing teachers fairly new to online learning and groups of students how to set up their own small connected learning communities.The one thing I have realized is that for the CLC model to work there has to be an immediate context and benefit from making connection that outweighs the time and frustration of mastering what for teachers is a steep learning curve.

Diana, Steph and I have been working with a group of 35 mainly beginners at Sydney Institute and as their “course” ends our aim is to show them how to use the non-hierarchical participatory CLC model to set up a network with family and friends, work colleagues and students.

We will be offering some very basic online workshops on Tuesday nights (in the old OMN timeslot) and at other times by request on how to create RSS feeds using Bloglines, how to tweak your blog template to include a blogroll, and how to deliver Del.icio.us feeds to your blog or Moodle.

Please let me know in the response section if you’re available to participate (either as mentor or mentee) using the Breeze platform and preferred times.