21st Century Collaborative

As the CEO of a professional development company whose mantra is “Professional Development for the 21st Century Educator” I find myself continually cognitively juggling what’s best for my clients, what’s best for their students, and what’s best for our contractors and staff in an effort to find some way of making it all align with [...]

Without a doubt some of my best personal learning lately has been done in the company of two Australians: Sofia Pardo  and Richard Olsen of ideasLab in Melbourne. Over the past three years I have spent countless hours online and in person with these two brilliant minds thinking about the knowledge construction that happens in [...]

Have you ever woke up and had something burning inside you that you know you are supposed to write or develop and yet you just do not have your mind around it yet? That’s me this morning. So I am being faithful to the urgency and seeing where my fingers are going to take me. [...]

Qualities, Attributes and Characteristics of an Online Community Leader Once you decide that an online community will be of value in helping to accomplish your project or company goals the first task to accomplish is to hire a fantastic community leader. This will be the most important decision you make for the community. The success [...]

Phone rings. It’s Saturday, why are they calling me so early? The dogs decide it is time to get up and start my day anyway. I am up, coffee, walk outside, shiver and decide I will come up to the office and learn something. I open my email and there is a message from Seth [...]

WARNING: This is going to be a vent. One you might need to hear– but a vent all the same- so if you do not want to have your mood spoiled, don’t read. Photo Credit I tend to get more reflective this time of year. I also tend to push others to reflect more in [...]

This is what happens sometimes in communities of 21st Century change. Leaders share and share and share and hope that folks are getting it– but if members are not engaged in inquiry and immersive technology use within the community, and only reading and participating at a surface level, they will not get the shift message. [...]

This is the second post in a series on community building. The following is a “laundry list” of recommendations Community Developers should consider in the creation of their social community. Adopt a paradigm that views the community construction process as one of co-design that compliments and enhances your organization’s mission and values. As you make [...]

Much of my life for the last 10 years has been spent thinking about, working with/in, developing, and leading online communities of practice. I promised the folks who co-lead with me at Powerful Learning Practice that I would create a series of posts this year that captured the knowledge, skills, dispositions and values I have [...]

Laura Varlas wrote an interesting piece in ASCD “Caught in the Middle” July 2010 | Volume 52 | Number 7 Called- Looking Within: Teachers Leading Their Own Learning She had me at her opening line, “The most powerful and ample resource for change in education is teachers’ own expertise. Yet, teachers are regularly overstepped when [...]