However, in many cases it might be desirable for skills and competencies and particular content to be developed, e.g. the concept of reversing operations which is fundamental to many areas of mathematics.

Not sure about yours and Stephen’s comments on a commonality of purpose. I see a shared identity, or ‘commonality of purpose’ as being valuable in many circumstances. At a purely social level, it is largely what holds families together (this is a layman’s observation of course since I am not a social scientist), and likewise I do perceive from literature and observations that a shared identity can build up social capital such as the strength of inter-member relationships, willingness to commit, level of trust, ability to collaborate, and promotes feelings such as “we are part of something special and different in this community”. It is certainly something I have experienced in PLCs.

I agree that reflective analysis (as in the action research model of professional development) is essential for effectiveness. And I think blogs are a good medium for that and that is largely where they have an advantage over forums.

Oh and Bee I have fixed the ability of others to comment on my blog. Thank you for highlighting this for me.

Marcel

Connections are fine – but action is primordial.

Thank you both for your comments and discussions, which are helping me get my head around CCK08. I am very much at the beginning stage of understanding learning theory and what this course is about. But I have to admit that I agree with you, Bee, that professional learning is open and founded on reflective practice. If you don’t have a reflective and questioning approach, you do not grow in your ‘job’.

a) If you agree that learning happens continuously “consciously and unconsciously” then it cannot be controlled. Much of our learning occurs incidentally

b) Professional growth is continuous – an open ended life-long learning process and happens through daily practical experience complemented by reflection on theory/research and action. “Profession’ describes at once a knowing and a doing; it describes a practice rather than a technical application.” (Beyer, Feinberg, Pagano, and Whitson, 1989, p.14). The close-ended, goal-oriented task is basically an efficient instructional strategy used to teach you a skill (like using Word, sending an email, how to form the past tense of regular verbs in English). Although testing it may reveal that you have mastered the form (how to), it does not guarantee that you know when/where/who/why use it effectively in any given situation (the function, the purpose and the consequences of its use + facing serendipitous and emerging new challenges).

c) This may be how you interpreted the purpose according to your needs, but I cannot read it that clearly on the wiki
Social networks (a disembodied cloud) or social tools do not help, allow or increase. People experimenting with them, learning during the process of using them, talking and interacting through them do. It’s the conversations allied to practice, and the explicit reflection on your part that make you (and others) learn.

I agree when you say that “happens continuously consciously and unconsciously, by being immersed in life and not separated from it”

but I think that we are focusing too much on the larger concept of building “personal knowledge” rather than the task of building “professional knowledge”. Personal knowledge can be completely controlled by each individual—to access whichever resources they want—an open-ended learning experience. Professional growth and learning is a close-ended, goal-oriented task and the purpose of the CCK08 course is to understand better how we can use social networks to enhance and assist professional learning.

For instance, social networks help:
-Reduce the burden of memory storage
-Allow the creation of PLE’s (increasing learner comfort)
-Increase technical skills (online tools are now freely available)
-Convenient and informal Blended Learning modules