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Recently, Alec Couros, in preparation for a presentation to his faculty, tweeted the question,"What does your network mean to you?". As a tribute to the vitality of his network, the responses (twice) produced a host of comments (collected in a Voicethread here) to answer the question.
As a self-proclaimed digital primitive, I began to answer the question with analogs to the Ecosystem component of the Biology content I teach. If the internet has become the landscape of our Personal Learning Environment (PLE), then I will employ a Synectics strategy I use with my students and create the metaphor; "Networks as biological communities."
We might define a biological community as all the interacting species within a habitat (or biotope). My learning network is a community of interacting individuals within my learning environment. Now here, I first rushed to consider that each individual member of my network would represent a different species. After a bit of mental wrangling, I realized that was incorrect. I should consider each person in my network as a member of a population which is "a group of individuals of the same species". What defines a species in this analogy and the identification of which species inhabit our "environment" will take some work. (I'm thinking a wiki may aid in this discussion).
Alec utilized the diagram above, which he had developed some time ago, as the visual for the Voicethread. Entities at the perimeter of the diagram (Web 2.0 "tools" if you pardon the expression) are ways in which other individuals in our networks perceive us and interact with us. They represent codes for who we are, thus, in the analogy, our DNA. As is true for our DNA, these codecs are able to be replicated, mutable and adaptive and in light of changes in the environment, some become more favorable than others. For example, where a web page once was the dominant form of expressing oneself, in a 2.0 environment, blogs and wikis are more favorable. Thus, blogs and wiki are selected for fitness in this environment and increase in frequency while web pages are selected against and so their frequency decreases.
This also bring in to question the definition of an interaction. What must occur in order to qualify as an interaction? Is the reading of a Tweet considered an interaction or would you have to respond to the tweet in order to qualify? Consider this, while I was unable to respond to the Voicethread directly with a comment, this blogpost was generated in response to the tweet. Some time will have to spent on categorizing the type of interactions within the network.
Why take so much time to develop the analogy this far? One, to answer the original question for myself. Two, I believe if I can fine tune the components of the analogy, there may be some ecological algorithms to develop metrics for assessing our Networks and Personal Learning Environments.
I linked to Connie Cossar's blog post by way of following Dr. Alec Couros' Twitter links to it and course presentations on Ustream. While I, like Connie, observe few local adopters of the technology , I'm not convinced that neither fear nor laziness could account for so few adopters. You have to assume that the number of teachers she is working with probably represents a poor sample of the population. Yet the number of teachers integrating tech on the order to which she alludes, would lead me to the conclusion that almost all are afraid or lazy. For example, we have 160 teachers at our school. Most are using email, Google searches, and learning Powerpoint. Of that 160 I am the only teacher that has posted a podcast, or utilizes blogs and wikis with students. ( I have taken on a technology learning group of 5 teachers so my hope is that will change). By my calculation then, better than 99% of the teachers at my school are afraid of technology or are lazy based on your criteria. I know this is not true. (Though yes, some are apprehensive and/or lazy!)
I agree, though, that most are "teaching" in their comfort zones. They have established their curriculum and their pedagogy in order to meet the needs (success) of most of their students. This, however, leads to a curriculum which is very inflexible to meeting the needs of all students. The technology they utilize is probably restricted to the technology that was available at the time they developed their teaching style, which, will probably shortchange students preparation for a technocentric future.
After teaching for twenty years I too, as in Mr Shareski's comment, am a bit more sympathetic to those teachers. When the administration tells teachers they are to developed 10 minute focus lessons for each period and teach a 25 minute focus lesson at the middle time block each day in order to prep for the state assessment (as well as teach their prescribed curriculum) well, lets face it, there are only 8 hrs in the school day. Also, in Florida a percentage of a teachers salary is dependent upon student performance on the state assessment. You can see where the state places the incentives.
So, one interpretation is this:
1. Teachers learn early on to prioritize. With the time available; What do I need to do to meet the demands of the administration? What do I need to do to meet the demands of my students? What do I need to do to meet the demands of my professional development?
2. The teachers/educators using technology are the ones that "get it". (But no one "gets it all". A total perspective is impossible. see Trin Tragula and TPV) This is that scattered but entrenched few that always look for a way to reach a few more students. They probably would have been the ones to embrace the "Open Classroom" and "Team Teaching" in the 1960's and 70's had they been teaching then.
3. Most adoptions/integrations are teacher initiatives and as anyone who has been teaching for awhile will tell you, teacher/classroom initiatives are rarely supported. So, unless you are in one of those rare districts where an administrator or IT director is the one who "gets it", widespread adoption of technology will more than likely be a prepackaged CBI.
The difference between now and 40 years ago, is the ability to network. Teachers will no longer have to work in total isolation. Innovation and support won't have to come from a University lab School. Most integration for the time being will be individual teachers, in networks, figuring out the what, the how and the why.
