Activity 4: Your Professional Community

A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor. (Wenger & Trayner-Wenger, 2015)

When defining my community of practice in regard to Wenger’s concept of community of practice it is important to note that this has been clarified further by his summarising of community of practice as being ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’.

Working in the education system I feel that my community of practice is ‘ a complex social system that can be viewed as constituted by interrelated communities of practice’ (Wenger & Trayner-Wenger, 2015) and is far reaching. However, the core of my community, the heart of my practice, as you will, should be defined by recognising my immediate stakeholders; these being my students, my students parents, my fellow teachers and principal (within my school), the Board of Trustees and my ICT support partners and vendors.  All three of these groups I identify as constituting my domain, one of three characteristics defined by Wagner to describe a shared interest - that of learning.

Wenger goes on to further define two further characteristics of a community of practice, that of community and practice. The former (community), which would refer to my stakeholders engaging in joint activities and discussions, sharing information and helping each other. The latter (practice), whereby my stakeholders ‘develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short, a shared practice’. This can be broken down in the following way:

Students: If I am a committed and reflective educator then my students and I will create positive student-teacher learning partnerships.

Teachers: My fellow teachers and I will be in constant pursuit of upskilling ourselves through the wider community (see below), and from each other to enable us to become more effective educators and collaborators.

Parents: My parents will wish to learn about their students, their progress and how they can be supported at home and within school. They should also be actively involved with school life.

Board of Trustees: The board of trustees is responsible for setting the overall policies of the school, the budget and ensuring that the overall needs of the community (the students, teachers and parents) are met.

ICT Partners: Being the ICT Leader I am constantly liaising with my third support and ICT vendors to ensure that the school network together with the hardware and software is up to date and running effectively.

Within my wider educational sphere of practice I would identify the main bodies of my community to be the cluster schools in my area, specialist education centres such as Team Solutions and the Mind Lab and then the virtual global community - Social Networking sites, Pond, Google + and the many other professional development websites and resource sites.

What Is My Specialist Area of Practice?

My school-wide responsibility is that of ICT Leader. Below are a few of the responsibilities that I am accountable for:

• Ensuring network infrastructure is current, robust and efficient
• 1st Line Support for all ICT related queries or hardware/software problems
• ICT budget
• ICT Strategic Plan
• Keeping appraised of new technologies, applications and websites
• School-Wide Professional Development
• Building and Maintaining partnerships with third party ICT support and vendors
  

My specialist area of practice relates very closely to the current shift in practice in relation to the broader professional context. In ‘Supporting future-oriented learning & teaching - a New Zealand perspective’ (Bolstad et al., 2012)  the following points are of note:

• New kinds of partnerships and relationships with the community are possible as learners work with real challenges in a range of real world contexts
• Cultural and linguistic diversity are strengths to be nurtured so that all learners can engage confidently in a global environment
• A future-oriented learning system requires that all those involved in education are involved in continuous learning

My specialist area is vital as we learn how to incorporate existing and emerging digital technologies into the classroom as a way of creating new learning opportunities and ways of learning and as we connect locally and globally with an array of communities (defined above), both within my immediate domain and on a global scale.
This is easier said than done however, as we look to address the current issues within the community and the challenges that I face in my own practice.

What Are The Current Issues In Your Community?

It is beyond the scope of this post to reflect upon all of the community issues that we currently face but I have identified that of ‘communicating effectively with parents so that they become more aware of their child’s learning and more aware of school life and activities’ as one of the most important, and an area that I/we feel that can be improved upon.

One, of the ways the we are looking to address this is through the use of ICT. We are looking at the ways that technology can be used to communicate more effectively with parents. Specifically:

• Our school SMS system
• Email communication
• Blogging
• Applications such as ClassDojo
• Apps contained with the Google Apps suite
• Social Media - Twitter, Facebook

We are also now looking at developing e-portfolios that can be accessed online by the parents so that they are more aware of their child’s learning. We are addressing these issues currently amongst the staff, not our parents, which, as I am writing this, feels like something we should be doing and I will bring it to my principal's attention.

As a staff we are each trying different things. Some of us are trialling Class Dojo, some are blogging, some are using Google Docs and Classroom, some are not using anything, which needs to be addressed. We will meet back shortly to discuss what is working, not working and the challenges we are currently facing. We are also going to meet with the BOT to discuss the use Facebook as a tool to communicate more effectively with our community as we feel that the type of demographic that our school resides in would be susceptible to this form of communication.

What Are The Challenges That You Face In Your Practice?

The greatest challenges that I face within my specialist area of IT is: (in no particular order):

• Keeping on top of all the emerging technologies, applications and websites that could be utilised within the school together with which ones are effective and which are not.
• Are we using the existing technologies we have effectively? Do we have effective digital pedagogies in place?
• Are the teachers comfortable with the technology that they have at their disposal and are they using it effectively?
• Consistency in the use of ICT across the school
• Providing effective PD across the school
• Not providing too much PD too soon
• Cyber Safety/Digital Citizenship programs to students, teachers and parents

We are addressing all of these issues on some level at this stage and it is important to clarify that since carrying out the leadership module from the Mind Lab that I feel that I am doing this more effectively than I was before.
I have created an ICT team that covers all year levels and teacher expertise and we meet to discuss current issues and concerns that are detailed above. We have created a digital citizenship and cyber safety program, we have had a student/teacher/parent community evening where we have presented and discussed the inherent dangers of being online. We have started talking to the board about the possibility of using social media as a better method of communication. We have conducted staff surveys through Google Forms on teachers perception of ICT and how it is used within the school. We are soon to start a coffee club where teachers can come and discuss the latest websites and applications (both locally and globally), that are available and how they are using them within the classroom.
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As mentioned above, this post has only highlighted what I feel are the most important issues and challenges that I and my community face in my specialised area of practice and these can only be achieved through effective leadership and collaborative efforts within my immediate local domain and in the wider global community.

References

Wenger, E., & Trayner-Wenger, B. (2015). Communities of practice: a brief introduction. April 2015, 1–8. http://doi.org/10.2277/0521663636

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching - A New Zealand perspective\n. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/109317/994_Future-oriented-07062012.pdf
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