Tag: Community

Replied to A Loss of Community by Chris (chrisbetcher.com)

I still have LinkedIn and Bluesky, because without some kind of social presence you become a bit like a falling tree in a forest that nobody hears. But I’ve come to really appreciate just how important this blog has been to me over the years, and I wanted to post this thought here for my own benefit. Sure, people don’t leave comments on blogs like they used to, mostly because they are too busy putting comments and posts on social media. It’s a lot easier to click a Like button on a social post than to write a thoughtful comment to a piece of long form writing. I get it, I just think it’s unfortunate that as a society we have become ok with that.

A Loss of Community by Chris Betcher

I am glad that I am not the only one persisting in the world of blogging. I do miss the community I had, but I guess all things change in time. Now I feel like a recluse in the woods living in the small hut that is my own web presence, reading books and feeds.

Replied to Review: 'Cultish' Examines the Language of Fanaticism by Sophie Gilbert (theatlantic.com)

Montell’s conclusion isn’t that everyone should necessarily be wary of cultish language, but that they should be aware of it: identifying language’s powers of coercion, questioning statements that discourage analysis, and being skeptical of loaded language that deliberately engenders a heightened emotional state or stigmatizes outsiders. “The fact is that most modern-day movements leave enough space for us to decide what to believe, what to engage with, and what language to use to express ourselves,” Montell writes. “Tuning in to the rhetoric these communities use, and how its influence works for both good and not so good, can help us participate, however we choose, with clearer eyes.”

I wonder how this compares or relates to Stanley Fish’s notion of ‘interpretive communities’:

Unlike Wolfgang Iser who analyses individual acts of reading, Stanley Fish situates the reading process within a broader institutional perspective. In Is There a Text in the Class? (1980), Fish proposes that competent readers form part of “interpretive communities”, consisting of members who share “interpretive strategies” or “set of community assumptions” of reading a text so as to write meaning into the text. He also proposed that each communal strategy in effect “creates” all the seemingly objective features of the text, as well as “intentions, speakers and authors” that readers may infer from the text. Hence the validity of any text depends on the assumptions and strategies that the readers may share with other members of a particular interpretive community.

Bookmarked The Power of Engaging Families (learningshore.edublogs.org)

Too often, family involvement in schools is limited to baking for cake stalls and participating in fund-raising, Harvard Lecturer Karen Mapp says that it is important to move beyond the bake sale to more interaction around learning and developmental goals, and to provide tools for parents to support these goals.

Cameron Paterson discusses going beyond the information evenings, bake sales and parent involvement in his reflection on family engagement.

Family engagement in education is about parents and carers, schools, and communities working together to ensure that everyone plays a positive role in a child’s learning. Teachers need to find effective ways to honor the wealth of knowledge that families possess. A touchstone question for teachers to ask parents is, “What is something you would like me to know about your child?”

Paterson also shares links to a few resources, including Partners Education in A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family–School Partnerships and Learning Potentials website.

This is an interesting topic to consider in regards to COVID and the move to online learning. As Robert Schuetz touched on a few years ago:

Our infrastructure is in place, now it’s a matter of creating the expectations and dedicating the time necessary for teachers and parents to collaboratively advance student learning for all.

While Greg Miller describes this challenge as a battle for the ‘new normal’:

One of the ongoing challenges of designing a ‘new normal’ for preschool to post school has been to clarify how we work in partnership with parents to nurture faith filled curious children to become creative contributors and innovative problem solvers for a changing world.

I also wonder how this all plays out in regards to something like the Modern Learning Canvas? Clearly, it has a place in regards to ‘culture’ and ‘policy’. However, it makes me wonder about the consequences for the role of the educator and the pedagogical beliefs that may align with all of this.

Replied to Strengths and schooling (dougbelshaw.com)

It’s fashionable to say that we have a industrial education system for a post-industrial economy. That’s confusing means with ends. My argument would instead be that we have an education system focused mainly on the priorities of politicians and employers. What would a more community-centered vision for education look like?

This notion of balance sounds similar to the spaces concocted by the team at Northern Beaches, as summarised by Steve Collis.
Replied to https://collect.readwriterespond.com/pcpopup2020-3/ by Aaron DavisAaron Davis (Read Write Collect)

What if we posted comments to other spaces from our own sites utilising the power of webmentions?

What if we were all someone else’s conversational follower, as Bill Ferriter has suggested? Building connections and community along the way.

#pcPopUp2020

Bookmarked How to Build an Online Learning Community: 6 Theses (Jesse Stommel)

Educational institutions are spaces for learning, but more specifically, they are spaces for social learning. And so our role as educators and administrators of educational institutions has to be focused on building community in addition to offering courses, designing curriculum, and credentialing.

Jesse Stommel unpacks six considerations associated with building an online learning community.
Liked As N.Y.’s Indie Bookstores Close Their Doors, They Search for Community Online (Vulture)

We’re trying to think about the ways we can still be an inspiring space without the physical space,” Mil Mundo said. “There’s a silver lining to all of this — that we can reinvent how we talk about storytelling.”

Bookmarked After Babel: Designing for Community (Sean Michael Morris)

Access, inclusion, design all have to fall together in favor of community, of dialogue, with content being no more than the field upon which those play. So, a design for community might include:

  • Interstitial, unfacilitated learning
  • Agency, meta-cognition, and self-determination
  • Building skills
  • Mentorship
In a keynote address for the Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium at Metropolitan State University, Sean Michael Morris unpacks the challenges associated with learning in online communities. This has me thinking of David White’s discussion of coalescent spaces and the idea of a personal social media space.
Listened #70 – Virtual Community with Howard Rheingold – Modern Learners from Modern Learners

Howard Rheingold brings a sense of perspective and history to the conversation around our current understanding of community

Howard Rheingold discusses the development of virtual communities over time. From The Well to DS106, Rheingold discusses the power of learners to lead their own learning within such spaces. This is something Clint Lalonde discusses in regards to untrackable learning in private spaces.
Replied to Parent Involvement and Engagement by gregmiller68 (gregmiller68.com)

Since the inception of St Luke’s in February 2017, one of the ongoing challenges of designing a ‘new normal’ for preschool to post school has been to clarify how we work in partnership with parents to nurture faith filled curious children to become creative contributors and innovative problem …

Always left inspired by the open sharing of your schools journey Greg. I remember parent engagement was my ‘moonshot’ that I took away from my Google experience:

How Might We ENGAGE PARENTS in a CULTURAL SHIFT to make RELATIONSHIPS and CONNECTIONS the focus of learning?

Although I may not have achieved the goals that I was aspiring towards, it is something which I feel grounds a lot of my work.

Liked

Replied to the dark side of communities (jarche.com)

Not all groups are for the good of society. Not all communities are there to promote democracy. We should all be aware of the dark sides of communities.

Harold, your point about negative communities. I like Ton’s point about connection to the outside air prevents the growth of negative communities. However, I wonder if connection with the outside is sometimes used to publicise and promote the negative ideas, rather than debate and discuss?
Bookmarked The Downside of Checking Kids’ Grades Constantly by Jessica Lahey (nytimes.com)

Digital grade portals were designed to improve home-school communication by allowing students and parents to monitor grades and attendance throughout the year so there are no surprises at report card time. In theory, a parent who checks the portal has the opportunity to stay on top of a child’s performance and facilitate support for the child if performance slips.

The reality, at least in high-pressure school districts, is that some parents interpret the school’s invitation to constantly monitor grades and scores on the portal not as an option, but as an obligation. This obligation adds to the mounting anxiety students and parents feel in these districts.

Jessica Lahey discusses the other side to anytime, anywhere access. The effort to irresistably engage parents can lead to an increase in anxiety and a devaluing of student-teacher relationships, relevance and student engagement. It is also interesting to consider where SeeSaw and danger of the digital dump.
Liked

I am left wondering why it must be in response to such a situation that people come together? Is this what community has always been?

Bookmarked Communities or networks? – Matthew Esterman – Medium by Matthew Esterman (Medium)

The most useful network or community is the one you can build with your immediate team and colleagues in your school. They’re in the context and in the ‘know’. They’re accountable with you and they know the support structures — especially if it’s them — and can act on them. If you don’t feel you’re getting that support, find a mentor outside the context and learn to build relationships within. We need to be an active participant in those networks we choose to belong.

Matt Esterman reflects on the place of associations. Beyond reviewing our assumed attendances to such communities, Esterman recommends forming local networks. I have tried this in the past. The challenge I found with ‘local’ is catching up and being proactive.