Activity Five

Professional Connection Map

According to Wiley people are putting things together that have never been put together before. He refers to this concept as 'idea matchmaking.'  Collaboration is a theme that I have followed throughout my MindLab journey. I am aware that I have connections with a variety of groups, however during the creation of this map I have realised that I have a lot of professional connections. This exercise has also highlighted those connections which have a lot more potential that I need to utilise. 

The most obvious and immediate connections that I identified were those that I have within my school - The Accelerant Team and My Syndicate.  While most of the teachers I work with use an integrated curriculum (Mathison and Freeman) there is a lot of potential for more integration of our skills as a team that is under-utilised. Drake (1991) refers to this as teachers becoming 'connection experts' (cited in Mathison and Freeman, p. 22). 

My Learners are hugely important. They drive the decisions I make about what I am going to teach and constantly inspire me with their ideas and enthusiasm. One area that I could take advantage of would be to keep the connections with my learners once they move on to another classroom or school. They could come in and share their skills with my current learners. 

My husband dances for the New Zealand Dance Company and does work for Pacific Dance New Zealand. As a result, I have many connections within the Dance Company.

In 2010, I completed a TESSOL Diploma. Consequently I have connections within the TESSOL Community. Teaching immigrant learners has always been a passion of mine and my connections with this community are very important. It is always nice to meet fellow 'DipTessolers.' I feel like we are on the same wavelength when it comes to working with English Language Learners.

The Online Communities that I have connections with seem to be continually growing and changing. As Wiley point out in this TEDx talk, teachers don't build on their knowledge and ideas in a linear fashion, they go in all different directions. Through these online communities I have been able to follow my interests and have access to free resources and PLD. If I have questions, I can get input from people all over the globe on site such as twitter and The Virtual Learning Network. The same can be said for the learners that I work with. They are now able to connect with online communities in ways that I never imagined when I was in primary school. 

One way that I could enhance the potential of my connections with online communities is to improve my connectedness with these communities.

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According to Lucier's Seven Degrees of Connectedness, I am an Insider (stage 3). However, by the end of this year, I would like to progress to Stage 5: Collaborator. Well's research into why teachers do not engage online professionally, concludes that in order for teachers to give their input to online communities they must be very clear about their own teaching identity. Wells suggests joining communities such as edchat. 

Therefore, my goal is to get involved in the next #edchatnz by; retweeting what I think is worthwhile, asking questions, and sharing my thoughts and ideas. There are excellent suggestions for getting started on #edchatnz here.