Society 21
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Social and Community Innovation in Education through Technology
Society 21 is an international community of practice created by Professor Marilyn Leask, Professor Sonia Blandford and Christina Preston with the support of key MirandaNet Fellows. Society 21 will generate a web-based collaborative movement to share knowledge, understanding and skills and to generate new theory and practice related to learning and teaching in schools. Set within a context where there is an evident need to provide accessible and meaningful professional development which will provide access to all, raise achievement in the classroom and raise the aspirations of the school workforce. Society 21 will develop a model which utilises the professional knowledge and skills of practitioners by creating communities of practice within a technological framework which utilises web 2.0 and 3.0.
New knowledge will be developed by on-line unconferencing; face-to-face seminars guided by leading practitioners within each field. The synergy between internal and external expert knowledge will produce a dramatic change in the way in which practitioners develop. Engagement with Society 21 will produce evidence-based practitioner knowledge which will become mobile through collaborative partnerships thus facilitating lifelong learning for the education professions.
Frameworks for each community of practice within the school workforce will be modelled; all educational practitioners will have access to Society 21. The emphasis will be on increasing confidence in the application of theory to practice; the embedding of new technology; further development of the reflective practitioner model through the creation of supportive thematic, professionally embedded groups.Each framework will be guided by the mutuality of theory and practice thus developing clinicians rather than technicians in all aspects of educational practice.
Professor Leask, Professor Blandford and Christina Preston
Bibliography
Blandford, S. (2004) Professional Development in Schools Manual (3rd Edition), Management Solutions Series, London: Pearson Management ISBN 0273 69521 S pp.1 -276
Blandford, S. (2000) Managing Professional Development in Schools, Education Management Series, London: Routledge ISBN 0 415 19759 7 pp.1-226
Blandford, S. (1997) Middle Management in Schools, Leadership and Management for Effective. Schools Series, London: Pitman ISBN 0 273 61608 0 pp.1-256
Davis, N., C. Preston, et al. (2008 in press) ICT teacher training impacts multiple ecologies: evidence from a national initiative. British Journal of Education Technology (BJET).
Davis, N. E., C. Preston, et al. (2008 in press) Theoretical and evaluation frameworks to inform technology-related professional development for teachers, tested with evidence from a national study of ICT professional development for teachers. British Educational Research Journal.
Leask, M. and S. Younie (2001) Building On-Line Communities for Teachers: Ideas Emerging from Research. Issues in Teaching Using ICT. M. Leask. London, Routledge.
Leask, M. and S. Younie (2002) Communal Constructivist Theory: ICT Pedagogy & Internationalisation of the Curriculum. Journal for IT for Teacher Education 10(1&2): pp117-p134.
Preston, C. (2004) Learning to use ICT in Classrooms: teachers' and trainers' perspectives : an evaluation of the English NOF ICT teacher training programme 1999-2003. London, MirandaNet and the Teacher Training Agency www.mirandanet.org.uk/tta/.
Preston, C. (2007) Braided Learning: promoting active professionals in education. New International Theories and Models Of and For Online Learning. C. Haythornthwaite. Chicago IL, USA, First Monday.
Preston, C. (2008) Braided Learning: an emerging practice observed in e-communities of practice International Journal of Web Based Communities Inderscience Publishers www.inderscience.com 4(2).
Zeichner, K. (2008) Keynote: The Third Space : where teachers and academics meet. British Education Research Association (BERA) Annual Conference, Edinburgh, BERA.
Zeichner, K. and D. P. Liston (2006) Teaching Students to Reflect. Teacher Education: Major Themes in Education. D. Hartley and M. Whitehead. London, Routledge.
This document was originally published on 12 September 2008
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