Connected Learning, MOOCs, and #etmooc

Since the best MOOCs (massive open online courses) appear to be rooted in connected learning, it’s no surprise to me that my current exploration of MOOCs through participation in #etmooc—the Education Technology and Media course organized by University of Regina professor of educational technology and media Alec Couros and several “co-conspirators”—is leading me (and approximately 1,400 other learners) into an engaging exploration of connected learning.

In the course of participating in or watching the archived version of Couros’s 100-minute interactive presentation on the topic, we are not only exposed to and inspired by a variety of ideas from Couros-as-instructor but also by the reactions of participants whose comments remain visible in the typed chat that occurs as he is speaking and interacting with learners. And if we follow any of the numerous links posted in that chat, we connect our learning to other online learning opportunities ranging from TED (Technology, Education, Design) talks to articles by other educators, e.g., Dean Shareski’s piece advocating that we document and share our own learning experiences with others so that we develop a community of learning in which each learner’s experiences become part of every other learner’s experiences—much as they do through #etmooc.

Furthermore, if we expand our personal learning environment to include the recently-released Digital Media and Learning Research Hub report Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design posted on the Connected Learning Research Network site, we can’t help but walk away from this multi-media experience with a great appreciation for what MOOCs are already doing to foster first-rate learning experiences.

The Connected Learning report itself should be required reading for all trainer-teacher-learners since it offers an engaging peek at how the world of learning is evolving: “This report investigates how we can use new media to foster the growth and sustenance of environments that support connected learning in a broad-based and equitable way. This report also offers a design and reform agenda, grounded in a rich understanding of child development and learning, to promote and test connected learning theories (p. 3),” the report writers promise—and we’re not just looking at ideas applicable in academic settings; there’s plenty to digest here for anyone involved in workplace learning and performance (staff training).

As is the case with well-designed MOOCs, connected learning “seeks to build communities and collective capacities for learning and opportunity,” the report continues. It “includes the ideas that everyone can participate, learning happens by doing, challenge is constant, and everything is interconnected”—which, when you get right down to it, is at the heart of the sort of MOOC that Couros and his colleagues are facilitating through #etmooc.

Part 2 of the report takes us to the heart of the possibilities connected learning offers: “The trends we are seeing in today’s new media environment present new risks, but also unprecedented opportunities in making interest-driven, engaging, and meaningful learning accessible to more young people”—and, I would add, to adult learners as well. “[C]onnected learning is defined not by particular technologies, techniques, or institutional context but by a set of values, an orientation to social change, and a philosophy of learning….In many ways, the connected learning approach is part of a longstanding tradition in progressive education and research on informal learning that has stressed the importance of civic engagement, connecting schools with the wider world, and the value of hands-on and social learning (p. 33).”

By the time we reach the end of the report, we have a clear understanding of the challenges and the rewards of adapting connected learning wherever it can be applied: “Online information and social media provide opportunities for radically expanding the entry points and pathways to learning, education, and civic engagement. Further, there is a groundswell of activity in diverse sectors that are taking to these connected learning opportunities, ranging from entrepreneurial young learners, open and online educational initiatives, technology innovations in gaming and other forms of learning media, new forms of activism, and innovative schools and libraries. The connected learning model is an effort at articulating a research and design effort that cuts across the boundaries that have traditionally separated institutions of education, popular culture, home, and community. Connected learning is a work in progress and an invitation to participate in researching, articulating, and building this movement (p. 87).”

We’re also left with 11 pages of resources that could keep us busy for months or years if we wanted to engage in further explorations of the topic. But for now, I’m left deeply appreciative for the rich variety of resources this particular part of #etmooc has provided. While working my way through this first of the five #etmooc topics we’re all exploring, I watched that archived version of Couros’s introduction to the subject; followed links from his presentation to articles in the New York Times, George Siemens’ elearnspace blog and some of his writing on connectivism, and other online resources; watched a TED (Technology, Education, Design) talk delivered by Clay Shirky on “How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World”; and viewed several graphics that added texture to what Couros was presenting.

All of which raises a very interesting question inspired by a learner’s comment in the session typed chat about how some schools are still blocking access to YouTube because it is not seen as a serious provider of educational opportunities, and also inspired by the still prevalent assertion that Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and other social media platforms are little more than frivolous time-wasters: if your school, university, organization, or business is still blocking access to these resources, how long is it going to take before you realize that you are cheating your learners—and yourself? 

N.B.: This is the second in a series of posts responding to the assignments and explorations fostered through #etmooc.

MOOCed into Learning via #etmooc

I’ve been MOOCed. And it’s not as if I could have avoided it. I knew, as soon as I began exploring the topic of massive online open courses (MOOCs) in November 2012 with colleagues on the New Media Consortium (NMC) Advisory Board for the 2013 Higher Education Edition of the Horizon Report, that it would only be a matter of time before I stepped into the vortex and was completely immersed in learning more about the topic.

It’s not as if I fought it very hard; when Google recently announced its Advanced Power Searching MOOC, I registered for that course. But the increasingly frequent references I’ve been seeing to ETMOOC—the Education Technology and Media course organized by University of Regina professor of educational technology and media Alec Couros and several “co-conspirators”—made me curious enough to dip a virtual toe into the MOOC surf. And, as so often happens when we stand too close to the water, I’ve been swamped by an enormous wave of MOOC.

This is a community under development, a place where trainer-teacher-learners are working with each other to explore a variety of topics in two-week chunks: connected learning, digital storytelling, digital literacy, the open movement, and digital citizenship. The use of technology is not only at the heart of our learning explorations, but provides the tools for those explorations: live online sessions held in Blackboard and archived for those who can’t attend the live sessions; a network of blogs; a twitter hashtag (#etmooc); a Google+ community with connections via Google+ Hangouts; postings on YouTube; and content on social bookmarking sites including Delicious, Diigo, and Reddit.

And while Couros is clearly at the center of the process, his conspirators and the learners are, with his encouragement, very much building the course by developing content as we go, as Sue Waters did in a blog post that about working harder and staying connected in a learning community—her guide to how to use the various course tools to engage in effective learning opportunities.

Less than three weeks into ETMOOC, there already is a robust and still-growing archive of programs including a very lively 80-minute orientation session; introductions to Twitter, social bookmarking and content curation, and blogging; and an introduction to connected learning. The orientation itself included a wealth of resources, including links to online articles about how we can assist learners in building out “their digital presences in an environment made of the medium of the web itself” and how the development of open learning systems can “dramatically improve learning.”

There is also a “Dynamic Guide to Active Participation” that could serve as a primer for anyone interested in developing great contemporary learning habits, and a “Dynamic Guide for Facilitators” that will be a tremendously valuable resource for any trainer-teacher-learning working in online environments.

“Think of #etmooc as an experience situated somewhere between a course and a community,” the course developers tell us on the website and in that engaging introductory session. “While there will be scheduled webinars and information shared each week, we know that there is a lot more that we will collectively need to do if we want to create a truly collaborative and passionate community. We’re aiming to carry on those important conversations in many different spaces – through the use of social networks, collaborative tools, shared hashtags, and in personalized spaces. What #etmooc eventually becomes, and what it will mean to you, will depend upon the ways in which you participate and the participation and activities of all of its members. You may even establish and grow your personal and professional learning network (PLN).”

And by encouraging us to learn by participating, by creating content and establishing new online accounts in platforms including about.me, and by engaging in conversations that extend far beyond any formal onsite or online classroom walls, they are inspiring all of us to contribute our own learning objects—like this blog post—that extends the conversation and the learning even further.

N.B.: This is the first in a series of posts responding to the assignments and explorations fostered through #etmooc.

Resume/CV

Paul Signorelli
1032 Irving, #514
San Francisco, CA 94122
E-mail: paul@paulsignorelli.com

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsignorelli/

Overview

Photo by Dennis L. Maness, taken on the Hidden Garden Steps

Opportunity is at the heart of all I do in writing and learning—the opportunity to work more effectively and collaboratively, and to produce results that are meaningful to learners, to organizations, and to the customers/clients/communities we ultimately serve.

I collaborate with clients and colleagues in higher education and other learning environments to produce engaged, motivated, productive learners and partners. I see learning and collaboration as a process rather than solely as an event. I want to make a positive difference in our workplaces and within our extended onsite and online communities. I want to be sure that our learning efforts and the way we work within our communities are collaborative, learner-centric, results-driven, and designed to extend well beyond the physical and virtual learning spaces we create.

I work with you to nurture these results through highly-interactive presentations and facilitated learning sessions designed to respond to the specific challenges you are facing.

Education

University of North Texas, MLIS
Golden Gate University, M.A., Arts Administration
UCLA, B.A., Political Science

Skill sets:

• Writing
• Facilitating group discussions face-to-face and online to produce positive strategic outcomes
• Public speaking (with a strong focus on high levels of interaction with audiences)
• Program management
• Collaboratively designing and implementing innovative, effective workplace learning and performance (training) projects and programs onsite, online, and in blended environments at the national, regional, and local levels
• Creating and nurturing sustainable face-to-face, online, and blended communities of learning, collaborations, and partnerships
• Leadership on boards, committees, programs, and projects
• Online research to track future-thinking ed-tech, social media, and lifelong learning trends
• Entrepreneurship that connects a variety of stakeholders to produce positive, concrete results
• Marketing and public relations
• Strategic planning
• Fundraising
• Quickly absorbing new information to keep up with developments in educational and workplace technology

Publication (Partial List)

Books

Change the World Using Social Media (January 2021, Rowman & Littlefield), a story-driven exploration of how activists incorporate social media into their small-, medium-, and large-scale efforts to produce positive change in their communities

Workplace Learning & Leadership, a staff training guide co-written with Lori Reed for ALA Editions to highlight examples of trainers as successful leaders within their organizations (April 2011)

Also:

*Contributor to 101 More Ways to Make Training Active (Elaine Biech, editor; April 2015)

*Contributor (“Infinite Learning,” a chapter on fostering lifelong learning through libraries) to Information Services Today: An Introduction (Sandra Hirsh, editor; March 2015)

*Contributor to The Book of Road-Tested Activities (Elaine Biech, editor; May 2011); online excerpts available

*Editorial Board Member for 2^nd edition of Sandra Hirch’s Information Services Today: An Introduction

 

Blog Postings

Building Creative Bridges (articles on training, learning, technology, collaboration, activism/advocacy, and innovation)

ShapingEDU blog (regular contributor providing articles on lifelong learning, innovation, and broadband access)

American Libraries Magazine blog (occasional guest contributor providing articles on learning, technology, innovation, and libraries for this group blog)

ATD Learning Technologies blog (occasional guest contributor providing articles on learning, staff training, technology, and innovation for this group blog)

Book Reviews

“Abandoned in the Wasteland,” Minow & Lamay, SF Review of Books (10&11/1995)

“AI: Mind-MELDS With Our Learners and Our Machines,” ATD blog (2/7/2019)

“The Craft of Research,” Wayne C. Booth and others, SF Guardian (5/1996)

“Get Lucky,” Thor Muller and Lane Becker, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (8/7/2012)

“The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly,” Greg Hrbek, SF Chronicle (10/31/1999)

“Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard,” Kiran Desai, SF Bay Guardian (9/1998)

“LibraryThing” List of Books on Training, Creativity, Collaboration, and Other Topics

(Includes Ratings and Reviews), updated regularly

“Myth Buster: Debunking What Otherwise Might Lead Us and Our Learners Astray,” ATD blog (8/7/2018)

“The Business of Speaking for a Living,” ATD Blog (1/17/2019)

“The Life of God (As Told by Himself),” Franco Ferrucci, SF Bay Guardian (11/1996)
“The Silent Duchess,” Dacia Maraini, SF Bay Guardian (11/1998)

“Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (7/16/2012)

“Unlearning What We Think We Know to Inspire Successful Learning,” ATD’s Science of Learning blog (online) (12/30/2015)

“Us+Them: Tapping the Positive Power of Difference“, Todd Pittinksy, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (11/21/2012)

Print and Online Articles

“Adult Learning: When Miracles Happen,” ALA-APA Library Worklife Newsletter (5/2010)

“Are You Following Me?” (with Lori Reed), American Libraries (11/2008)

“Artificial Intelligence: Transforming the Nature of Work, Learning, and Learning to Work,” Top of Mind blog, The Tambellini Group (August 21, 2018)

“Be Ready for the Learning Space of the Future,” ATD Learning Technologies blog (8/14/2014)

“Books, Technology, and Learning: Looking at the Past to See Our Future (MOOCs as Textbooks),”New Media Consortium blog (6/11/2014)

“Breaching the Language Barrier: Literature in Translation,” SF Bay Guardian (5/1997)

“Collaboration Leads Way in ALA Editions’ Social Media Basics Course,” ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (10/15/2012)

“EdTech Continuous Change and Innovation: Nesting With Black Swans,” New Media Consortium blog (7/22/2015)

“E-Learning: The Product of a Risk Is a Lesson,” American Libraries online (2/15/2011)

“Fighting for Arts Education,” Teaching Theater (Summer 1991)

“Mixing and Extending Reality: EdTech Options in Higher Education,” Top of Mind blog, The Tambellini Group (12/11/2019)

“Professional Growth Through Learning Communities,” (with Lori Reed), American Libraries (5/2011)

“Imagine, Creativity, and Communities of Practice,” ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) 6/6/2012

“Open Innovations: #etmooc, Connected Learning, and ‘MOOChorts’ of Lifelong Learners,” New Media Consortium blog (9/30/2014)

“Remodeling on a Budget,” American Libraries online (4/2010)

“Revolutionizing e-Learning: Innovation through Social Networking Tools,”
Learning Solutions Magazine (10/12/2009)
“Skype as Conference Tool,” American Libraries (5/2008)
“Skype Me: When Learning Is Just a Call Away”

Learning Solutions Magazine (2/28/2011)

“Technology, Road Rage, and Customer Service” (with Maurice Coleman),

WebJunction online (11/22/2010)

“10 Tips for Incorporating Ed-Tech Into Your Own Development,” ATD Learning Technologies blog (3/23/2016)

“The 2010 Horizon Report: What Learners Look to Us to Learn,”

Learning Solutions Magazine (3/5/2010)

“The 2011 Horizon Report: Keeping Up with Learners and Technology”
Learning Solutions Magazine, (3/16/2011)

“Up and Out of Your Seats: Engage Learners Through Movement to Produce Tangible Results,” TD Magazine (11/18)

“What Makes a cMOOC Community Endure? Multiple Perspectives From Diverse cMOOCs,” Educational Media International. Routledge. (6/19/2015)

“When (Big) Data Changes the Way We View Our World: A Brief Case Study,” New Media Consortium blog, (9/11/2014)

Writing Workshops/Conferences Attended

Squaw Valley Community of Writers’ Conference (2001)
Margo Perin’s two-week writing workshop in Vagliagli, Italy (1999)
Novelist Molly Giles’ one-day writing workshop in Marin (1996)
Part of a six-member writing group in San Francisco (1995-98)
Novelist Anne Lamott’s weekly writing workshop in Marin (1995)

Professional Experience:

Writer, Trainer/Educator, Presenter, Project Manager, Consultant
2007 – present

California Library Association—Project Manager, Statewide Advocacy Training Program (December 2019-)
Consultant/Project Manager – Contract
Working with California Library Association to develop a statewide training program for library staff members interested in honing their skills as advocates on behalf of libraries throughout the state

ShapingEDU (2018 – present)
Facilitator/Committee Co-chair
Serving as “co-mayor” of a ShapingEDU committee seeking to strengthen connections between higher education and employers on behalf of students; also, one of three Storytellers in Residence (July 2020 – June 2021)

ALA TechSource/ALA Editions, ATD, PCI Webinars, and Others (September 2010– ongoing)
Writer/Trainer/Presenter/Consultant – Contract
Designing/delivering/facilitating onsite and online courses, workshops, and highly-interactive keynote presentations on a variety of topics
Subjects include “Artificial Intelligence in Learning,” “AR/VR/XR in Learning,” “Developing Community Partnerships,” “Incorporating Technology into Your Workplace,” “The Future of Libraries,” “Rethinking Social Media,” “Rethinking Digital Literacy,” “Rethinking (Library) Instruction,” “Working With Difficult Customers,” and “Nonprofit Management Basics”
Environments: Adobe Connect, Moodle, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, PowerPoint, WebEx, Word, and others

American Library Association (2011 – 2018)
Project Management – Contract
Worked with ALA staff to recruit, orient, place, and coordinate onsite volunteers for the Association’s annual conferences in cities throughout the United States

OCLMOOC (Open and Connected Learning Massive Open Online Course (2014)
Instructional Design and Online Course Facilitation – Volunteer
Worked with Canadian and Australian colleagues from the ground-breaking Educational Technology & Media MOOC to design, produce, and facilitate this connectivist MOOC for educators interesting in learning about learning in online environments; more information at https://oclmooc.wordpress.com/about-oclmooc/.

Hidden Garden Steps Project (January 2010 – December 2013)
Founder/Co-chair – Community-based Volunteer Project
Was involved in every aspect of bringing this $450k effort to create a public artwork with accompanying gardens in San Francisco’s Sunset District; worked collaboratively to:

• Create and implement strategic, fundraising, and marketing plans to bring the project to a successful conclusion
• Serve as project liaison with City/County officials and employees, nonprofit organization representatives, local business representatives, individual community volunteers, and the company installing the completed mosaic
• Chair monthly meetings of organizing committee members during the four years the project was underway, and document the proceedings
• Serve as project manager working with key stakeholders during the installation of the 148-step mosaic installed on an existing City/County of San Francisco concrete staircase
• Continue to serve as one of two site stewards to help maintain the site

Hospice of Palm Beach County, Florida (August 2011– January 2012)
Training Analyst, Content Developer, and Trainer – Contract
Commute between San Francisco and West Palm Beach (FL) to:

• Help key players in the organization focus on the change-facilitation aspects of learning as much as they focused on the technology (HomeCare Homebase software and Samsung Galaxy tablets) being introduced
• Rewrite vendor’s manuals to correct errors, list learning goals and objectives so learners could see what each section offered, and create a consistent use of key learning terms to make the manuals easy for learners to use
• Create job aides that were consistent in appearance to what learners found in the manuals; these were designed to help learners quickly find concise step-by-step resources for use in the field (i.e., at the moment of need)
• Help create focused and manageable agendas for each of the workshops (more than two dozen), with strong focus on how much could be assimilated in a single learning session
• Facilitate more than 10 in-classroom instructor-led training sessions for a variety of learners (nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides) so they could begin using the Homecare Homebase PointCare software on Samsung Galaxy tablets during the Wave 1 roll-out of this project

Blue Shield of California (September – November 2010)
Instructional Designer – Contract
During the two-month run of this project to help employees company-wide learn what they needed to know to begin implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

• Co-write the first drafts for three five-minute video scripts in one day at the end of my first week onsite
• Wrote three additional scripts while helping to fine-tune the initial three scripts
• Worked with the colleague who filmed and translated those scripts into polished videos
• Translated each script into a PowerPoint presentation that was posted as a consistently branded back-up learning object for employees
• Worked with staff to create a simple online resource to help employees find the various learning objects available to them
• Supported efforts to market the learning objects to employees

Sutter VNA & Hospice (February – July 2010)
Training Specialist – Contract
Traveled throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento area during the course of this project to:

• Assist the client’s permanent education department staff in step-checking learning materials (manuals and job aides)
• Assist management in sessions preparing learners for the change they were about to experience while moving from paper- and laptop-centered record-keeping onto smartphones using the Homecare Homebase PointCare software
• Facilitate more than 40 in-classroom instructor-led training sessions for a variety of learners (nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides) so they could begin using the Homecare Homecare Homebase PointCare software on smartphones during four different four-week roll-outs of this project
• Provided one-on-one face-to-face and phone support for learners after they completed their two-week series of workshops

NorthNet Library System (April – September 2010)
Writer & Editor – Contract
Helped shape and edit the extensive (93-page) online consumer health toolkit that remains available at http://www.library.ca.gov/lds/docs/HealthToolkit.pdf)
Environment: Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, Word

LE@D (September 2009– 2011)
Writer & Instructional Designer – Contract
Writing asynchronous online courses
Completed a course on “Mentoring Basics” and mentoring webinar
Environment: Word to produce the course content before a designer translated it into the online format

Infopeople (October 2007 – May 2009)
Training Consultant – Contract
Coached and edited online webinar presenters
Wrote for training blog
Participated in initial efforts to shape and upgrade a “Master Trainer” series of courses
Assisted with marketing efforts
Environment: used PowerPoint, Word, and Excel; presenters’ webinars were via Angel and other platforms

ALA Editions, ATD Science of Learning newsletter, Rowman & Littlefield, Others (October 2007 – ongoing)
Freelance Writer – Contract
Writing Change the World Using Social Media for Rowman & Littlefield (publication projected for 2019)
Co-wrote Workplace Learning and Leadership (published by ALA Editions, April 2011)
Contributed chapter to Sandra Hirsh’s Information Services Today: An Introduction (1^st Edition) (published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
Contributed two activities to Elaine Biech’s The Book of Road-Tested Activities (co-published by Pfeiffer and ASTD Press, May 2011) and one to her 101 More Ways to Make Training Active (published by John Wiley and Sons, 2015)
“Revolutionizing e-Learning: Innovation through Social Networking Tools,” e-learning Guild online publication
“Skype as a Reference Tool,” American Libraries magazine
Links to selected other published articles
Environment: Word

Personnel Analyst (Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training)
San Francisco Public Library
1993 – 2007

1. a) As a Library Personnel Analyst (2001-2007), I served as Director of Staff Training for the entire Library system. Assisted in employee recruitment, hiring, orientation, and continuing training needs for the system’s more than 850 employees. Developed the Library’s annual training plan and oversaw the training budget. Wrote curriculum and delivered training on a variety of topics; hired instructors; developed and scheduled classes and workshops; produced a quarterly print and online training schedule listing more than 40 workshops from a variety of sources; and was an active member of the statewide Infopeople “Master Trainers” program for those managing training programs in libraries. Also worked on a variety of special Human Resources projects including preparation of a revised Employee Handbook, which included extensive material about employee health-care benefits; serving as the Library’s representative on a city-wide healthy-city initiative supported by the mayor; and serving as an ergonomic evaluator after helping shape the curriculum for an ergonomic train-the-trainer program with City Department of Public Health colleagues.
2. b) As Director of Volunteer Services (1993-2007), I designed, implemented, and managed and marketed a program which had over 150 volunteers on assignment weekly and others who were available for short-term assignments throughout the year in the Main Library and many of the 27 branch libraries in San Francisco. Participated in Human Resources Division negotiations with Library union members on issues affecting the Library Volunteer program. Developed and maintained ties with business colleagues in other libraries throughout California and in Bay Area nonprofit organizations.  Wrote, edited, and oversaw production of manuals (human resources, computer and docent training), newsletters, and other program materials. Developed and conducted orientations and training sessions. Wrote press releases and prepared monthly calendars of events for the Library system. Responsible for programming and marketing a well-attended series of author readings at the Main Library.

Environment: used Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, LotusNotes, WordPerfect

Executive Director, Teens Kick Off
In charge of management, budgeting, human resources, volunteers, financial, fundraising/grant-writing and marketing/public relations operations for this theater group in which teenagers in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction performed for other teenagers through California; program focus was peer-to-peer alcohol and drug intervention. Developed and implemented new programs to meet business needs. Worked with board of directors, maintained financial records, prepared financial reports for board review, and collaborated with a board member with human resources expertise to prepare the organization’s first personnel manual. Wrote and produced publications.

Publications Editor, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Strong involvement in project management and assisting public relations director and admissions staff in marketing the Conservatory to a worldwide audience during a period of substantial increases in student enrollment. Wrote, edited, and oversaw production of Conservatory publications (collegiate and other department catalogs, recruitment brochures, annual reports, monthly calendar of events, and many others). Worked with designers and sometimes designed publications. Arranged for media coverage of student and faculty recitals. Was in charge of budgeting, budget supervision, and box office operations during director’s leave of absence.

Managing Editor, Prelude Magazine
Established and managed project production schedules and was in charge of human resources operations. Worked on all aspects of producing this 64-page monthly classical music and arts magazine (writing, typesetting, editing, layout and paste-up, including redesign of the magazine).

Assistant to the Director, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art
Assisted director in screening and hiring new staff. Helped write and edit grant proposals. Involved in managing projects including selecting and implementing installation of a computer system which included the collection inventory and membership lists. Responsible for marketing and public relations operations during a period when media coverage of museum exhibitions and activities increased rapidly. Wrote press releases and cultivated media contacts. Wrote, edited, and did layout and paste-up of monthly calendar of events and Museum catalogs.

Instructor, Foreign Language Schools, Tokyo
Taught English as a Second Language courses in two large vocational schools in Japan.

Freelance Writer
Please see “Publications” section for partial listing of published writing.

Reporter/Bureau Chief, San Joaquin News Service
Wrote, edited, and photographed on a variety of topics including county government, local social issues (gangs, child abuse, problems within the San Joaquin County Housing Authority, difficulties faced by new immigrants), agricultural land-use and statewide water development issues, Sheriff’s Department activities, and general features for the three newspapers supporting this news service in California’s Central Valley.

Related Experience

Technology

Currently working extensively to explore how artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality are affecting lifelong learning and current workplace operations globally; remain involved in exploring and using technology that facilitates onsite, online, and blended learning and community collaboration. Work with clients and their employees to help facilitate the positive, effective introduction of new technology into their worksites.

Languages
Have studied Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and a bit of Hebrew.

Professional Affiliations
ALA (American Library Association)
ATD (Association for Talent Development)
Learning Guild
PEN America
ShapingEDU (Future-facing Arizona State University-based group exploring ed-tech trends in higher education and other learning environments)

Volunteer Work
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University, Curriculum Development Committee (June 2019 – present)
ShapingEDU (2018 – present)
FOEcast (Future of Education Forecast), founding partner (2018)
NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Project advisory boards/expert panels (2010-2017)
San Francisco Parks Alliance, Parks Policy Council member, one-year term (2014)
Hidden Garden Steps, organizing committee co-chair (2010-2013); one of two site stewards (2014-present)
American Library Association: two two-year terms, including a year as committee chair, on the American Libraries Advisory Committee, and one year on the Publishing Committee
ASTD/ATD: variety of local, regional, and national positions, including Chapter President (Mt. Diablo Chapter, 2010) and member, National Advisors for Chapters (2011-2012)
Asian Art Museum, helped with public relations (six months)
National Kidney Foundation of Northern California Authors Luncheon Committee member (four years)

Presentations/Resources

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2019)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (Washington, DC)

eLearning Guild—Learning Solutions 2019 Conference and Exposition (Orlando, FL)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

ShapingEDU Second Annual Unconference (Tempe, AZ)

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2018)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; New Orleans, LA)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (San Diego, CA)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—San Diego Chapter monthly meeting (live onsite/online blended presentation)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

Pursuitica (webinar for staff of global telecommunications company based in India)

ShapingEDU First Annual Unconference (Tempe, AZ)

SWFLN (Southwest Florida Library Network) webinars

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2017)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; Chicago, IL)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—Southern California Regional Conference (Los Angeles, CA)

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Boston, MA)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

SWFLN (Southwest Florida Library Network) Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (Fort Meyers, FL)

SWFLN webinars

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2016)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; Orlando, FL)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (Denver, CO)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—National Advisors for Chapters (webinar)

Five-County Regional Library Consortium Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (King of Prussia, PA)

Mount Prospect Public Library—Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (Mt. Prospect, IL)

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Rochester, NY)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2015)

AEJMC–Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication–Annual Conference panel discussion member (San Francisco, CA)

ALA Editions (online sessions/courses/panel-discussion participant)

American Library Association Annual Conference/Library and Information Technology Association (San Francisco, CA)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—Chapter Leaders Conference (Arlington, VA)

#etmooc—Educational Technology & Media MOOC learning community (facilitated/co-facilitated tweet chats)

KIPA—Knowledge & Information Professional Association—Conference (Denton, TX)

Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting (Richmond, VA)

NEKLS—Northeast Kansas Library System—Innovation Day virtual presentation via Google Hangout

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Washington, D.C.)

New Media Consortium (online panel-discussion participant)

PCI Webinars (multiple online sessions)

Saint Mary’s College of California session for faculty (Moraga, CA)

Virginia Library Association Annual Conference (Richmond, VA)

Links to Presentations & Other Resources

“Best Practices: Creating and Managing Mentoring Programs”
Tips, Sample Applications, and Resources—Updated July 2009
(PDF)

“Best Practices: Creating and Managing Volunteer Programs”
Tips and Basic Template—Updated May 2009
(PDF)

“Blend It 2015: Using Technology to Create Effective Onsite/Online Learning Spaces”

American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation (LITA) —June 2015

San Francisco

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Building Meaningful Collaborations”
ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) Mt. Diablo Chapter—December 2008

Danville, CA
(PDF)

“Collaboration, Technology, Social Media, and Learning: The 2012 Horizon Report–Higher Education Edition”

ASTD Mount Diablo Chapter Monthly Meeting Presentation—June 19, 2012

with Samantha Adams

Danville, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Community and Collaboration in an Onsite-Online World: An Annotated Bibliography”
Updated March 19, 2013
(PDF)

“Community Collaboration: Helping Shape Our Communities”

Northeast Kansas Library System: Library Directors Institute—November 7, 2013

Valley Falls, KS

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Community Partnerships: How to Get It Done”

ALA Editions Webinar—April 2013
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Conflict Resolution/Difficult People:

Why Am I So Angry (And What Are You Going to Do About It?)”

Webjunction Webinar—October 2010

with Maurice Coleman
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Connected Learning for Library Staff and Users”

PCI Webinars—November 2015
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Continuous Change & Innovation: Developing Skills to Deal With Black Swans”

New Media Consortium Summer [ed-tech] Conference—June 2015

with Samantha Becker

Washington, D.C.

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Cover to Cover: Redefining Books and Library Collections in Learning”

PCI Webinar—June 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Critical Thinking and Assumptions in Decision-making”
Updated April 18, 2011
(PDF)

“Designing Engaging Learning for Library Staff and Users”

PCI Webinar—October 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Developing Communities of Learning”

PCI Webinar—December 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ed-Tech, Learning, and NMC Horizon Reports: What’s In It for Us…and Our Learners”

ATD (formerly ASTD) Golden Gate Chapter Monthly Meeting Presentation– May 15, 2015

with Samantha Adams Becker

San Francisco, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ed-Tech Trends: Identifying and Incorporating Them Into Your Workplace”
ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2016 International Conference & Exposition — May 2016

Denver, CO

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“E-learning: Annotated Bibliography for Library Training Programs”
Updated February 23, 2011
(PDF)

“E-learning: Basics and Best Practices”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“E-learning: Google Chat as an E-learning Tool (Transcript of a Live Session)”
Live online session held October 13, 2009, with University of Nevada, Las Vegas Journalism students
(PDF)

“E-learning: Tools, Resources, and Innovations”

Postings on Building Creative Bridges Blog

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library—May 2016

Mount Prospect, IL
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library—May 2016

Mount Prospect, IL
(Five-part Case Study Posted on Building Creative Bridges Blog)

“From Words to Pictures: Imagery in PowerPoint Presentations”
California Library Association Annual Conference Presentation — November 2008

Long Beach, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Horizon Report for Libraries (2014)”

PCI Webinar—December 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“How to Teach Online: A Beginner’s Guide”

ALA TechSource Webinar—January 2014

with Dan Freeman
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ignite, Interact, & Engage: Maximizing the Learning Outcome”
ALA Annual Conference Presentation—Learning Round Table

with Sharon Morris — June 2012

Anaheim, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Instant Professional Development (podcast)”
Episode 101 of Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training biweekly one-hour podcast; focuses on the use of Twitter backchannels as learning tools in conferences and expands into an exploration of how we all play the role of trainer-teacher-learner in many different parts of our lives; additional thoughts posted on Building Creative Bridges blog

June 2012

(Archived 45-minute audio-recording)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders–Introduction and Resource Sheet”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders (Overview)”
American Library Association Presentation/Panel Discussion—Learning Round Table—June 2010
with Maurice Coleman, Sandra Smith, and Louise Whitaker

Washington, DC

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Learning that Sticks: A Demonstration” (PowerPoint Version)
Original PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes, delivered face to face to a prospective learning client February 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Learning to Learn: Tips for Thriving in Tech Training” (Video)
This 11-minute presentation, prepared with Captivate and posted on YouTube for learners who are about to tackle any new tech tool, addresses the challenges of overcoming unfamiliarity with these tools and the need for help with the learning process itself. It is also designed to demonstrate how trainer-teacher-learners can address the challenges their learners face.

October 2013

(Captivate Video)

“Learning to Learn: Tips for Thriving in Tech Training (Summary Sheet)”

Updated October 1, 2013
(PDF)

“Libraries as Partners in Lifelong Learning”

PCI Webinar—July 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“LibraryThing” List of Books on Training, Collaboration, and Other Topics

Includes Ratings and Reviews
Updated Regularly

“Lifelong Learning (Learning for the Future: Habits of Mind and Teaching Life Skills)”

Saint Mary’s College of California Faculty Workshop—November 2015

Moraga, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Making Space: Exploring Innovations in Onsite and Online Learning Spaces”

KIPA (Knowledge & Information Professional Association) 2015 Conference “Invited Talk”—March 2015

Denton, TX

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Marketing 101: Creating the Voice of a Successful Organization”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—June 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation and archived audio-recording of this one-hour live webinar)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 1 of 4): Leading Engaging Meetings and Webinars”

SEFLIN Webinar—July 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 2 of 4): Assessing and Addressing the Need for Meetings and Webinars”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 3 of 4): Organizing, Scripting, and Preparing”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 4 of 4): Keeping Sessions Lively”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Memorable Meetings: Planning for Successful Encounters”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—August 2016
(PowerPoint Presentation, free archived recording of the session)

“Mentors and Proteges: Creating Successful Workplace Programs: Resource List”

Prepared for the LE@D—Lifelong Education @ Desktop–program,
University of North Texas

(PDF)

“Mentoring Onsite and Online”
PCI Webinars—May 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation with Speaker Notes)

“MOOCs, Online Learning, and Higher Education”
Association for Education in Journalism and Higher Education Annual Conference Panel Discussion—August 2015

San Francisco, CA
(Storify Document—no longer available online because Storify shut down)

“Nonprofit Basics”

ASTD National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation—October 2011

with Walt Hansmann

Arlington, VA
(PowerPoint Presentation/later adapted into a webinar for ASTD)

“Perfect Blend (Creating and Facilitating Onsite/Online Meetings)”

ATD (Association for Talent Development) National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation–October 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Playing With Collaboration Tools Online”

Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS): Innovation Day Session—April 29, 2015

Blended Session Delivered via Google Hangouts to Onsite Audience

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Playing With Collaboration Tools Online—Supplemental Resources”
Handout Prepared for Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS) Innovation Day Session—April 2015
(PDF)

“PowerPoint Best Practices for Onsite and Online Presentations”
ALA Annual Conference—CLENE Training Showcase

June 2008

Anaheim, CA
(PDF)

“Social Learning Centers” (Learning to Meet the Future: Libraries Developing Communities)
Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting Presentation—September 2012

with Maurice Coleman

Richmond, VA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers and Libraries”
ALA Annual Conference Presentation—Learning Round Table Presentation/Panel Discussion—June 2011

with Maurice Coleman and Buffy Hamilton

New Orleans, LA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers: The New Fourth Place”
Computers in Libraries 2011 Conference Presentation (via Skype) —March 2011

with Maurice Coleman and Jill Hurst-Wahl

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers: Thinkers Worth Knowing”

A Visual Bibliography Prepared with Maurice Coleman—September 2012

(PDF)

“Social Media, Library Partnerships, and Collaboration: More Than a Tweet”

PCI Webinar—February 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Strategic Planning 101: Working in the Construction Zone”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—March 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Face-to-Face Training”

ALA TechSource Webinar—September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Online Training”

ALA TechSource Webinar—September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ten Tips for Incorporating Ed-Tech Into Your Own Development”

Article Written for ATD Learning Technologies blog and newsletter—March 2016
(Article)

“That Was Great! Now What? (Providing Learning That Is Used)”

American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation (Learning Round Table) —June 2014

Las Vegas, NV

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Training, Teaching, and Learning 2012: State of the Industry Reports”
ASTD Sacramento Chapter Meeting Presentation—January 23, 2012

Sacramento, CA (repeated for Mount Diablo Chapter in February 2012)
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Training-Teaching-Learning: State of the Industry (Summer 2015)”
PCI Webinars—July 2015

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Volunters Management: Annotated Bibiliography on Using Web. 2.0 (Social Networking) Tools in Volunteer Programs”
Updated January 11, 2010
(PDF)

“Volunteer Retention 101: Thanking and Rewarding Our Supporters”

Webinar co-presented with Rick Kerner for ASTD chapter leaders—December 5, 2012

“Web Conferencing and Presentation Skills for Meetings. Trainings, and Learning Sessions”
Updated July 23, 2014
(PDF)

Professional Memberships/Affiliations

ALA (American Library Association)

ATD (Association for Talent Development)

PEN USA

ShapingEDU (Global Initiative, through Arizona State University, to reshape higher education)

Languages

Have studied Italian, French, Japanese, and Spanish

Changing the World With Samantha Adams Becker (Part 1 of 2)

This is the first half of an interview conducted with Samantha Adams Becker, President at SAB Creative & Consulting and former New Media Consortium Publications & Communications Senior Director, for my book Change the World Using Social Media (Rowman & Littlefield; projected publication date is autumn 2018). The interview was conducted online using a shared Google Doc, and has been lightly edited. The interview began with an exercise that involved jotting down as many words that came to mind after hearing the word “Twitter.”

Obvious things I see as I have all three [of our interview] transcripts in front of me: “sharing” and “networking” came up in all three—no surprises there. Anything stand out to you as you look at your responses to “Twitter?”

I think the idea of continuous conversation and PD [personal development] jump out the most—plus the “unedited” version of Twitter, because it’s a very “respond in the moment” platform.

Let’s go with three themes you mentioned, one at a time: “heart,” “continuous conversation,” and “professional development.” How does Twitter suggest “heart” to you?

Twitter features the heart button, which is the equivalent of “like” on Facebook and LinkedIn. However, in Facebook it seems more common to “like” something rather than share it; whereas on Twitter, sharing (or re-tweeting) appears to be more common. It’s an important distinction that a user makes deciding whether to simply “heart” something vs. re-tweet it. Re-tweeting essentially means you are agreeing with it or find enough merit in it to share it with your own community (unless you add a comment clarifying your own stance). So, offering up a “heart” is like saying, “I like your idea enough to say that I do, but not enough to expose my whole following to it.” It’s very interesting social-psychologically.

Thanks; sort of like second-class social, isn’t it…As for “continuous conversation”: initial thoughts behind that one?

Yes, I think Twitter—more so than any other social media platform—allows for continuous conversation. If one of your Facebook friends made 10 posts per day, you might find that a bit excessive. However, you may find it completely acceptable that a friend tweets 10 times in a day. That reaction alone points to Twitter as a much more embraced conversation/sharing platform. Not only can a discussion continue between multiple users, but you can continue your own conversation. That is to say, if you tweet an article about artificial intelligence in education, and then you go to a workshop on that subject the next day, you’re able to follow up with your reactions and opinions using a specific hashtag.

Perhaps most essentially, a conversation you may have started in person can continue on Twitter. This seems to be very popular at conferences where you may have a brief encounter with a person who winds up being a lifelong friend because you’re able to transition your connection to Twitter and respond to each other’s Tweets.

That very much parallels a theme I’m already exploring in the first-draft-in-progress: the value and inherently unique nature of conversation online—what has become a “moment” that extends over days, weeks, months, even years as a strange variation of a “moment.” You seeing extended conversations like those and, if so, how is that changing the way you view the concepts of time and conversation?

I love the way you are interpreting a “moment.” Twitter now has a moments feature that allows you to add a series of tweets or photos that represents a moment in your life.

Now, a conversation doesn’t have to take place in real-time to be considered deep and meaningful; it can stretch on for our entire lives. I think about the “moment” I met my husband—online. Granted, it was a specific online dating platform, but our correspondence was through a series of messages before we met in person. I’d say that’s a 21^st-century way to describe the “moment” you meet someone, but I also liken it to earlier centuries where people wrote to each other via snail-mail back and forth, and maybe saw each other once [a year] or every few years. Twitter is like that, but responses can instantaneous—if the user sees fit. A user can be inspired by a tweet and meditate on it for an evening or a few days before responding, and that is perfectly acceptable within the frame of a conversation.

I see extended conversations take place all the time, oftentimes organized by hashtags. I think this is what Tweet-Ups are essentially—scheduled conversations (or unscheduled) that are continued once a week, once a month, etc.

[here’s a link to the article that initiated that thought process a few years ago among a few of us in #etmooc [the Educational Technology & Media massive open online course in early 2013]: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1023/2022]

Very cool!

And it actually initiated an ongoing conversation I’ve had in bits and pieces with the authors over the past few years; I was just in touch again with one of them in November—just before I was doing a blended-learning presentation in Los Angeles. A very long, wonderfully extended moment that hasn’t yet ended!

Going back to what you said in the penultimate full paragraph you wrote: what does that suggest in terms of how we can use Twitter (and other social media tools) to promote positive social change? [the one that starts with “Now, a conversation doesn’t have to take place in real-time to be considered deep and meaningful”]

Twitter enables positive social changes by transcending the necessity of a specific time and place. A conversation about climate change, for example, may begin between two people. Another person sees the tweet and then joins. And then another. And then another. The people are geographically dispersed and may not be using Twitter at the exact same time but, because Twitter sparks continuous conversation, people can join on their own time whenever they have something to contribute. And the asynchronous nature of it doesn’t detract from the subject matter or substance of it. In fact, pausing to think deeply about something before joining in is an important part of change.

When Paolo Gerbaudo wrote his wonderful book Tweets and the Streets in 2012, he pretty much saw social media (Facebook and Twitter, in particular) as prequels to social change—that’s where the organizing took place—but the real action was on the streets. Your last comments make me think you and I are on the same page in thinking that social change can actually take place as much online as in the streets—say, through the NMC [New Media Consortium] and #etmooc, for example, where we have spread ideas that filter into online as well as online learning spaces. Thoughts?

It’s not just the concept of a conversation that has evolved, but also the concept of the streets. Think about it—if conference organizers are savvy enough to encourage Twitter backchannels as an essential part of conference participation to extend organic hallway conversations, than that’s the concept of an online hallway.

A street may not be a private or more intimate conversation the way a hallway one may be, but, instead, a giant public space for conversation and action.

At the NMC [which closed upon entering bankruptcy proceedings in December 2017], we were good at carrying forward conversations from face-to-face and virtual events on Twitter. Our goal was to always extend the rich discussions that took place at a set event and ensure that they did not exist within a vacuum. You didn’t have to be physically present to “be present.”

We came up with the Horizon hashtag (#NMChz) as a way for people to respond to Horizon Reports—but also share articles, stories, projects, etc. that were Horizon-worthy. Twitter can take a static report and allow the related discussions to continue year-round. Horizon Street! Population: Whoever wants to be there.

“Horizon Street” is gorgeous! And I agree that the hashtag was part of the experience. Instead of leaving conferences and feeling depressed by impending separations, I always left with a sense of anticipation that the conversations were continuing. I’m struggling to train myself, at this point, that #NMChz is no longer open to through traffic and continuing conversation—but appreciation that #BeyondTheHorizon is a wonderful replacement road that is well on its way to bridging the gap. OK, enough with the road metaphors…for a moment. Let’s hit the third of the three topics you mentioned earlier: professional development. Care to pick up right where you left off and wrap together social media, Twitter, “moments,” and professional development into an operatic grand finale?

It’s true—all these features are connected, and they can add up to one hell of a professional development experience. I think some people may still envision professional development as something that takes place in a room—workshop or boot-camp style—that you or the institution has to invest in. But the integration of formal and informal learning has opened up the idea of personal development to be much more fluid and open to each user’s interpretation. If you feel an experience has enriched your professional life and given you new tools, skills, or knowledge to improve your own work and work environment, then why not call it professional development?

Twitter conversations and moments are ripe for professional development opportunities—the hard part is often the lack of organization and ability to archive. We’re even seeing helpful tools like Storify—that helped create something linear and meaningful from tweets—disappear.

That being said, following specific users, hashtags, lists, etc can be part of a user’s professional development strategy. It’s very much connected with the notion of a personal learning network (PLN) where there is a fixed or expanding community of peers and leaders where you teach other things.

I, for example, love to see what articles my Twitter friends in #edtech share. Just clicking on the links to three to five articles per day and reading them helps expand my own vision and ideas. Even if I don’t agree with an article or a theme, it generates new ideas and new knowledge in me. It seems so basic, but it’s like show and tell. I’m learning something new about a subject as well as how the sharer views it.

N.B. — Paul is currently writing Change the World Using Social Media, scheduled for publication by Rowman & Littlefield in 2020. This is the seventh in a continuing series of excerpts from and interviews for the manuscript in progress. The next post will include the second half of this interview.

 

Innovator’s Mindset MOOC (#IMMOOC): Flexing Our Social Media Muscles

Trying to skim approximately 3,000 tweets in an hour is a ridiculously daunting challenge. One that I clearly was not up to meeting. But I gave it my best shot last night during the first of six weekly hour-long tweetchats scheduled as part of #IMMOOC (the Innovator’s Mindset massive open online course) Season 3. The result was exhilarating. Frustrating. Eye-opening (and eye-straining). Inspiring. Taxing. And ultimately, well-worth documenting and sharing as a tweetchat-on-steroids variation of a much earlier (pre-#IMOOC) #lrnchat experience I joking referred to as “Macho Tweet Chatting.”

I’ve come to love the tweetchat format in training-teaching-learning-doing for all it inspires and provides. When sessions are well-facilitated (as the #IMMOOC session was), the online 140-character-per-tweet conversations (currently morphing into 280-character bursts) are extremely stimulating and well worth revisiting through online transcripts when their organizers archive them, as our #lrnchat colleagues do. Or when someone takes the time to create a transcript using Storify, as I occasionally do.

Seeing the original online snow-flurry-of-tweets-at-the-speed-of-light translated into the much-more digestible transcript format creates room for review. Reflection. And extended moments of inspired thinking. Sharing. And additional collaboration. The transcript provides a vessel to more effectively navigate the numerous rapids in the fast-flowing river of interconnected thoughts springing from a community engaged in what it does best: learning collaboratively. One notable result is immersion in a learning object (the transcript) created by the learners themselves/ourselves through the learning act of participating in the tweetchat. It makes the learning process expansive and grounded in a well-organized learner-driven process: we prepare for the tweetchat by reading something or watching a video; then  we learn through the live tweetchat exchanges; then we create the learning object that immediately becomes part of the body of work available to us and to subsequent learners. And, in the best of all worlds, the live conversation continues asynchronously through additional tweets, through blog posts like this one, through our extended conversations on Facebook, and in numerous other ways limited only by the imaginations and willingness of the ever-expanding circle of participants or community of learners over a period of hours, days, weeks, months, or even years to continue learning together. It’s a concept meticulously described by Pekka Ihanainen and John Moravec in their paper about “Pointillist time”—what they refer to as “a new model for understanding time in pedagogical contexts”—and one I’ve been exploring in a wonderfully Pointillist time frame ever since I came across it while participating in another connectivist MOOC (#etmooc) four years ago.

There’s no denying this can be a messy process—one that requires a great deal of patience with ambiguity and a willingness to react innovatively to whatever comes our way. Even though there is a clearly-identified starting point (the tweetchat), the conversation soon extends rhizomatically through numerous very-loosely-connected platforms (as I mentioned earlier). This is clearly learning at an extremely high level, for highly-motivated learners who find pleasure in the struggle to innovatively respond to a constant stream of new challenges that have the potential to produce transformative results.

It becomes easier and more pleasurable, as I was reminded last night, with consistent practice—the same sort of practice an athlete or ballerina dancer engages in to develop muscles. (I felt, at the beginning of the session, as if my tweetchat muscles had become a bit flabby for lack of recent use.) And it helps to have learning facilitators who support us by offering guidance before, during, and after the formal learning event occurs. Most importantly, this level of learning and engagement in contemporary learning opportunities helps us become comfortable with the idea that the intentionally overblown and completely unrealistic challenge I posed at the beginning of this article (skimming 3,000 tweets in one hour) is part of a larger learning process—the process of realizing that in our dynamic, messy, rhizomatic onsite-online (blended) learning environments, success comes with accepting the fact that we don’t need to eat everything put before us on our learning plates. We have to willingly accept those portions we know we can digest within any given (Pointillist) moment, and ask for a virtual doggy bag to take the rest home with us for later consumption.

N.B. — This is the second in a series of posts inspired by Season 3 of #IMMOOC.

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 4 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

The unexpectedly explosive and transformational decision to try using Twitter to incorporate positive onsite-online e-learning experiences into Mount Prospect Public Library’s 2016 Staff Inservice Day “From eLearning to Learning” (the day-long exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work) was almost an afterthought. It came up and was quickly adopted during a final planning meeting the day before the event, as I mentioned in the third of these five “case study” postings.

It’s not as if Twitter as part of our e-learning landscape is unfamiliar to trainer-teacher-learner-doers; we use it extensively in learning opportunities ranging from conference backchannel discussions to tweet chats along the lines of what #lrtnchat, #etmooc, and many others do. I often, through the “Rethinking Social Media” course I designed and facilitate for ALA Editions, call attention to the intriguing, cutting-edge work Rey Junco has done with Twitter and other social media tools in academic settings. And I’ve been lucky enough to experience high-end, dynamically-facilitated blended environments through participation in events creatively crafted by the New Media Consortium and other organizations.

But using it as a way of helping our “From eLearning to Learning” co-conspirators (the learners shaping and participating in the day-long event at the Library) opened doors none of us even began to imagine at the moment during which we initially discussed creating and using #mpplsid16 as a way of showing how social media tools can creatively, effectively, and easily help us redefine our learning spaces.

We primed the pump to engage in some major onsite rethinking about e-learning at the beginning of “From eLearning to Learning” by showing a few photographs taken within the Library and asking “Are These eLearning Spaces?”

E-learning space?

E-learning space?

E-learning space?

Within the first few minutes of my highly-interactive 45-minute keynote presentation/discussion, very few people responded to the question with a “yes.” By the time we finished that initial keynote/discussion period about what the term “e-learning” means in our learning environments, almost every hand in the room shot up in response to the same question asked while the same images were again on display—an acknowledgement that any space in which we have Internet access is potentially an e-learning space. (One lovely note I received at the end of the day built upon the conversation with a suggestion that made me smile: “Your Elearning spaces slide needs a picture of my Dodge Caravan.”)

More importantly, that rapid expansion of everyone’s vision of what the e-learning landscape currently encompasses provided an amazing demonstration of the way a well-designed learning opportunity, developed collaboratively with learners and their representatives, can transform learners (and learning facilitators) within a very short period of time.

Having suggested to our co-conspirators that they could use Twitter as a way to take notes to which they could later return, and as a way to extend the reach of our gathering far beyond the physical walls of the various rooms in which we were meeting, I turned my full attention to the onsite setting during my keynote presentation. I didn’t return to Twitter until we had our first break—the one between the keynote and the first of three periods set aside for breakout discussions. I was absolutely floored by the level of tweeting that was already occurring. Some people were responding (very positively) to what was taking place; others were observing what was happening around them. And a few were sharing content in those Twitteresque 140-character bursts that shot around the world. The result was that we were beginning to work onsite and online simultaneously, and a few of the tweets were being retweeted by others across the United States and in Europe (apparently attracted by my occasional use of the combined hashtags #learning and #innovation).

Seizing the opportunity during the break, I retweeted a few of the more thoughtful tweets and responded to a few of the tweeters—which, of course, set the tone for an extended onsite-online expaned-e-learning-environment conversation that was still continuing as I rode a commuter train from Mount Prospect into Chicago early that evening.

Recognizing the potential there for a stand-alone learning object that anyone could continue to draw upon as long as it remains available, I remained in my hotel room an hour longer than anticipated before heading out for dinner; I knew that if I didn’t collect and transfer those tweets into a Storify document that included light annotations to set the context for what had just occurred, I would lose the in-the-moment excitement the entire experience had generated. It was available to anyone that wanted to seek it out less than four hours after “From eLearning to Learning” had adjourned. It also has become part of an overall “From eLearning to Learning” suite of freely accessible resources for anyone interested in trying a similar experiment within their own learning environment; links are included at the bottom of this post.

I was part of the first-rate Mount Prospect Public Library Staff Inservice Day planning team that designed and facilitated the process. I was the keynote presenter-facilitator, and trained the staff facilitators who led the breakout sessions. I know Twitter, I use Twitter, and I adore what is good about Twitter. But even I remain stunned by the depth of learning and the nuances contained within that particular Storify item. It has plenty of playful exchanges. It has tweets acknowledging the conversational nature of the “From eLearning to Learning” Twitter feed. It has lovely, poignant tweets about personal learning experiences—including one about how the Library director posted her first tweet as a result of what she was experiencing that day. It had some wonderful comments about how much staff enjoyed and learned from the event, and how enthusiastically they are looking forward to building upon what we built together in the best of all possible experiential-learning (hands-on) approaches—something fun, engaging, meaningful, replicable, and actionable.

But what stands out to me most as I continue rereading it, skimming it for previously-missed gems, discussing it with friends and colleagues, and learning from what all of us at Mount Prospect Public Library created out of our individual and communal learning experiences within that very attractive and dynamic community of learning, is how much it captures the wonderful results flowing from onsite-online (blended) learning opportunities that are learner-centric, goal-driven, and designed to produce results.

Next: After “From eLearning to Learning (Continuing the Training-Teaching-Learning-Doing Process)” 

NB: This is the fourth of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 1 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

“Co-conspirators” is a term I’ve loved ever since I first heard it used by colleagues in the Educational Technology & Media massive open online course (#etmooc) in 2013. Within its training-teaching-learning-doing context, it implies a sense of richly nuanced and deeply rewarding collaboration between learning facilitators and learners unlike any other I’ve experienced in our onsite and online (blended) learning environments.

So, when I was invited in essence to become a co-conspirator (we, as a group, weren’t yet using that term) with Staff Inservice Day committee members at Mount Prospect Public Library eight months ago, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. The result was that I became part of another magnificent community of learning that has just produced a stunningly beautiful and tremendously inspiring example of all that can go right in planning and facilitating an e-learning experience—even one very-much grounded within an onsite setting.

What all of us (Library Staff Inservice Day planning committee members, as planners-learners-participants; I, as the consultant-presenter helping them shape an event that supported learning goals contained in the Library strategic plan; the learners themselves; and a few people offsite who occasionally joined us on the day of the event through a very active Twitter feed) produced looks as if it will have exactly the long-term positive impact all of us were hoping to produce for and with the library, its staff, and the members of the community it serves.

Everything about “From eLearning to Learning,” a day-long onsite and online exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work, ultimately was drawn from and became an example of the extensive e-learning environment we currently inhabit—far more, as I reminded them, than the usual module-out-of-a-box and final multiple-choice exam to mark the conclusion of a learning experience.

In our setting, there is no beginning and there is no discernible end. “From eLearning to Learning” continues a process begun long before I became involved, and the day-long “event” simply prepares them to continue their learning/e-learning process well into the foreseeable future.

This Mount Prospect Public Library “Discovery Zone” sign became an iconic image for “From eLearning to Learning”

Even the initial steps for this onsite-online exploration were grounded in e-learning. I was, for example, initially contacted by a member of the Staff Inservice Day committee who had initially met me through her participation as a learner in a four-week online “Rethinking Social Media” course I have designed and that I continue to facilitate for the American Library Association. Without that shared experience in an innovative online learning environment, my Mount Prospect colleague and I might not have made this particular connection and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be part of one of the most innovative and rewarding learning experiences I have ever helped design and facilitate.

Because the obvious distance between San Francisco and Mount Prospect (which is approximately 20 miles northwest of Chicago) is so great, all of us quickly agreed that the planning process itself would take place within a blended environment comprised of conference calls by phone and asynchronous interactions that ultimately produced our planning document and a facilitator’s guide to be used by the staff members who would foster discussion during break-out sessions we arranged throughout the day.

In a significant way, we were, as trainer-teacher-learner-doers, adapting a Flipped Classroom model approach to our meetings: at almost every stage of the process, we completed initial work on our own, had information to review before meeting by phone, and productively used our “classroom” time (the conference calls) to produce something concrete, and then repeated the process up to the day of the actual event.

What was clear from the beginning of our “conspiratating” was that we were committed to producing something that was far more than a one-day diversion that would soon be forgotten. Drawing upon the principles from the book The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results and remaining committed to producing something that was in alignment with the Library’s current strategic plan, we worked together to shape something that would be as much a process as an event. The learners/co-conspirators within the library knew well in advance what we were planning; they even provided tremendously useful information via a SurveyMonkey survey to be sure that we would be providing them what they needed (and, in that part of the process, probably became aware of how SurveyMonkey itself could be part of their efforts to effectively shape their overall e-learning landscape).

Participants in the mini unconference, held during the lunch break

Those of us on the planning committee initially created a broad subject-specific agenda. We fine-tuned it over the course of several months to be sure it would lead to fruitful discussions and positive transformation for everyone involved. We continually looked for ways to innovatively provide experiential learning opportunities the learners could immediately adapt and apply within their own workspaces. One idea, for example (a mini unconference during the lunch hour) came relatively late within the planning process; it ultimately produced ideas (including a proposal for a library-wide e-learning think tank) that participants seem eager to explore and create. And a final, unexpectedly rewarding idea—to incorporate Twitter into the event so our co-conspirators in the learning process would viscerally understand how Twitter has become an effective and dynamic part of our learning landscape—was added to the picture during the onsite meeting less than a day before “From eLearning to Learning” took place.

Next: Planning for Success

NB: This is the first of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Rethinking Digital Literacy: Collaborating, Hyperlinking, and Owning Our Learning

With my ALA Editions “Rethinking Digital Literacy” co-conspirators (AKA learners) currently exploring the broad question of “who owns the learning” in digital environments, I saw at least one obvious answer while co-hosting and participating in a tweet chat about hyperlinked learning last night: anyone willing to be a collaborator/co-conspirator in the learning process owns the learning.

The question about ownership of learning—engagingly examined by Alan November in a book and a TEDx talk we’re exploring in Rethinking —is important and double-edged for any trainer-teacher-learner working within a digital environment. It makes us think about who retains (or should retain) access to all our discussions, learning objects, and other tangible aspects of the online-learning process that are usually lost to us once a course formally concludes and the course learning management system is closed to learners. The question also makes us think about who has responsibility for nurturing and sustaining the (lifelong) learning process that is an essential component to fostering digital literacy.

With my tweet-chat colleagues in the Educational Technology & Media massive open online course (#etmooc) community, the answer to both facets of the question is obvious and openly accessible. All of us involved in that particular community of learning retain (and openly share) access to the artifacts produced through our learning—e.g., through blog postings that occasionally connect to and interact with blog posts from other members of the community; through archived recordings of our interactions during  the course and those that continue to take place in Google Hangouts and any other accessible online tool we can find and explore as part of our continuing learning efforts on the topic of educational technology and media; and through tweets and the Storify learning objects we produce.

More importantly, we shape those discussions and artifacts collaboratively and through our own initiative—this is learner-centric, learner-driven learning at a very high and productive level. We have learned to take the responsibility for asking what we can do rather than relying solely on others to facilitate our learning process. For the tweet chat last night, a couple of us prepared the script with questions to be used during the tweet chat. We facilitated the session. I then edited and posted the Storify transcript of the event so other members of the community could be part of the effort to use and disseminate that resource. The result is that while learning, we also made—and are continuing to make—it possible for others who want to learn more about hyperlinked learning to do so while also seeing how a self-directed community of learning operates.

Owning the learning at this level always seems to produce results far beyond anything we anticipate. The hyperlinked-learning tweet chat, for example, produced numerous examples of hyperlinked learning in action. There was the magnificent “Tutor/Mentor Learning Map,” with more than 2,000 hyperlinks to other resources, prepared and shared by #etmooc community member Daniel Bassill. There were exchanges about tech tools some community members had not yet tried. There were informal attempts to define hyperlinked learning, including Daniel’s suggestion that it “is like island-hopping in a huge ocean of knowledge. You can go from place to place in any direction”; Shuana Niessen’s suggestion that it’s “non linear responsive learning”; and my own observation (based on our source material from Michael Stephens) that it’s “what we did/do in #etmooc: connecting, exploring, playing, collaborating, learning experientially” and what I’m fostering among my Rethinking Digital Literacy co-conspirators.

What made the session particularly interesting was how often the discussion about hyperlinked learning actually became an example of hyperlinked learning. There was the moment, for example, when we had a unexpected appearance from Alec Couros, who with his own original group of co-conspirators designed and facilitated that MOOC that inspired us to assume shared ownership (without in any way excluding Alec) of the #etmooc learning community. And there were plenty of other moments when learning by hyperlink drew in new colleagues as well as a few we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Nothing could speak more viscerally and meaningfully to the topic of hyperlinked learning than a community so completely hyperlinked that interactions continue to grow rhizomatically—a theme we explored during the formal course and continue to explore and nurture with every new action we take.

Rereading the Storify transcript a few times led to additional reflection—and learning—for me throughout the day today as I continued to produce this article. I repeatedly was struck by how the act of collaboratively shaping our learning experiences means that we hone other digital-literacy skills at the same time: being able to work within ever-changing online environments; being willing to contribute to our own learning and to the growth of our learning communities; and being able to capture discussions, learning objects, and other aspects of the learning process so they remain accessible rather than locked away in something akin to the storage crate housing the Lost Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As I return to my Rethinking Digital Literacy co-conspirators—those learners who are so creatively and effectively crafting their own learning experiences—I look with admiration at the ways they are, in Week 3 of our four-week course, continuing to expand the ways they interact across as many digital platforms as possible. They—we—will leave distinct traces, if not much larger artifacts, of our time and collaborative learning efforts. It’s what was done in #etmooc; it’s what some of us have done in the Open and Connected Learning MOOC (#oclmooc) and the Connected Courses MOOC (#ccourses); and it’s what is creating the possibility that what we create during our four formal weeks of shared learning will remain accessible to current learning community members as well as to others who might want to learn from what we are accomplishing together.

In these dynamic, digitally-literate learning communities driven by hyperlinked learning, connected learning, connectivist-learning precepts, we are all co-conspirators. And we all own the learning, in every possible sense. 

N.B.: This is the fourth in a series of reflections inspired by our ALA Editions “Rethinking Digital Literacy” course.

Rethinking Digital Literacy: Moving Out

Out of chaos sometimes comes more chaos—and that can be a very exhilarating and productive learning environment under the right conditions, as we’re seeing in our ALA Editions four-week online course “Rethinking Digital Literacy.”

The course is literally and somewhat chaotically all over the virtual map. It has an obvious, easily-accessible  home base, which is our learning-management-system (Moodle). During Week 2, Rethinking has fostered increasing levels of digital literacy by moving out, beyond our virtual classroom walls, and expanding into Twitter; Facebook; blogs; and, as of this morning, a learner-produced video posted within and shared from Google Drive. And there’s no end in sight as to how far it can and will extend, which is fine: this connected learning, rhizomatically-growing learning experience is at least partially helping well-supported learners within a vibrant community of learning to viscerally understand that a key digital-literacy skill is an ability to navigate a variety of online resources and venues without allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed.

Our methodology, so far, appears to perfectly match and support the content, learning goals, and user experience within Rethinking. In designing and facilitating the course, I’m attempting to create an engaging, stimulating, learner-centric, results-based experience where learners (or to borrow one of my favorite terms that continues to evolve from the Educational Technology & Media MOOC—#etmooc: “co-conspirators”) are partners in the digital-literacy learning process. Where the original conspirators (those designing and facilitating the course)  in #etmooc inspired a group of co-conspirators in the form of #etmooc learners who collaborated on designing and facilitating a follow-up massive open online course (MOOC), the co-conspirators in Relearning include every learner who is joining me in shaping and learning from the course.

Another match between methodology and content/learning goals/experience within Rethinking is the focus on co-conspirators learning how to define and foster digital literacy by identifying and further developing the digital literacy skills they bring to the course. They are offered—and some are taking advantage of—opportunities to learn about digital literacy by exploring digital tools and resources of interest to them and to those they serve. The process is still very much in its early stages, but is already producing results similar to what I saw—and was inspired by—in #etmooc. A few Rethinking learners are using blogs to document and build upon what they are learning. Others, as a result of asynchronous online group discussions within Moodle, have agreed upon a Twitter hashtag (#ReDigLit) they can use to carry their discussions and learning into the Twittersphere.

The latest expansion of our semi-controlled chaotic approach came this morning through the creative approach course participant/co-conspirator Joan Jordan took in playfully completing a warm-up exercise I offered for Week 2: she combined the assignment with an ongoing optional avenue I’ve encouraged learners to explore (try a new digital literacy tool of their own choosing each week to expand their digital-literacy toolkit). Joan decided to learn how to use the video capabilities of her smartphone, learn how to upload the video she created, and learn how to share a link to that video from an online venue (in this case, Google Drive). With that as the foundation for her approach, she responded to the actual warm-up assignment: watch a brief, charming video showing young learners displaying a variety of digital literacy skills, identify as many digital literacy skills in use as possible, and post the resulting list of skills within our Week 2 online discussion board. The result was extremely engaging: she filmed her cat, produced a video that had the cat telling us which digital literacy skills were observable in the video Joan and other course participants are viewing, and shared that video with us in place of providing a text-based inventory of the skills on display. In the best of digital-literacy approaches, she not only managed to learn what she wanted and needed to learn, but also inspired a lively conversation that is continuing to develop back at home base (Moodle).

An additional intriguing element of our collaboratively-developing methodology—very much what I would call “the #etmooc method” because that’s where I first experienced it—is the opportunity to see whether what grew out of #etmooc could develop from an online course that is not a MOOC: a sustainable community of learning that continues long after formal coursework concludes—what I have only half-jokingly referred to as a MOOChort elsewhere. As my Rethinking co-conspirators continue to define and explore digital literacy by carrying their conversations into a variety of digital settings, I suspect the seeds of a post-Rethinking community are already beginning to germinate.

N.B.: This is the second in a series of reflections inspired by our ALA Editions “Rethinking Digital Literacy” course.

Rethinking Digital Literacy: Defining Moments

With the roll-out of a new four-week ALA Editions online “Rethinking Digital Literacy” course a few days ago, I’m once again happily immersed in an ever-expanding, extremely intriguing moment of training-teaching-learning-exploring with a fantastic group of colleagues.

At the heart of the course is a newly-forming community of learning (comprised of 45 library staff members and administrators from the United States and several other countries) creatively tackling the challenge of attempting to define digital literacy in ways that help community members more effectively design, develop, and deliver learning opportunities to foster greater digital literacy among those they serve. And there’s the rub: it turns out that even defining the term, as we’re seeing from Doug Belshaw’s Ed.D thesis (What is ‘digital literacy’?), is one of those enticingly wicked problems—something that is “difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements”—that can keep us up late into the night…for many nights.

I have gladly and very rewardingly spent quite a bit of time exploring digital literacy as a result of participating in discussions that began among those of us enrolled in the Educational Technology & Media MOOC—#etmooc—in early 2013. Some of those explorations led me to what I believe to be an essential digital literacy skill: an ability to work within much different time frames than we normally envision—time frames in which a “moment” (particularly in online learning, as described by Pekka Ihanainen and John Moravec in 2011) extends forward over periods of weeks, months, and even years while also extending backward as we come across, and respond to, threads of conversations we hadn’t previously seen. Think of all these exchanges as one magnificent synchronously asynchronous moment, and you begin to see what some of us are already viscerally experiencing.

Let’s be explicit here before we drown in jargon and fanciful proposals. Exploring digital literacy within the flexible structure of #etmooc started as a shared two-week journey with colleagues worldwide. By interacting with each other synchronously as well as asynchronously, supported by first-rate learning facilitators—including Alec Couros and Belshaw himself—we learned plenty. At the end of those two weeks, we walked away with more questions than answers, as is often the case when we are drawn into the exhilarating challenge of attempting to address a wicked problem. The result is that some of us continued to explore the theme; found and responded to tweets, blog posts, and online articles; and became part of an ongoing conversation with no easy-to-define beginning or ending point.

Even more rewarding for those of us who continue to explore ways to better serve our learners was the realization that the #etmooc connectivist approach provided plenty of inspiration as to how we can interact with and engage learners—an invaluable tool in a world where adult learning—particularly workplace learning—is often mistakenly viewed as something that detracts from “real work” rather than being seen as an integral element of successful work.

Building upon what I had already been doing to engage online learners (e.g., facilitating online office hours through Facebook, tweet chats, Google Hangouts, and other social media platforms), my colleagues and I continually look for ways to foster the creation and growth of communities of learning that support results-driven learning—we’re looking for positive, results-driven, meaningful change among learners here, not just blasting through a one-time session that produces nothing more than a learning badge or certificate of completion that fades almost as quickly as memories of the learning session do.

Perhaps one of the key lessons learned in that connectivist massive open online course (MOOC) was that rewarding, connected, significant learning is going to expand beyond the time constraints we initially expect to face when diving into a course with specific start and end dates—the #etmooc community, for example, continues to thrive long after the course formally ended. We need to keep that in mind; plan for it; and, when appropriate, support it so that our—and our learners’—learning goals are met.

This more or less brings us full circle to the current Rethinking Digital Literacy course. Inspired by those #etmooc discussions and creatively flexible pedagogical approaches, I developed a course that begins within a formal learning management system (Moodle); offers opportunities for the learners to carry the discussions and the learning beyond the boundaries of that course (e.g., into blog postings, tweets, shared videos); and encourages the learners to explore and use any digital tools they want to use in their exploration of digital literacy. Much to my delight, the discussions among the learners are already well underway just days after the course formally opened to them.

The spirit of exploring digital literacy via their digital literacy tools is stunningly and encouragingly on display within the course discussion boards. One learner, quickly understanding that the challenge of defining digital literacy is going to be an iterative process, posted an initial definition that was followed by two refinements within the first few days all of us began working together. A few others are already reaching out to each other to establish a formal hashtag that they can use to extend their conversations into Twitter—one way of retaining access to their discussions long after their access to the learning management system ends. Another, with a strong background in IT, is already extending our definitions by suggesting that one aspect of digital literacy involves “an ability to translate the functionality of one [digital] application or format to another”—in essence suggesting that digital literacy implies an ability to help others learn how to use digital tools and resources.

What is striking about all of this is the breadth of experience, the depth of thought, and the levels of engagement these adult learners are already bringing to the course in its earliest stages—and how many apparently disparate learning moments are combining into a shared/collaborative moment that is continuing to grow as I write these words.

Ultimately, I suspect that our collaborations will lead us to acknowledge this defining moment as one in which, by attempting to define digital literacy/literacies and expand our view of the synchronous and asynchronous moments we share in our online training-teaching-learning endeavors, we gain a deeper understanding of what digital literacy might be, how it works, and what it means to us and to those we serve in a rapidly evolving learning and work environment.

N.B.: This is the first in a series of reflections inspired by our ALA Editions “Rethinking Digital Literacy” course.