What I’ve noticed as a big failing of many University lecturers working with preservice teachers is that they are getting their students to blog but not supporting them adequately. This concerns me because when these same people then use it with their own students they won’t appreciate the mechanisms needed to support their learners.

@Cristina: I think you raise two important distinctions: communities vs. tools, and ‘friends’ vs. strong individual connections. I think that would be key to an early discussion, degrees of ‘friendship’, collaborative relationships, etc. Again, very helpful thoughts here.

@Rob: And I think we both did a great job in EC&I 831, and the social capital entrepreneurship piece worked better than both of us expected (IMHO). As people have mentioned before, I’d really like to focus on being explicit about how people form networks, the steps taken, key occurrences … hmmmmmm … let’s talk soon about this.

@Sue: I really like the mentorship model, Sue. I guess in the first time around (for this grad course), mentors just emerged and we were less deliberate about making this happen. I often leveraged my own network, trying to match people I knew with student interests … it seemed to work well. But, I guess the piece that I question is whether or not this is a natural way that networks form. Or, should I be worried about this? I guess I am trying to think about a model that any teacher could take on, regardless of the network they have already established. Maybe I am not being realistic.

@Nate: I like the idea of key intersections, perhaps this is similar to my conceptualization of the supernode. And, the piece on connecting to someone “outside of the norm” is appreciated, and I guess that may be where the difficulty exists. It may be both difficult to (a) find someone outside of the norm (or even define what that means) and (b) to create an authentic connection with that individual by definition. Still, I think this is an important challenge, not only for our students, but for our own knowledge construction. As a final note, I found it interesting that you started with “I’m coming late to the convo”, and ended with the Heston analogy re: Synchronous tools. I am guilty of this, coming to an asynchronous conversation less than 12 hours after it started and feeling late to the party. :-)

Thanks again to all for adding your thoughts to this important conversation, and helping me figure out a few things.

First, I have my students all link to each other – posts and comments. While that creates a kind of echo chamber, it also creates a critical mass almost instantly.

Second, I give them a list of about six key points of intersection with the net. You can guess who they are. They’re the ones everybody has.

Third, I ask them to pick somebody outside their norm — at least one news feed, one political blog, and somebody who writes interesting essays — and share the links with the class.

I focus them into a PLN that’s largely ‘gator-ized, because I really think the aggregator is the hub in any PLN. I also point out that they’re part of a larger network that extends offline as well, but that access to the meat-space net is limited (and limiting) based on availability and geography.

One of the major challenges is prying the cold dead fingers off the Synchronous Tools. Yes, being online together is kinda cool. But it’s not *all* and that seems to be difficult for a lot of folks to deal with.

I would suggest have a series of names of people who you know willingly help others and will also help them connect with other people. That way the students can work out for themselves which individuals they relate to better.

I also think you should recommend they listen to EdTech Posse. I’d like to get the subscription numbers up. :-)

just my two cents. I’m sure whatever you will do will be fine. Hope you share the developments of the students’ activity then! :-)

I work with teachers who take our online classes most often for the convenience of the schedule. It is after developing strong, interactive relationships with their classmates via technology- the lms, chat, email, etc. that they even recognize the value and potential of online communication tools. I think back to when email was a ‘techy’ tool (not that long ago) and when teachers shunned it as ‘inefficent’ or ‘awkward’. These days it is assumed- just what you do to share information, stay connected. I am wondering if this next wave of online tools will also make that shift. I think the connections come first though, and depending on your exposure to online tools, an online class is an opportunity to consider a new medium for the conversation. And when led to recognize their existing network, and provided a chance to use online tools to connect with classmates, the connection can then be made that online tools can facilitate communication with your existing network, and you can see the possibilities of building an online network as well. I think whether the goal is ‘network’ or ‘online’ changes the way you would want to go.

And your comment re: audiophile, that’s really got me thinking. I need to be more considerate of the medium students prefer when connecting, reflecting, etc. I have (more recently) gone back to reading blogs more than listening to audio … and I need to be cognizant of these preferences of my students. Thanks for commenting!