Discussions

Your Name and Title:

Christel Broady, Ph.D., Professor of Graduate Education, Director ESL Teacher Education Programs

School or Organization Name:

Georgetown College

Area of the World from Which You Will Present:

USA/Eastern Time

Language in Which You Will Present:

English

Target Audience(s):

Educators, Education Professors, Education Administrators

Short Session Description (one line):

Creating and Curating Knowledge from the Bottom Up with a Community of Practice

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

In this session, a model of a teacher Community of Practice is presented  that organically grew over the past decade among teacher education program candidates, alumni, and professionals in the field using social media.  The purpose of the presented CoP is creating and sharing knowledge in the professional field.

This CoP is an answer to the fact that in education, too much time is spent in reinventing the wheel by recreating knowledge and procedures in parallel silos.  Thereby, much productivity is wasted because all this time could be spent in building on each other’s work instead of doing the same work.

Also, it addresses the problem that teachers lose their professional training lifeline to colleagues after the completion of their program.  The CoP affords them the opportunity to remain with each other as long as they wish and to continuously be updated.  

This session will present the CoP and how it was created along with examples of real-life problem solving across the boundaries of geography, workplaces, or participation in the teacher-training program and how it has transformed into an international information-sharing place used by 173 countries. 

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

http://broadyesl.wordpress.com/

http://digitallearningandteaching.wordpress.com/

international conference.docx