welcome to our workspace for the Metronet conference.

Participate this year and next in the construction of the Virtual Learning Commons Templates/Examples at: http://schoollearningcommons.pbworks.com

Dave Loertscher's PowerPoint presentation: MNLearningCommons.pptx

Allison Zmuda's PowerPoint presentation: MetroNetslides.ppt

Initial thoughts about the creation of a learning commons

Collaborative/Co-Taught Learning Experiences as the Foundational Element of the Learning Commons

Disaster, Disaster, Disaster: A Sample Problems and Possibilities Jigsaw Puzzle Model learning unit (uses ProblemJeigsaw Model at the right)

• Phase one: small groups become experts on their disaster
• Jigsaw so that all disasters are represented in new groups
• Do the synthesis activity and complete project
• Do the two So what activities (See soWhat/Big Think Diagram at the right) Big Think Process Draft 6(2).pdf
• Top it off with a reflection between the classroom teacher, the teacher librariaan, and any other specialists that participated.

Fire

Reflection: Effective teaching is characterized by the thoughtful design of learning tasks that have these features:

• The tasks require and instill deep thinking.

• They immerse the student in disciplinary inquiry.

• They are connected to the world outside the classroom.

• They have intellectual rigour.

• They involve substantive conversation.

(Chapter 4 of the "What Did You Do At School Today?" study from Canada at the right: WDYDDIST...)

Collaboration 2.0:

Allison Zmuda's PowerPoint Slides: Collaboration 2.0.ppt 

Further Readings and Resources: 

• Grand Island Public Schools; Grand Island, Nebraska.http://www.gips.org/

• Partnership for 21st Century Skills. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ 

• Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe (2007). Schooling by Design: Mission, Action, and Achievement. http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=107018

• Zmuda, Allison and Vi Harada (2008). Librarians as Learning Specialists:  Meeting the Learning Imperative for the 21st Century. http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/LU8679.aspx 

• Zmuda, Alllison (2008). "Springing into Active Learning." Education Leadership. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/nov08/vol66/num03/Springing_into_Active_Learning.aspx

Building the Virtual Learning Commons

Elements of the Virtual Learning Commons to Develop:

• Turning assignments from classroom teacher dictates into conversations that include the teacher, students, specialists in the school, parents
• Building a reading community through virtual book/movie/other media discussion clubs including wrting and utlizing social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, wikis, blogs, nings.
• Encouraging the production of learner-created content whether for assignments or for fun and storing that content in a virtual school yearbook and museum. The center of fun and creativity.
• The center for school improvement or experimental learningcenter where trials, experiments, action research, professional learning communities are centered.
• A center for metacognitive reflection by both individuals and groups
• The use of various types of tools to create a learning commons nested in the cloud. For example: signing up for Google APS as a school; Netbives, Pageflakes, etc.
• Design as a method of capturing attention and collaboration; for example, perhaps there are multiple "main" pages as direct entry points for learners, classroom teachers, teacher librarians, etc. rather than trying to direct traffic all through one central page.
• Invitations to collaborate at every appropriate place
• Creating Knowledge Building Centers (idea from Deb Wallac) that are major collaborative pathfinders for learning units that are repeated in the school over and over. These knowledge centers might have links created by everyone, tools, data sets, sample units and their success over time, projects across the class/school/world, places to collaborate with experts; links to special collections at various libraries/museums/govt. agencies; student created tutorials/projects/interviews/data sets.
  • Global awareness Centers
  • Financial literacy centers
  • Health and wellness/obesity collaborative centers
  • Any other school wide effort to integrate themes into regular curricular efforts.
• Demonstration of what clients can expect from teacherlibrarians, teachertechnologiests and other specialists (idea from Deb Wallace, Harvard business School)
• Lots of collaborative tools for kids and teachers along with tutorials for their use. CollabTools
• The integration of ICT literacy along with information literacy into learning activities designed to boot achievement.

Resources for Construction:

• Web 2.0 helps: try Power Tools at: http://c4lpt.co.uk/learningtools.html You should assemble a Geek squad in your school and among them and yourself, you should be proficient at using 90% of these tools for authentic learning experiences.
• Markham Middle School Virtual Learning Commons under construction at: http://sites.google.com/site/markhamlibrary/
• Allen Learning Center in New Zealand at: http://allencentre.wikispaces.com/The+Allen+Centre+
• Have you tried DiRT at: http://digitalresearchtools.pbworks.com/
• "Google Wave has great potential for education."See this eSchool News article:

  http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=5908 Here is the preview from Google:http://wave.google.com

Getting Started

How do we develop a constant stream of high-level collaborations in the open commons and in the experimental learning center?