How can one benefit from being a member of an online learning community?

[Christine Seivwright]

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[Adriana Vilela]

Hi Kristine! Good question! I believe that the benefits of belonging to an online learning community are immense! Research has proven that the way teachers learn the best is from discussing and sharing with other teachers. Technology has played a powerful role in enabling people to get together from diverse places of the world. And it is this diversity that mainly enriches people's points of views. As a school teacher, when I had the opportunity to connect with teachers from remote and culturally different places, is when I learned that things could be done differently. I hope that ITEN can play the role of engaging teachers for them to share their opinions and learn from each other.

[Dianne Santana]

We all have very different experiences in the classroom , sharing this  knowledge helps us as educators to better understand situations with our charges and even our colleagues. We will learn from experiences, not necessarily our own alone, we can also  learn from the experiences of our colleagues

 

[Christine Seivwright]

Dianne Santana said:

We all have very different experiences in the classroom , sharing this  knowledge helps us as educators to better understand situations with our charges and even our colleagues. We will learn from experiences, not necessarily our own alone, we can also  learn from the experiences of our colleagues

 

[Christine Seivwright]

Dianne,

I must agree with you as your experience will determine  what we do and learn from. Although we are from the Caribbean we all have cultural difference and will do things differently in our teaching and learning context, so when we share online we are able to get a rich mix of best practices that we can apply.
 
Dianne Santana said:

We all have very different experiences in the classroom , sharing this  knowledge helps us as educators to better understand situations with our charges and even our colleagues. We will learn from experiences, not necessarily our own alone, we can also  learn from the experiences of our colleagues

 

[joann neaves]

Being a member of an online community has many benefits.

You connect to persons all over the world by the click of a mouse

You are able to share your ideas, opinions and feeling with others in a similar field as yourself

You can keep up to date with new research in your field

You can exchange creative ideas about your practice with others all over your own country and the world

[Guadalupe Mercado]

Sharing, learning and understanding "in shoes the others"

[Christine Seivwright]

I agree with you. Hoping we can share more in the future. We can certainly learn from others by just expressing our thoughts.

[Lisa Ibrahim-Joseph]

An online learning community provides you with the opportunity to make connections across the globe as you compare experiences, identifying similarities and differences, while learning together.  It also provides opportunities for collaborations on research agendas and other areas of interest.  An individual stands to gain more than they could lose through on-line learning communities.  BTW, it's another way to make new, interesting and lasting friendships as well.

Lisa

[Christine Seivwright]

Adriana,

You are correct. When I did a course in comparative education, I gathered most of my content from online collaboration. The information I got, couldn't be found in textbooks. I believe that the world is one big community and we can learn best about it , by keeping the conversatiion going. Technology is at our fingertips and advancing everyday to make communication and collaboration better. I am hoping to get our Jamaican teachers to collaborate more on best practices.

Christine
 
Adriana Vilela said:

Hi Kristine! Good question! I believe that the benefits of belonging to an online learning community are immense! Research has proven that the way teachers learn the best is from discussing and sharing with other teachers. Technology has played a powerful role in enabling people to get together from diverse places of the world. And it is this diversity that mainly enriches people's points of views. As a school teacher, when I had the opportunity to connect with teachers from remote and culturally different places, is when I learned that things could be done differently. I hope that ITEN can play the role of engaging teachers for them to share their opinions and learn from each other.

[Christine Seivwright]

Lisa,

I agree 100%, so let's keep the conversation going.
 
Lisa Ibrahim-Joseph said:

An online learning community provides you with the opportunity to make connections across the globe as you compare experiences, identifying similarities and differences, while learning together.  It also provides opportunities for collaborations on research agendas and other areas of interest.  An individual stands to gain more than they could lose through on-line learning communities.  BTW, it's another way to make new, interesting and lasting friendships as well.

Lisa

[Lucky]

Yea, Dear Diana you are very right.

Dianne Santana said:

We all have very different experiences in the classroom , sharing this  knowledge helps us as educators to better understand situations with our charges and even our colleagues. We will learn from experiences, not necessarily our own alone, we can also  learn from the experiences of our colleagues

 

[Andrea Leonelli]

Hello All, online learning community are a resourceful and strategic approach to share and/or manage knowledge while combining work, education, and technology. Complementing what everyone said I think other benefits of belonging to an online community is that we can meet other teachers to verbalize our thoughts, challenge our ideas, and collaborate to achieve group solutions to problems that we have in the classroom. Also it is very convenient – it allows us to participate when we have the time to connect. Participating in discussions with others we have the opportunity to get in touch with a diversity of thought and approaches that we don’t have access when we share with teachers inside the same school.