A Powerful Network

As we  tend significantly toward working with networks of schools rather than as isolated ones I  thought it worthwhile to spend time considering how this has come about. What thinking and actions will maximise our benefits from belonging to one or more of these networks.

There is a real move to schools working together as clusters; sharing information, resources and becoming more networked. How do we make these powerful and meaningful.

Networking/clustering has been growing for the last 20 years and has contributed to a vibrant and progressing education community.

Here are three stages of belief and deliberate action that I think we have seen in networks.

I am considering the cluster/network and its impact on the learners in the individual schools within it. Each stage is of value but the third belief and deliberate actions associated with it are where I see sustained system improvement is possible.

First Belief and deliberate actions - collectively we engage with outside expertise.

My experience of this first stage started with an ICTpd contract where our school was part of a cluster of 6 schools. The network formed bring an efficiency of resources and a critical mass to a funded programme.

The characteristics of the programme were

• Teacher only days with outside experts. This was for many their first exposure to professional development in their place. A consistent message was about the changing paradigm and the rate of change in society which we would all be faced with.
• Experts were used in rotation with little ongoing relationship any one expert.
• Think tanks of ICT early adopters and geeks got together to share.
• Innovations were spread quickly through group presence and a willingness to try something new.
• Numerous disconnected introductions of various exciting new technologies
• Commitment lasting for the period of funding (ICTpd) ie with outside experts and little internal funding some leaders saw no intrinsic value to working as a network.

Second Belief and deliberate actions - there is power in local connections

My experience of this second belief was one where we developed the power of being in a group we called a professional learning community. For me this represents  a network able to see value in getting together sharing ideas, challenges they are facing and innovations they are adopting or developing.

The characteristics of the programme were

• Experience with Personal learning networks showed that you could connect with others and learn. It was like your extending the PLN to schools.
• Professional learning communities was a way to make similar connections and share learning in a local setting where people could connect face to face.
• Given everyone was attempting change people saw the importance of helping each other in our place
• There was something special we could do when we weren't isolated from each other's ideas.
• These clusters brought all its ideas together with more coming from within.
• There were too many ideas ie many conversations were lost because the variance across initiatives meant that elements of one could not fit in another
• Commitment to this type of group is ongoing and somewhat self funding
• Individual schools within the cluster know their impact

Third belief and deliberate actions - there is power in coherence and collective action

Russell Burt introduced me to the idea of the operational collective. This for me meant that we start to do more together and build on collective innovation. In this type of network the group identifies initiatives with promise testing them in their diverse contexts and bringing back the learning to take the next inquiry cycle.

This third belief is how I would describe the Manaiakalani Cluster as acting and developing.

The biggest difference between this model and the previous ones is that both a school and network (identity/purpose/challenge  guide the day to day activity and long term strategy in the individual schools. This allows them to “get more from” and “give more to” each other going from strength to strength.

Purposeful research allows this type of cluster to know their impact. I see them as “collaborating to compete” (Fullan). Not compete with each other but back to the latin roots of the word compete.

compete

- Comes from Latin competere, "come together," but in later Latin, it developed the sense "strive together," which was the basis for the English term.

What I see in these emerging networks are schools becoming stronger in their individual achievements and coming together in agreed ways to make progress.

The characteristics of the programme are

• A common language of learning eg Learn, Create, Share
• Agreement to inquire into our learning systems with the same reference points
• Visibility of what is happening in learning across the cluster
• Research to know our impact
• The impact attracts and generates wide external support
• Making our Kaupapa -- who we are and understanding a collective identity
• There are more partners but all in service of the learners
• Building a base on innovation found to be effective rather than taking a “splatter gun approach” Russell Burt
• Rich resources of how “we do this” are made for and by the cluster
• Energetic and committed leadership that believe in the contribution of the network to individual success
• Focusing on the learners and the community as the measure of success
• The operational collective develop a sense that they are there for each other.
• Being resolute and persistent

Is there a next stage to this type of network ?

Leading a way forward

We often see leaders struggle to know how to get to where they want to be if it means change from the status quo. Trends emerge and new ideas seem to be taken up by different schools but it is easy to miss the boat. It is easy to see where its heading but have not been on the first sailing. 

One of the most effective ways I see to lead effectively take aspirational future looking trends like those brought to us by Core Education and look at them through an action orientated lens like the elearning planning framework. The framework can be used in many ways in this case it identifies some different domains for action: Leadership and strategic direction, professional learning, teaching and learning, technologies and infrastructure and beyond the classroom. The resulting ideas can form the basis of effective implementation plans and strategies.  

Doing this with others makes it more powerful and well considered.

At a leadership sharing session We looked at two of the 10 trends (Learner orientation and networked organisations) watched introductory videos produced by CORE and discussed them using them the elearning planning framework as reference frame. Here are some of the action imperatives we saw that would empower and enable schools.

Learner Orientation

“It’s helpful to think of learner orientation in two ways: firstly, how does the learner orient themselves toward learning? And secondly, how does the school and community orient themselves towards supporting that learner?”

Now looking at this with the different elearning lenses pics of notes taken

Leadership and strategic direction

• Leadership needs to be seen to be learner orientated in staff meetings
• brain research into things such as self regulation - help understanding as to how we can orientate towards learners
• Need to try to connect learning areas to bring authentic learning
• We need to know our students observing how they learn outside of school
• We need to know our students getting their feedback feedforward
• We need to know our students collaborating directly with them
• High levels of futures thinking  

Professional learning-

• Need to have a variety of this with a pedagogical focus
• Have learners present ie clear inquiry into learning as it takes place classroom opportunities to observe learning and learning design
• Collaborations with other schools
• Able to provide access to this 365/24 online/blended components aligned with school learning kawa/protocol

Teaching and learning-

• Relationship with the students is paramount
• Diversity in acceptable evidence of learning
• Use of authentic learning inquiries with real world impact
• consistent language of learning eg (thinking maps, habits of mind)

Technologies and infrastructure-

• Need to have open networks and technologies
• Visible learning through the use of web spaces and environments.
• Use of online forms and aggregatable data to inform learner orientation
• Web research to assess preferred futures

Beyond the classroom-

• Have a whanau orientation - work with the things that have their buy in
• And example of this is to show how they can feed students learning into their own  network constructs. Dorothy Burt at Manaiakalani has shown parents how to feed their students blogs into their facebook streams.
• Provide opportunities for parents to experience the same learner orientation their students do with learning happening in the same way.
• Take the school to the community represent the school outside of the school.

Networked Organisations

David Rogers(link is external) describes networked organisations as: “Borderless: Networked organisations tend to have relatively porous boundaries separating their own departments from other schools, parents, and other key constituencies. Collaborative: Rather than settling for mediocre, these organisations actively seek out ideas from students, parents and partners, exchange information with them, and involve them in innovation and value creation. Pervasively-networked: All divisions and functions of the organisation are engaging with customer networks, and digital technologies are used to connect across disciplines and departments within the organisation as well.”

Leadership and strategic direction

• Leaders need to let go and empower everyone to take ownership
• Identify multiple networks and cultivate them  
• Try to be clear about the two way nature of networks ( the give and get)
• Position and present clearly outside of the organisation
• Utilise social networks and other connected environments
• Make networks accessible to the community

Professional Learning

• Associate with educational networks (VLN, GEGnz, edchat etc)
• Participate in regional learning networks and localised clusters
• Acknowledge networked learning opportunities for staff professional learning
• Provide information as transparently as possible to allow for access
• Promote and work with

Teaching and Learning

• Connect learners to others outside of the organisation
• Co-construct some learning with schools beyond our own

Technologies and infrastructure

• Use social Network tools: Facebook, Twitter, Google plus etc
• Provide systems that allow contributions to come from outside of the organisation
• Ensure that the capability of the network connection is

Beyond the classroom

• Try to find ways to ensure accessibility to the organisation for Whanau and that the learning is not solely relying on physical presence
• Familiarise parent with networked strategies
• Be aware of the connection strategies of others in the community

Challenges Teachers see...

What the teachers of Hamilton view as the challenges facing them.
I was a little surprised by what they mentioned. Access to working technology still seems to be a challenge as does time. Have a quick look at the video to pick up the rest.

Growing Pains - A Bigger Network of Schools

I work with a professional learning community who has as one of its goals:

Interest groups who have not met previously are developing networks and increasing capacity across the schools

As it has grown we are needing to change
A key role of our regional group is to provide school leaders with information about leading change, engaging with and building community the power of networks and cross school moderation and sharing.
The scale and size of the community will be determined by what it means to principals, leaders and teachers. Communication methods have changed now that we have over forty schools who want to belong.

Push vs Pull
Communication structures are important and the balancing of push vs pull mechanisms are a challenge. Here’s how we see the conflict. Push being things we send (encouraging attendance, informing) without letting people decide if they want that information. Pull being things we can provide for people that have asked for them eg interest groups, web sites.


We have looked at various ways of matching written, email and website communication. Registrations and memberships are one thing but keeping a community up to date is another.

We have also approached the regional Principal’s group to try and get a face to face opportunity.
Placing our network within others and connecting through them is a goal. Relying on one central network we felt was unsustainable as was proceeding through gatekeepers to people who have their own connection points. Especially when it came to email communication


Why did this need doing?
 
This means getting the communications mechanisms right for a regional group if it is to be sustainable and effective.

What did we learn as we did this?
What we learned is that the systems need to be wherever possible streamlined and for the division of roles to be established with the administration group i.e. financial control, membership communication, e-mail communication, association with other groups eg principals groups. We see it is important to use face-to-face and person-to-person contact to establish an understanding of what membership has to offer. Offering other ways of communicating is vital to let friends hear the messages they want to and to talk back.
The ways to gather up a community needs to be varied so that we develop an overall effect of clear timely communication.

What have we achieved? What did this mean for you?
We have been working hard to get the contact addresses for members within the primary sector into categorise schools so that we might be able to send information appropriate to their needs such as secondary and primary groups. We have extended the belonging offer to Waipa, Matamata Piako and the Waikato region. This helps interest groups develop critical mass.

How do we know it's working?
We know we have some communications do because we only have six members schools from the secondary sector. Information from schools outside of the Hamilton district expressing interest in membership shows that they are watching us to communicate with them and to have an option for professional learning in the area of ICT. We also knew that we needed to address this issue and make decisions around how and when to communicate to members. Because of a greater allocation of funding was in the final year of the contract we are adding things to the programming as we proceed forward. Our previous mechanisms were insufficient.

What advice would you give others trying to do this?
Our advice to others and achieve this is to utilise automation tools and have ongoing reflection as to how we are reaching our community. We are looking to utilise mailchimp as a method of collecting addresses for contact and allowing people to choose what they wish to be informed about, how regularly etc. Event registrations through google forms are used to record contacts for updates and happenings.