Virtual Outworlding: 2021 #VEWDU: More professional benefits from our online PLC. That's a professional learning community. It has knowledge and resources. It needs organization

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

2021 #VEWDU: More professional benefits from our online PLC. That's a professional learning community. It has knowledge and resources. It needs organization

More professional benefits from our online PLC.

That's a professional learning community.

It has knowledge and resources.

It needs organization.

The educators of the virtual worlds have a PLC

You may wonder about that statement.
That's because it is not organized yet.
There are localized learning communities communicating through shared members.
Many of us see potential benefits in an organization that unites the communities.
Era of the entrepreneurial educator. The unbundling of education opens the gate for entrepreneurs.

What does a PLC do?

Short answer: Fosters communication.
Supports networking and collaboration.
Supports exchange of knowledge and connection of inquiry to relevant knowledge.
An online PLC offers a bigger network and more potential collaborators.
And online is the place to be for handling knowledge.
But online has to handle asynchronous communication,

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Who needs an online PLC?

Only educators who will work online or use online resources--now or later.

What can an online PLC offer?

Huge population of educators, so that there will almost always be subgroups with similar tasks.
Easy access: no travel time, no travel cost, no problem of child care.
Knowledge storage and distribution: communications can be saved for asynchronous access.
Efficient inquiry and answers: A database can be developed to manage this.
Efficient networking: A database can be developed to manage this.
Visibility of projects: Social networks handle professional communication, too

What do we need?

To handle large amounts of information: Databases
To search large volumes of information: Keywords

Keyword list

You can only access it if you can find it.
Keywords (they can be phases) are established names for important attributes.
They are used in text or database search to find places where the attribute is mentioned.
They would be collected by brainstorming in local groups.
For some purposes, hashtag keywords may be used in the form: #hashtag.
The keyword set would probably have categories: education level, subject,

Member database

For networking the important attributes are expertise, interests, and contact info.
Anyone who wants to participate actively in the PLC would be in the database.

Inquiry database

A common term is knowledge database (KB).
But you don't need a community to store knowledge.
You need a community to match inquiry with knowledge sources.
In a PLC, the most important knowledge sources are people with expertise.
So the inquiry database would be designed to refer an inquiry to its experts.
And if the Flipped Webinar concept in included it could develop a KB.
It would produce units of organized knowledge in response to inquiry.
If these units were preserved, links to them could be stored in the KB.
That would make them available in response to subsequent similar inquiries.

Flipped webinars

The flipped webinar: a strawman plan for the online Professional Learning Community (PLC)
The flipped webinar of virtual worlds, a place for exchanging information. No cost, no reservation. Come as you are. Meet the online educator community.
Flipped webinar for educators. A distributed conference. Short presentations, followed by focused discussions. With plans for outreach.
The flipped webinar: Discovering online learning. The potential is huge, but you gotta know the territory.

Background on the online PLC

Visit me on the web

Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)

I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
Don't register -- enter as guest.

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Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.

Virtual Outworlding

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