What are you? A Blues or Hurricanes fan? A Mac or PC user? Prefer a Holden or a Ford? Having a discussion (or even argument) around important things that really matter to us is nothing new.  I'm currently (enjoying) working my way through an online course, learning more about, online communities and what makes us come together.

As shared in a previous blog, What’s the difference between a social network and an online community? an online community is a group of people who develop relationships around strong common interests. This group commonly crosses boundaries to come together (age, interest, abilities, needs) where relationships become incredibly important, as we turns an audience (viewership, lurkers, likes) into a community (interactive).

It starts with strong common interests, then an interaction or spark is created, community members (us) are invited to disclose some information about themselves (experiences, facts, emotions) which in-turn creates an emotional connection where relationships will start to develop. Without interaction, we are just building an audience. Strong common interests is what is going to drive our community, ie: what do they want to spend our free time talking about?  

Some people like to talk about lifestyle products, hobbies and what they spend their time on, emotional reaction to causes, sport teams, events etc or what identifies us - from brands to job/work related conversations. Some people like to argue Ford vs Holden, others...Mac vs PC.

What is our strong common interest in edSpace?

I see our community growing when people are joining as part of a course/event, project or programme and some even arriving after a notification, nudge or a shoulder-tap. I think we can come together to talk all things education, to share experiences and help each other in our mahi.

What do you think our strong common interests are?

Social Networks

​Social networks (offline and on) are usually made up of predetermined relationships with people we already know or have met - friends, relatives, coworkers and acquaintances. Social networks unique to each of us and the tools often used are Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace.

1. Bound together by pre-established interpersonal connections
2. Each connection has his or her own social network
3. Characterized by a spider web-like "network" structure

Online Communities

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better. Etienne Wenger.

The biggest difference between social networks and online communities is that communities are often formed by people from different backgrounds who may not have met yet but are held together by a common interest or goal – might be a passion, belief, interest, need, common project, or profession. Social Network vs. Online Community: What Is the Difference?

Clearly people join the community because they care about this common interest that glues the community members together. Some stay because they felt the urge to contribute to the cause; others come because they can benefit from being part of the community. Social networks vs online communities: The important distinctions to know

1. Bound together by a common interest or topic
2. ANY person can be a part of ANY community
3. Characterized by a more complex overlapping and "nested" structure.

In the edTalks video, Establishing a professional learning community, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach defines a professional learning group as, a group of individuals coming together, to construct co-created content in a co-created community - where the tone evolves over time with key roles established, in the pursuit of organic, purposeful, healthy and productive conversations about learning online.

edSpace is our community of practice. What brings you here? What would you like to contribute and how do you see this community benefitting you? We'd love to hear more 

Image sources: Creative Commons and Pixabay.

Also see:

• Welcome to edSpace
• About us
• How can online learning impact on our practice?

“We know that schooling has been complicit in perpetuating white spaces in our learning contexts.  My role in Kia Aroha College has been on two major levels:

1. Professional level as a Pākeha educator, retired principal and still as an active whānau member of the kura.  I am a serial disrupter - poking large holes in our white system.
2. Personal level as a mother, grandmother and great grandmother - whose own schooling journeys have eventuated in the product that we continue to serve up as our Māori whānau.

People have said that we need time to allow things to change.

I have no patience with how much time is needed to change.  

We have had nothing but time. We keep replicating the status quo.  

My professional self in implicating the status quo - is not lost on me and it is a truth that I live with”.

These were the explosive opening statements made by Dr. Ann Milne in CORE Education Tātai Aho Rau’s final keynote for #ulearn17.  I must say that as a blogger in my own contexts, I have not been more excited to blog about a topic, than having the privilege to do so about “colouring in the white spaces”.

Ann talked about being invited to keynote at ULearn in the community strand. Her understanding of communities of learning differs to that of the now accepted Ministry of Education definition of communities of learning.  The clever weaving through of a documentary about Kia Aroha College threaded itself seamlessly in the presentation.

I couldn’t help but feel that the haka in the first film segment set the symbolic tone for the challenges that Māori face.  Four segments of the documentary were shown.  What struck me in the first snippet was the range of comments from all of the stakeholders in the Kia Aroha College whānau - ranging from kaiako, tamariki to the tumuaki.  Some key statements that stuck out for me:

• The NZ Education system is world class - but I question why we still have the question of underachievement? (former student)

• It works for some children but not all children - 20% of children are underachieving.  The Māori have endured system disenchantment,  Schools were used to forced Māori to assimilate.  

• Schools were designed to “smoothe the pillow of a dying race”.  

• What are the messages from society, media and our school?

• We experience hegemony, but are not really conscious that it’s there.

The 1970s renaissance sparked the renewal of indigenous aspirations for Māori.  After generations of low outcomes and low expectations - the oppression of Māori, seen as an inferior people has perpetuated.  The prejudice has not gone away.

What are the White Spaces?

The lines on the page in a colouring book dictate where the colours are meant to go.  As the children age, they are taught how to colour in the white spaces by colouring within the lines.  The white background is the norm.  When we talk about multiculturalism and diversity - we talk about the colours of the spaces that don’t change.  We relegate them to the margins.  Dr. Ann Milne stated unequivocally that Kia Aroha College has tried to change the colour of the space so that our children don’t need to.  We have been quiet about white spaces in our mainstream society.  The white spaces are prevalent in the education system we serve in as outlined by (Penetito 2010, p. 245).  Deliberate policies that continue to establish the education system’s hegemony over Māori:  “Europeanisation, civilisations, amalgamation, assimilation, integrating and today mainstreaming”.  

Identity - who we think we are, who people think we are

The second film segment focused on the opinions of Kia Aroha College whānau about their perceptions of the effects that the hegemonic education system has brought about:

• Normal to have poor health, housing, not succeed in school.  Even for myself growing up as a Tongan brown girl brought up in Otara.  This what we are taught.  

• Your identity is formed by other people’s perceptions.  If you don’t understand social injustice - then we will keep living the same cycle.  We need to look at how society has kept people in these places.  It’s not talked about in schools.  That’s why I think I was lucky.

As Māori”

Dr. Milne challenged educators to consider that there is a huge gap in our knowledge, and that the real space that our professional learning needs to target - are those to do with identity and culturally sustaining pedagogy - not literacy or numeracy outcomes.

The revelation of the majority of ethnic teachers in front of Māori learners can be summarised as:

• 73% of all teachers are white (10% are Māori)

• 80% of school management and leadership positions are head by white administrators

• 73% of all teachers are female

Dr. Ann Milne shared about the opportunities her students have shared their learning and experiences as Māori learners in research conferences.  Their first one was at the New Zealand Association for Research Education in Whakatane, November with workshop “Speaking out “as” Us: Māori and Pasifika secondary students investigate our education system’s vision for their learning”.

The students are set to do a follow up research presentation, but this time on the topic of communities of learning, with specific reference to student analysis of endorsed achievement challenges across Aotearoa. The symposium presentation is entitled - “Beyond Māori Boys’ Reading and Writing - Reading and Writing our World”.  The presentation is informed by which endorsed achievement challenges were targeted on Māori and Pasifika reading and writing, culturally responsive pedagogies, “as” Māori.  Dr. Milne argues that It is the absolute right of Māori and Pasifika to have government education policy documents realised. This is the promise of COL. A current NZPF survey doesn’t see the model serving local communities or reflecting their needs.

Initial student researcher questions following the analysis of the endorsed achievement challenges:

1. We know we are not dumber than Pākeha, so how come they don’t know how to teach us?
2. You would think they would ask WHY  they are achieving these results - or do they think it’s our fault?
3. Why is Level 2 the goals? Are Pākehā whānau happy with that goal?
4. Isn’t this just racism?

Insight into curriculum at Kia Aroha College - can you do this in your context?

The curriculum focuses on connecting the lived reality of the learners, so the curriculum is built on the learning needs of the students first - what they need to know about themselves in order to speak up for themselves and know who they are in the world.  The school has been effective at ensuring that every aspect of the school day needs to be everywhere “As Māori” - not timetabled.  The students are able to question how relevant is their learning, what is being taught and if they can see themselves in there.  Whose knowledge matters? If teachers took away these assessment measures - what is left? Not much.

Teaching kids in poverty to ‘play the game’ is not enough. The Kia Aroha College curriculum focuses on key factors that focus on students being able to develop their own vernacular in the discourse. The students learn about:

• Assimilation

• Policy analysis

• Colonisation

• Racism

• Culture

• Poverty

• Māori History

• Justice

• Community

• Whose Knowledge?

What we know about whānau

In the third segment of the film, the following statements were captured from kaiako, tamariki and tumuaki:

• To be successful you are told to suppress your culture.

• I learned so much history about my own culture that I didn’t know.

• Being Māori is a precursor to be powerful.

• Everything about that is about being Māori first.

• The main function of whānau - procreation and pre-colonial

• Children bring a whole heaps of skills, talent, knowledge just because they are born Māori.

• There are so many ways we can include Māori ways of knowing in the academic space.  Why can’t it be just as rigorous as Shakespeare.

• We’re changing the space so that kids don’t have to keep adjusting.

How does Kia Aroha College whānau work?

The final segment of the film showed how the tumuaki, kaiako and tamariki worked together as a whānau:

“We set up and organise our school differently with an Integrated curriculum. We use collaborative knowledge where older and younger students work together. There is an expectation that people are going to achieve and we create those spaces that work in the way that our kids learn best. We are now able to show with statistics - once kids are confident in who they are - that their reading, writing and Maths also improves. We want them to go into their world as confident and comfortable. One student stated - we think universally but still have a strong hold on your own culture because we are academically strong and culturally strong.”

Key components of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP):

• Raises fundamental questions about the purpose of schooling in changing societies

• Proposes that schooling should be a site for sustaining the cultural practices of communities of colour, rather than eradicating them

• Does not believer that we should work purely to close an achievement gap

• Refuses to compare the ‘success’ students based on their cultural background

​

Dr. Ann Milne argues that teacher pedagogy cannot be culturally sustaining - if it’s not CRITICAL. Kia Aroha College focused on three goals to create their culturally sustaining pedagogy.  These would be useful to apply to your own learning context:

• Empowered cultural identity
• Academic achievement
• Action for social change (Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2008)

Dr. Ann Milne pressed home the point that what we think we teach - and what young people actually learn - the whitestream “hidden” curriculum is always present and very powerful. We need to keep breaking free - changing the transcript and developing counter-stories.

Takeaway Challenge Questions:

• Are you going to do whatever it takes - to colour all the white spaces in your learning context?

• Who is going to argue for our Māori learners if we don’t?  

• How will culturally sustaining pedagogy become a priority in your learning context?

Known as a pioneer for his work in learning through mobile devices, Abdul enabled student learning and empowered students at Essa Academy, Bolton. He has developed and worked with a number of international education organisations as well as continuing his work in strategy development for mobile devices to enhance and support student learning. As a the Director of Development for the Olive Tree Education Trust, UK, Abdul has continued his successful work in leveraging mobile technology to support student learning. He also co-founded ‘Olive Tree Free School’ in Bolton, UK.

Keynote

With a background in Chemistry teaching and foray into senior leadership, Abdul undertook his first ever challenge as a leader… The laptop trolley. For many of us who have used trolley based devices, so many times have we encountered the challenges associated with the technology, even before it has been turned on! Whether it’s damaged devices or simply not being charged, it was a system that simply didn’t work. Roll forward after some serious costing comparison, and Essa academy purchased 900 iPod touch devices to be used with students.

In the early days, much of the challenge lay within simply defining the difference between portability and mobility. The former was still very corporate. Students came in and unloaded the laptop, the sat at a desk and began work. Mobility on the other hand, with an always on device, meant there was no longer the opportunity to make a coffee in the time it took to boot up. Hurdle one stepped over. Teachers and students were more open to supporting their learning with mobile technology simply because they turned it on and it worked! So what about the plumbing? Using the metaphor of a tap, the water comes out when it’s turned on, but it isn’t the tap that’s enabling the flow. It’s the huge amount of plumbing and network of elements that sit behind the tap that make the water come out. Essa Academy was no different, the plumbing was the infrastructure and the infrastructure needed to be strong to support seamless transition into a new pedagogy.

After some exploration, it became very clear that it wasn’t about the app store or making something happen through an application designed for mass syndication. It was about the pedagogy! At Olive Tree Free School, the school Abdul founded, it’s as simple as Believe You Can. Students know that self belief drives so much of what they do and have a genuine belief that their hopes and dreams CAN be their reality. So, whether it’s a school in a busy, urban, first-world city or a school in the middle of a third world country… Start with the plumbing!

“Just because we study coding it doesn’t mean we’re all going to be coders writing apps. It’s important to expose students to multiple opportunities and widen their understanding…”

Sharing the data that supports Abdul’s drive to make a difference, he lives within a community that faces daily struggles, with a life expectancy some eight years less than their peers from the other side of town. Compounded by unemployment and the challenges around the simplest of elements e.g. food, power, these children needed change. And Abdul comes alive at the notion of change. Everyday the students are given the opportunity to explore change, get to grips with new technology or design. Marking, Professional learning and development, nothing has been left to continue in an ineffective way. If change was needed, if something could be challenged, it happened!

Changing beliefs?

Change is challenging for many to undertake. It’s not about accepting the change or developing the skill set to cope with it, it’s about changing the very underpinning belief that perhaps sits in direct resistance to the change. Change the belief and the behaviour will change. In his example, Abdul shared the teacher belief around the old laptop trolley. The teachers would print a class set of worksheets ‘just in case’ because they simply didn’t believe that the trolley would work. None of those same teachers would put out a table of magazines in case their television wasn’t working. Why? Because they BELIEVED it would work. So it quickly became about shifting focus onto Simplicity and Reliability. In creating an environment that has great ‘plumbing’ and simple, reliable devices. What have you done? You’ve overcome hurdles before they’ve even come into view!

Are these the six words the most expensive in education? Expensive because the intellectual development of some people isn’t happening and yet the world has continued to move on. Change continues to happen outside of those with the ‘we’ve always done it that way’ mentality. It will continue in spite of them. It is no longer good enough to demarcate change in digital technology as something happening to our learners and youth. WE need to change. And at the heart of that, we need to change our beliefs.

With the access to knowledge we have now, and being less reliant on searching for information in books and libraries, it’s no longer about answering the question- it’s about asking the RIGHT question. Information creation and online services have never been freer. The largest taxi firm in the world (Uber) doesn’t own any taxis. The biggest encyclopedia in history (Wikipedia) has no books. The world that we live in is very different to the world that many of us grew up in. We have a responsibility to look beyond the curriculum and into the wider world to inform WHAT we teach our learners. What does this mean for education as a whole? From the taxi driver who won’t change jobs because he cannot take his online reviews with him, to the children who have a digital footprint from the time of the womb, the world has clearly changed.

We’re going to get it wrong. What’s important is that we get it LESS wrong! We’ve become really good at doing the wrong things really well. We are translating what we’ve always known not transforming for the possibilities that lie ahead. It begs the question, what does technology allow us to do that we couldn’t do before? How can we leverage it to the maximise the effect of mobile devices on teaching and learning? And finally, just what does good teaching and learning look like?

At Olive Tree Free School, they have moved beyond an activity based approach. They focus on striving for student investment and self motivation to share their learning. Once again we’re faced with the challenge of moving teachers forward and their understanding of sharing. Yes, sharing something publicly means it is open to criticism and being challenged by peers, but it’s also open to praise and celebration. It becomes a simple matter of which we allow to be our focus.

Teachers at Olive Tree Free School have begun asking different questions. How can they design learning that challenges students? How can they amplify the design thinking through use of technology and develop consistent approaches to pedagogy? And it’s this consistency that impacts learning the most. No longer are teachers asking what the best app for maths is, because they know that the best app is the maths teacher! The teacher constructs the relationships and develops the learning. The students explore, grow, create and are intrinsically motivated to share. Put simply, the technology enables visibility.

“Relationships are great when things are transparent. Technology is great at making things transparent!”

Impact

How can we measure impact? How can we know belief has been changed? Working alongside the University of Hull, there is a formal study into the impact of voice. The study looks at the impact of students receiving feedback through audio comments, analysing the effect of hearing the intonation. Within 12 months the school achieved Outstanding during their Ofsted review, despite 68% of students arriving at school approximately two years behind the national norm for 5yr olds. Leveraging technology to establish a more personalised approach to feedback and relationships had clearly worked.

Summary

It’s not about fancy apps. It’s about the ‘bread and butter’ of teaching and learning. How we access services, order our clothes  and interact with others has significantly shifted, technology is embedded within it all. As educators, it is truly important for us to understand that technology allows us to do things that we’ve simply never been able to do.

What messages spoke to you most in Abdul's keynote presentation? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

We have been waiting since October 6th 2016 to hear Brad Waid, who is “passionate about Education, Technology and making a difference!” As a father, an educator, and our keynote speaker, he’s described as “an influencer, a change agent a thought leader and a futurist”. Four airports later; 48 hours awake, Brad landed in Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud.

Welcoming Brad to Aotearoa New Zealand has been so easy. His energetic, vivacious personality is infectious, and his passion obviously shines through. As Brad wanted to embrace our unique tikanga, attending our pōwhiri on Tuesday afternoon, sharing his mihi was a priority for him. As he pointed out, he can see why people leave part of their heart here and he is definitely planning a return trip.

As an experienced educator, he watched how the students’ attention and engagement were captured, by enhancing the available technology. During the keynote, Brad encouraged us all to embrace every social mediums and, share it, break it, let's do it!

Key questions we need to consider:

What are kids learning? Where are they learning? What is our role? Are we changing? How are we connecting with our 21st century learners? What is happening when the students leave the classroom? What are they sharing? Would they share what we are teaching? The role of educators is changing, yet have and are we actually changing?

Working with teachers one day, and students the next, a teacher shared his learning with his class the very next day.  When Brad walked around the classes the following day, he saw an engaged, excited boy who was wanting to share his learning with the people in his network - as a 15 year old boy, he was taking a risk as he shared the learning - the map. Are we preparing them for their future, or our future? As the students were changing and adapting, so too was Brad yet, his mindset had not. He had to understand what was happening outside education, to ensure we are, “Engaging the minds of tomorrow, today”

Brad shared an anecdote, Justin, a selective mute, chose to be in Brad’s class. His parents’ goal for Justin was to communicate with his class. Can my group go first asked Justin, and Justin said something. Brad chose to say nothing to his parents at this stage, and as Justin  took a chance on him, then Brad took a chance on him. He started talking and I actually had to tell him off. At snack time, Brad made a video for Mum and Dad about CargoBot, talking - TALKING! When Brad met with Justin’s parents, who have heard for years, how Justin is struggling, and when they pressed play, they heard Justin talking to his parents. Wiping the tears, Brad asked what now? Now, we can talk academics. Liberated, the device spoke his language. The tools will always change, but the relationships we have our students will never change.. Social media is LIVING. Our students want League of Legends gift cards, not wanting to go to Target or Starbucks.

PokemonGO - took the power of screen time and leveraged movement. You have to move OUTSIDE, off the couch, into the library, the gym, the monument.  For students with social struggles, PokemonGO gave opportunities for them to  be accepted, breaking down barriers.  YouTube influencers also have a huge impact on our learners.

How do we make a difference? R.U.L.E e

• Relationships - how we treat people
• Understanding - What unites us is stronger than what divides us
• Learning - fail...fail...fail...success
• Environment - flexible seating, ILE
• (e)xpression - SHARE share SHARE

We are never too old to learn - live out loud (Kevin Honeycutt)

We all have a gift to give - what will you give?

Brad Pitt Waid being thanked by Helen Cooper, and presented with a taonga - Hei-Matau.

Brad - tēnā rawa atu koe! Thank you for inspiring us, challenging us, and encouraging us to share, make a difference, discover our gift,  keep giving, R.U.L.E. e

What one thing inspired or moved you about Brad's keynote presentation? We'd love you to share your thoughts below  Or maybe you'd like to ask some questions directly to Brad in a dedicated discussion thread.

Eric Mazur is a unique and inspirational choice as opening keynote for ULearn17. The Balkinski Professor of Physics and applied physics at Harvard University - not only is he is a globally recognised physicist, but also a published author in the field of education - and also, and perhaps most importantly for his presence at ULearn, he is a technology entrepreneur, supporting startups in the education and technology markets. He has founded four tech startups.

Starting with an image of an early lecture theatre session, Eric unpacked with us the sorts of activity going on among the students - emphasising the difference between transmission of information and construction of knowledge that must take place in the minds of the learners. So the lecturer’s focus is on the transmission of information, focusing not so much on how they will teach, but on what they will teach.

His personal story of how he moved from this emphasis on sharing information, including sharing his lecture notes at the end of the class, illustrates the futility of this sort of activity, but reminds us all of the approach that still exists in many

When asking the audience “is education merely the transfer of information?”, the overwhelming response was NO - so the challenge for educators operating in this way becomes “what will you do when you no longer have a job?”

More significantly, as educators we should ask ourselves “what would we lose if we put all of our lecture notes online, or made them available for students online?” Would we lose interaction? collaboration? Contribution? Mazur claims we’d lose very little dialogue, very little interaction if we shared our notes with students.

So if education is more than the transfer of information, what is it? We need to take that information and extract from that the knowledge, the mental models, that let us do something with that information. Problem is, much of our current approach simply promotes the memorisation of information.

Using the example of the Force Concept Inventory, designed to assess student understanding of the Newtonian concepts of force, Mazur illustrated how the traditional, information sharing approach to teaching was inadequate in terms of how he was preparing his students in classes at Harvard University.

As a consequence, Mazur began to think of his teaching as more than the transfer of information. Firstly, he needed to create the opportunity for his students to digest that information, and apply it within the realm of their own experience - and in contexts beyond their own.

Mazur began to think about the need to invert (flip) what happened in the class with what happens out of class. This begins with appropriating the wisdom of Socrates, to teach by asking questions. His ‘aha’ moment came when, after trying unsuccessfully to explain a physics problem, he invited his class to discuss the problem with each other - and within minutes found they had figured it out. The realisation here is what we in NZ would understand as the power of tuakana teina, and the power of sharing ideas with someone who has only recently learned it, not necessarily the ‘expert’ whose knowledge is well established and intuitive. From this Mazur developed an entirely different approach in his class, starting with posing a question, polling the immediate responses - and then, instead of responding as the teacher, inviting students to discuss their responses among themselves and re-enter their response. The shift here is characterised by making the lesson more active (not passive), and allows for the personalisation of learning - with students able to engage with each other in ways that an individual teacher never can.

Mazur’s clever use of the physics problem of what happens to the hole in the middle of a metal plate when it is heated demonstrated very powerfully the way we can increase learning power when we turn on the innate learning curiosity of our learners. The exercise moved from a focus on the fact, to the reasoning - he ignited the fire of the audience curiosity! His point was powerfully made with regards to how we need work with students in our classrooms. Mazur’s use of this approach has been researched to demonstrate the impact of this on student retention - the significance here being the difference between simply transferring information (focus on facts) to the engagement in creating knowledge (emergence of reasoning).

We need to allow time for the brain to process the information - not simply ‘remember’ it. Moreover, but involving students in sharing among themselves, the learning is no longer an isolated experience. Education, deep down, is a social experience - not an isolated one (reference here to Vygotsky’s theories here)

Drawing to a close, Mazur introduced us to Perusall, a social learning platform developed by him and his colleagues, providing powerful asynchronous learning experiences for students out of class.

The big question to finish is, “who owns the learning?” (from Alan November) - and the need for us to deeply understand that must be the learners who own the learning, while in much of our current system it is the teacher who owns the learning. Mazur illustrated how a rubric-based assessment approach can be used as a powerful way of engaging students and enabling them to take ownership of their learning. This social interaction is what provides the intrinsic motivation for learners to learn.

Thank you Eric for a truly inspirational start to our ULearn conference - reminding us that learning is not about the transmission of information, that it is a social activity, and that it must be owned by the learner. And thank you for sharing this in a way that engaged us all and demonstrated so well the very points you were making.

What did you think of Eric's opening keynote for uLearn17? What one thing has inspired or triggered you to think or teach differently? We'd love for you to leave a comment and share your thoughts below...
 

The Whaikōrero (speeches) from tangata whenua talked about their whānau, hapu, iwi, internal structure of the marae including the tukutuku (woven panels) and whakatauki of the area, as well as the passing of their ancestors; while the Manuhiri (visitors) talked about where they had travelled from. In between each orator a waiata (song) was sung. After the koha, (gift) was laid down and accepted, both manuhiri and tangata whenua came together to greet each other through hongi.

We finished with kai (food) and korero (chatting) in the wharekai (dining hall). A most fitting way to start uLearn17.

edSpace also has a group of champions all of which are passionate advocates for online communities of practice. If you have any queries, or need any help, any one of the following champions are there to help encourage and support rich dialogue online. Why not find, friend and leave them a message?

Introducing: