1. Teachers’ self
and the LLL transitions through
networked learning experiences
Juliana Raffaghelli
University Ca’ Foscari of Venice
8° International Conference on Networked Learning
Maastricht 2-4 April 2012

2. Teachers’ learning to support
educational challenges
 Quality teachers for
…an active and constructive
quality education process that is problem
oriented, grounded in social
 Teachers training settings and circumstances,
adapted to the and (…) throughout
teachers’ lives (EU-OECD,
teachers’ needs: 2010 p.32)
TPD

3. THE CASE OF EDUCATIONAL
TECHNOLOGIES INTO TPD
A CHALLENGE
 Preparing teachers to integrate ICT into their pedagogical practice is exacerbated
by the instability associated with the rapid development of technology
 Yet if institutions have been ICT-equipped and teachers and trainers ICT-trained, ICT
has not yet transformed teaching and learning as it has transformed processes in
other key sectors such as enterprise or public services -SEC(2008) 2629 final-
Adequate support to teachers professional learning!

4. TEACHERS PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT NETWORKED LEARNING
 Observation of teaching followed by  Beyond the technological “medium”
reflection and feedback to teachers; (eLearning)
 The use of external expertise  More than just access (distance
supporting processes of innovation education)
within the school;
 Scope for teachers to identify their
own professional learning focus;  connection between learning
communities and resources, by
 An emphasis on peer support;
enhancing information and
 Processes to encourage, extend communication technologies
and structure professional dialogue; (Goodyear et al. 2004)
 Processes for sustaining  The Web as part of a scheme of
professional learning over time to social activity (professional
enable teachers to embed practice learning)
in their classrooms.
 The Web of (professional) identity
TPD / NWL : designing effective
professional learning environments

5. The case study
Promote intercultural dialogue against social exclusion, using children
literature characters as a base for pre-school and school children and their
parents (COMENIUS LLP – IT – UK – PT – CH – EL –BE)
◦ Teachers’ formal training on the project’s
approach, the process of implementation of
innovations, and the use of specific tools and
methods.
◦ Adoption of technologies for better children
access to stories and tales.
◦ Testing activities (i): “Intercultural Workshops”,
shared activities among children, migrant-
children and their parents focusing on
intercultural dialogue through children literature
and invented stories.
◦ Testing activities (ii): 'Creativity Labs' for the
development of key competences for social
inclusion, on the basis of traditional and invented
stories’ characters.

6. Digital tools within approach
 Digital tools where hence conceived as mean for analysing, manipulating
and re-elaborating stories
Digital Tool Brief Description of Educational Educational Aim
Implementation
Blog To document and reflect on learning Open Class Learning
processes (as a course of environment -
actions/practices) Collecting Class
To communicate with other european Narratives
schools within P.IN.O.K.I.O
community(blogroll)
Movie Co-construction of learning processes Planning, Producing
Cooperative-learning and Sharing Stories
Peer-collaboration and Peer-tutoring
Podcast Understanding temporal sequences in a
story: telling stories as a process
Sharing learning results “ubiquitously”

7. Methodology
 Foreshadowed problem: are teachers prepared to adopt
technologies? Which kind of professional learning experience can
support adequate qualification to implement transformation of the
own practice?
 Action Research (McNiff,2010) ; Interventionist approach (Sannino &
Sutter 2010)
 Progressive phases where the process of educational development
is implemented and the transformational potential of action through
participation and reflection
 A transnational Teachers Professional Development activity to
support pedagogical innovations (PINOKIO)
 Five phases, the NWL approach across Web-spaces.
 Methods
◦ After training questionnaires: teachers’ opinion on their own initial learning and
motivation to transfer
◦ Analysis of messages - Online Forum exchanges (open codification)
◦ Teachers and children production: semiotic analysis of blog posts (including
pictures and audiovisual materials).
◦ Teachers’ Interviews by the end of the experience

8. The transnational NWL approach
Country-Region Italy (IT) Italy (IT) Switzerland (CH) UK Portugal (PT)
Pescia Palermo Ticino London Madeira
Type of School 4 Pre-primary (PP) - - 3 Pre-primary 2 Pre-primary
3 Primary (P) 1 Primary 2 Primary 3 Primary 3 Primary
Classes involved 6 PP - 8 P 3P 5P 4 PP - 9 P 5 PP - 5 P
Teachers 7 PP - 14 P 3P 5P 6 PP - 18 P 5PP - 7P
Children 316 54 98 273 103
Foreign Children 76 8 10 159 41
Teachers Sep/Dec 2010 Sep/Dec 2010 Nov 10/Jan Jan/March 2011 Jan/March 2011
20% eL 2011 10% eL 10% eL 10% eL
Formal 50% eL - 10% FTF 60% FTF 80% FTF 80% FTF 80% FTF
40% C & PC 20% C&PC 10% C&PC 10% C&PC 10% C&PC
Training
Children Literature and Intercultural Learning (mainly PT); Selecting stories, Learning
on Blog, Movie, Podcast; Digital Storytelling and Key competences promoted by
PINOKIO (focus on “Movie”) (mainly CH and UK); European Key competences
Framework ; Introducing Testing Methods; Reflecting on practices: use of blog;
Learning Design
March-April 2011
Testing: 10% eLearning; 30% Coaching and peer collaboration; 40% Activities in class; 20%
Intercultural Use of Social Networks (Web 2.0)
Workshops Teachers’ transnational networked learning activities to plan intercultural workshops
Implementation of activities with families
May – June 2011
Testing: 10% eLearning; 30% Coaching and peer collaboration; 40% Activities in class; 20%
Creativity Use of Social Networks (Web 2.0)
Creating games with children - Children create the rules of games, using characters and
Labs situations of both traditional stories and stories told with parents.
Results are shared through the blog or movie to show “how to play” to other kids.

9. The teachers’ NWL process
Technological Project’s Website Isomorphism
affordances TPL /
p.i.n.ok.i.o
Innovation on
Professional Exploring the Pedagogical
learning approach and
tools Practices
(reshaping
beliefs on ET)
Educational
Outcomes The Teacher’s
Systematizing, p.in.o.k.i.o approach
Sharing, Learning Design
Conceptualizing achievements
Dissemination to an
European Community of
Teachers and Learners
Implementation
Learning
Outcomes Testing
Reflecting Collecting
Stories
Social Networks eLearning
Platform
Web 2.0.

10. Results (i)
Teachers’ impressions on initial NWL
and motivation to transfer
 Trainers’ guidance and
 Contents of training scaffolding on networked
were clearly delivered learning activities
(87% completely stimulated the teacher
agree), even when interest on the project’s
considered complex methodology and
(58% completely activities (83%
agree and 12% completely agree), which
agree). was considered
innovative (75%
completely agree);

11. Results (i)
Teachers’ impressions on initial NWL
and motivation to transfer
 87% that completely agreed on  Through open questions,
the usefulness of blog, and teachers’ manifested that
79% and 58% of usefulness online discussions, matched
for movie and podcast with peer collaboration to
respectively. experiment and produce first
 When teachers’ were asked “prototypes” of digital tools,
about their applicability in were extremely supportive
their classrooms, 91% replied and important in order to gain
to be motivated to use the blog; confidence with a language
a 62%, to use movie; and just a they had never experienced
20%, to adopt podcasts. before.

12. Results (ii)
Teachers’ expressions about national seminars and
international online conference on practices
• “ Educational technologies have been our privileged tool to
carry out our final products. We realized that making audio-
books, recording pupils voices, designing maps through the
web fostered the development of pupils' various abilities and
skills ( metacognitive, logic,creative,linguistic and artistic)…But
in the end it was fun and thoughtful for us also! We have had
many occasions to work in small groups in which pupils,
particularly foreigners and disabled,could have the chance of
being protagonist of their own learning process”

13. Results (ii)
Teachers’ expressions about national seminars and
international online conference on practices
Hi, we are Giulia and Barbara from (…)
Italy! About the project, the most difficult
thing in its esecution (execution), was that Kids weren’t the only to
of "thinking in a technological way"; in enjoy results.
fact, at the very beginning, we found some …adopting
troubles, because we were used to technologies to re-tell
document our work through pictures, old stories was fun
books and not through e-books, pod-cast and, in the end,
etc. Children answered very well to the challenging to me as
project and they showed their interest in teacher.
the light of the new ways of projecting (Giulia, Interview)
(doing in class); especially, they liked
hearing their voice and watching their
works in the blog (…)
Bye Bye,

14. Results
The “isomorphic effect”
 the reflective deconstruction of fear and
prejudices against educational technologies,
while using them to build learning environments
 “talking languages closer to those of kids”
 the isomorphic effect, takes place in an authentic
learning environment for teachers (the process of
planning and implementation), which is nurtured
with dialogue and interactions supported by the
NWL approach
 Identities play an important part in shaping the
professional learning environment

15. Results
Teachers’ log and the multimodal narratives
collected on NWL spaces
 Teachers reflections, collected through an online
diary, showed how the process of creating and
“expanding” the “personal” networked learning
space accompanied the deconstruction of beliefs
about the use of educational technologies
against traditional conceptions
 The teacher becomes aware of the own
professional transition looking back on the own
experience on the NWL space: the multimodal
narrative

16. Results
A multimodal narrative
Timeline Beginning of Middle November Middle December Beginning of Middle Aprile
October 2010 2010 2010 March Inventing Games and
Confident with Digital Performance, Opening reflecting
storytelling, shy representation of recording, sharing classes to
with the traditional tale to the Blog parents
technologies With kids
Teacher First post on Blog First Digital The story of Pippi From stories and The travel of Pippi.
Alessandra I’m Pippi storytelling and friendship, from open labs with The game on the floor,
Longstocking, “Pippi performance to the parents the game on paper, the
because I like to Longstocking” blog: Travelling and game as online
be independent Discovering with Diverse friends, cooking: the representation.
and I’m a kids: she’s not unusual people, use book of tastes. This is my own travel as
traveller! Italian, where’s she to be with Pippi. She (Blog post and teacher (from Interview)
(blog post) from? was so independent! personal diary)
(e-Book audio and (Blog post and
blog post) pictures)

17. CONCLUSIONS
Learning biographies and teachers’
discourses within NWL experiences
 Teachers build their own identities through meaning making
processes in the several, interconnected learning spaces on
the Web, linking the several learning cultures, resources and
models with their own personal/professional narrative of the
self
 The NWL experience generates a space where the
professional identity is (dis)played, and its symbolic elements
rearranged (By writing and representing with mixed words-
images their experiences back into the virtual context)
Embodied cognition in the virtual learning spaces
( Macfadyen, 2008)

18. CONCLUSIONS
Learning biographies and teachers’
discourses within NWL experiences A fractal
perspective
of LLL
transitions
Learning
Culture
Agency
Co-design Pedagogical
Professional
Innov ation
Identity (Adoption of ET)
Educational
Utopia
Multimodal Pedagogical “Isomorphic
natrrative Practices
Effect”
The NWL as the base for a “Transformation”
TPD approach Social Inclusion

19. Is this the end…?
Identity, agency,
transformation will
start
(unpredictably)
their loop again and
again…
A fractal in the nature

20. References
(this presentation)
Scheerens J. (ed.) (2010) Teachers’ Professional Development - Europe in international
comparison: An analysis of teachers’ professional development based on the OECD’s
Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), Luxembourg: Office for Official
Publications of the European Union
European Commission, SEC(2008) 2629 final-. The use of ICT to support innovation and lifelong
learning for all - A report on progress
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(2004). Towards a pattern language for networked learning. In Banks, S., Goodyear, P.,
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Fourth International Networked Learning Conference.
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Macfadyen, L. P. (2008). Constructing ethnicity and identity in the online classroom: linguistic
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Networked Learning. ISBN 978-1-86220-206-1.
http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2008/abstracts/PDFs/Macfadyen_560-
568.pdf Retrieved September, 10, 2010
McNiff, J. (2010), Action Research for Professional Development. Concise advice for new (and
experienced) action researchers. Dorset: September Book
Sannino, A., Sutter, B. (2011), Cultural-historical activity theory and interventionist methdology:
Classical legacy and contemporary developments, Theory&Psychology 21(5) 557-570