Community of Participation
Practicing and Preaching Collaboration

I am enjoying a professional rebirth here in the Iroquois Central School District. I, along with several teachers and administrators, have been able to develop a Community of Practice. This is nothing new, professional communities have been a part of mainstream change in industry forever. However, I have never been a part of one, let alone one of the facilitators.

The objective of this community is to promote change within our high school, with the hope that this will spin out towards the other levels within the district. I cannot help but be excited with the potential this community presents to the staff and students at Iroquois. I am meeting tomorrow with two curriculum specialists from the regional Board of Cooperative Educational Services and hope that this community comes up in our discussion.

The concept I enjoy throwing around most is the potential gravitational pull this community can have on those teachers who are reluctant to dip their toe into the instructional world of technology. With a collective community of hundreds of years of expertise and online tools of collaboration so readily available, no better way to share ideas and best practices. This is our way of changing our own little corner of the world.