Heather was a classroom teacher, working in a rural
primary/intermediate school. She had between 10 and 20 years in teaching and held particular responsibility for e-learning in her school. Her initial activity in the VLN was through a Ministry of Education ICT PD contract “and I think … that was what encouraged us to do it. It was like a
requirement almost” (Q. 1, l. 2). An active member of a variety of social network sites for professional as well as personal reasons, her involvement in the VLN had recently shifted from a requirement to a personal
involvement.
Initially, Heather was motivated by a desire to connect her local cluster of schools in an online environment around the context of
She saw an opportunity to sustain and extend their conversation using a blended approach “…because you are spread out and you are busy and you do have your everyday running of your classroom program” (Q. 3, l. 6).
She on-shared documents and examples that her cluster of schools was developing, primarily to sustain cluster conversations between
meetings, “We would meet once a term as lead teachers, and so you would only see the progress once term whereas the VLN enables you to see
something quicker, see the progress and see the steps” (Q. 9, l. 20). She felt that this blended approach successfully iterated the feedback cycle that was needed to sustain the cluster’s learning in that:
People contributed and shared what we had done at our school, how we were progressing and what we were going to do, and that was great because we were all able to look at each other’s work and each other’s progress (Q. 6, l. 14).
Interestingly, as access to the cluster’s activity was public, their work was shared with the wider VLN network and a positive downstream effect was receiving feedback from educators not immediately involved in their work.
Heather’s own activity extended beyond the requirements of the Ministry contract, spurred on by her enthusiasm for a creative thinking:
[Creative thinking] was grabbing my attention at the time and I got a few responses from other people…I would spend much more time composing emails and it was great, because I was passionate about it and it was a way to get my ideas down and listen to people (Q. 2, l. 4).
As well as blogging about aspects she found interesting, her work drew the attention of others beyond her cluster, and she was invited by network facilitators to contribute to discussions elsewhere, “I think that networking thing is key” (Q. 2, l. 4).
A key motivator in her new e-learning leadership role was to stay abreast of current trends and issues. In terms of her use of the affordances of the VLN environment, Heather made most use of the email notifications, the discussion threads and the blogging tool. She scanned her emails daily for those threads that caught her attention:
I think ‘I will have a quick look’ and I’ll click on it and I’ll have a quick scan down...if I haven’t got time to read it I will save it [and] try and come back to it. If it’s something that doesn’t take my interest I’ll just delete it (Q. 12, l. 26). She saw a real advantage in the way the community contributed and
extended knowledge though the threaded, archived discussions, which could be read at a time that suited her. She saw opportunity to enhance her own professional learning in the way multiple viewpoints were respected and invited, encouraging her to reflect on her own context and practice, “it’s really good to get someone else’s perspective and it makes you question what you’re thinking” (Q. 23, l. 49).
The way the VLN offers connections to a set of colleagues on a national scale opened her horizons and began to give coherence to the way she thought about her practice:
If you’ve been at a school for years and years and years and you only ever … speak to that one group of people…it widens your horizons…it’s really, really powerful because you’re just exposed to more thoughts (Q. 23, l. 49).
And even though everybody is “not necessarily on the same page, you all have different ideas and beliefs about education” (Q. 26, l. 55) she felt that the VLN was a safe, respectful environment.
Heather’s involvement in the VLN Groups over time had shifted from one determined by a contractual requirement to one motivated by her own desire to stay informed, to be a conduit of information for her wider staff, and actively connected to a professional network, “It’s kept me up-to- date … I’ve gone in and to see what people have done … to bring it to the staff. And it’s also made me reflect on my own practice, definitely” (Q. 13, l. 28). She took a wide view of this way of blending her professional learning. She preferred the short, sharp, globalised exchange of Twitter and found the interface of the VLN text-heavy and the conversations too
localised. However, when invited to consider how her involvement in the VLN would continue to develop, Heather saw this networked, connected approach as vital to her role:
If I didn’t have that input, and if I didn’t make use of the online tools…I don’t think my teaching would be as good and I don’t think I would be as excited and stimulated about teaching. It’s having that outside input that makes you a better person and a better teacher (Q. 14, l. 31).