PLN Competencies

“All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate.” – John Dewey


from the blog Ponderances of Steve (Steve LeBlanc). PLN Competencies is not about language or writing but does clarify PLN vs PLE nicely, emphasis on the human connections, including potholes. Not a stretch I think to apply it to collaborative and other writing groups. 

Filed under: Coaching,MOOC — Steve LeBlanc @ 1:28 am 

You don’t have a strong PLN (Personal Learning Network) the moment you show up at the right group, even if it is the perfect fit for your particular interest. Admittedly, finding a group of folks who share your passions can offer support, guidance and quick tips for simple challenges. For example, finding the right quilting group for a lone quilter can be a dream come true...But what if your passions are not so neatly contained? What if your interests are broad and interdisciplinary? Specifically, what if you just can’t find a group that shares your varied interests? You could join different groups for your different interests or even create a new one. That works fine for discrete fields, that is, until you start to ask cross-cultural questions no one else in that group is interested in.

What is made of a network depends more on the user than the network. Skills and habits (and yes, related to using social media):

1. Contribution
2. Great Questions
3. Feedback
4. Evaluation
5. Humble Boldness
6. Basic Computer Skills
7. Celebrating Aloud
8. Remixing
9. Leaving the Virtual

You'll have to read Steve LeBlanc's post to fill in the rest (including more about list items). The closing?

Extra Notes on Competencies and Literacies

Competencies and literacies are fairly new constructs in learning theory, and not yet well agreed upon, not even on Wikipedia. The Washington State Department of Personnel defines competencies as, “the measurable or observable knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors (KSABs) critical to successful job performance.” I like acronyms.  And Microsoft offers a dizzying array of competencies here, with rubrics for measuring Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert Proficiency Level on each.  It seems that competencies have more to do with actions, and literacies have more to do with thinking and understanding. Rita Kop cites research that people might not necessarily have the critical literacies (thinking skills) required to learn and search independently, suggesting the need for some level of training or coaching. 

Here are Howard Rheingold‘s 5 Literacies: Attention, participation, evaluating credibility or critical consumption or “crap detection”, cooperation or collaboration and network awareness. He defines literacies as skills plus community (social media).... In a SlideShare called Digital Tribes and the Social Web, Steve Wheeler identifies what he calls the Digital Literacies: Social Networking, Transliteracy, Privacy Maintenance, Identity Management, Creating content, Organizing content, Reusing/Repurposing content, Filtering and selecting, Self presenting. Others include taxonomies, social tagging, and collaboration.

So what do they have to do with writing and  language learning?