Joining the Network

The Habits of Mind Learning Community is a social networking site. It allows you to interact with and learn from teachers from all around the world who are interested in the Habits of Mind.

Joining the Network

Joining the Network is simple. All you have to do is either click on the "Join the Habits of Mind Learning Community Post-it on the right hand side of this page, or go to the Learning Community site directly and click on Sign Up'. You'll be asked to enter your email address and to create a password. This password is independent of your Habits of Mind Teachers Network password. 

Once that is done, you'll be sent a confirmation email with a link to your personal profile page.

As a member you'll be able to:

• see who else is a member of the Learning Community and contact them

• Create your own blogs and discussions, or contribute to others

• Join Groups of people with similar interests such as:
  • About the Habits of Mind
  • Ask a question
  • Just Beginners
  • Primary Teachers
  • Secondary Teachers
  • or create your own groups and invite people to join.
• View or upload video and picture related to the Habits

• and much more.

Joining and Following Groups

Joining and Following Groups

As a member of the Learning Community you can join groups to collaborate and share with other teachers who have similar interests and needs as your own. Some of these groups are mentored by experts that have given their time to support teachers learning about Habits of Mind. 

All groups are listed from the top menu. Featured groups are also listed on the Community Page.

Joining and Leaving Groups

Clicking on any of the groups will tell you a bit about the group, who is already a member, and you'll be able to see what the group has been doing. Joining the group is as simple as clicking on "Join Group" at the top of the groups page.

As a member of the group you have full access to the groups features, including using the discussion board, leaving messages on the wall, or contacting all group members. 

Leaving the group is a matter of just clicking on "Leave Group"

Following and Stop Following Groups

You don't need to keep coming back to the Learning Community to find out what's been going on in a group. When you join a group you are automatically set to "Follow Group". This means that when ever something is updated in the group, you will receive an email telling you about it.

You can stop receiving these emails anytime simply by clicking on "Stop Following Group". You can still be a member of the group when you stop following the group, but you won't receive notification when changes are made.

Private Groups and Virtual Classrooms

Anyone can create a new group and invite people to join. When you create a group you can set it up to be public or private. Most groups are open to anyone to join, but a few are private and you can only gain access by invitation.

There are a few different types of private groups that might be set up:

• Personal Networks
  For various reasons some teachers may decide to set up a private groups. This might be to collaborate on a particular project for example.

• School Groups
  In some cases, schools working with professional developers may set up private groups with a mentor to pursue particular school wide goals and projects

• Virtual Classrooms
  The Virtual Classrooms are simply private groups. They are established to support teachers registered for the Online Courses. Materials  and discussion topics in these groups relate to the material being covered in the Online Course.
  
  Virtual Classrooms are very powerful as they are usually mentored by a certified trainer who will mentor and support your learning journey. They are also directly linked t the Course Content with specific learning activities designed into them for teachers completing the courses.  

The Virtual Classroom for Course 1 is accessible by everyone. Feel free to have a browse around and see what's available by clicking on the icon on the left.

My Page

"My Page" is accessible from the Learning Community main menu after you've signed in. It is a your personal space in the Learning Community.

Some Community Members do very little with their "My Page", others do a lot. It's entirely up to you.

Some of the things you can do include:

• tell others about yourself by creating a personal profile

• keep track of your activities and groups you've joined

• Create your own blogs

• Add photo's and video's

• Communicate with others via your wall (or theirs)

• Create a list of Friends 

• Control your settings such as which groups you're following and who can contact you

• Add a photo or image for your profile

It's worth exploring your "My Page". It is a potentially very useful tool and central place for you in the Learning Community.

People can access your "My Page" by clicking on your profile picture. Check out a few other peoples pages to learn more about them.

Learning Journals and Blogs

Learning Journals and Blogs are one of the features you can choose to make use of in the Learning Community. Any community member can create blog entries.

How to Create Your Learning Journal or Blog

To create your own entry you can either reply to an existing posting, or from you "My Page" use the "New Journal Entry" link or "Quick Add" menu. When creating your entires you can set who is able to read it to:

• Private - so only you can read it

• Friends - so only people on your "Friends" list can read it

• Everyone - so everyone can read it 

Finding and Reading Journal or Blog

There are three main ways of viewing entires

• On the Learning Community Page
  This page is accessed through the "learning Community button on the main menu. It is essentially the Learning Communities "Home Page". On this page you'll find entires that are featured and deemed to be of particular interest to everyone

• Under Resources
  Under the Resources button in the main menu you'll find a link to Blogs. This takes you all the blog entires created by community members (as long as they have set their view to allow you to see.)

• Profile Pages
  By clicking on a members profile picture you will be taken to their "My Page". Here you'll be able to read all their blog entries (as long as they have set their view to allow you to see.) 

Reasons to Journal or Blog

There are many reasons you might choose to create your own blog. These may include:

• Journalling
   One of the suggestions for the teachers participating in the Online Courses is that they keep a journal of their learning in their personal blogs

• Means for Discussion
   Blogs can be a way of generating discussion around a topic of interest, either with an open or invited audience

• Metacognition and Reflection
  Some teachers choose to use blogs as a kind of "stream of consciousness", a bit of a brain dump, to help them process their learning. 

• Note taking
  Some teachers find it useful to take notes for their online courses as part of their Learning Journal.

Invite A Friend...

...to join our learning community

Please feel free to invite anyone to join our learning community. This is a place for all teachers, school leaders or others in education who are interested in learning about, sharing, and collaborating around the Habits of Mind. Everyone is welcome.

You can invite friends by clicking on the Invite a Friend tab on the main menu. You can even import lists of friends from you address books!

... to be your friend within our learning community

You can invite people from within the Learning Community to be a friend. Friends are simply your personal / professional network. The advantage of making someone your friend is that you can share content such as photo's, blog entries and discussions with only the people on your friends list. You can also send messages to all your friends.

That's the end of our introduction to the Learning Community. There's lot's more you can do when you're more familiar with the environment, but it's not really about the bells and whistles, it's about the people within our Learning Community, the relationships we build and the collaboration that builds new knowledge. 

By joining, you become part of a community; a group of like minded educators, with a similar belief in the power of the Habits of Mind to improve outcomes for young people.

To join, simply click on the post-it note on the right.