Learning in the Virtual Community Depends on Changes in Local Communities

This article was particularly interesting to me. I began working for Tulsa Community College in 1996. Somewhere around 1998 I got the opportunity to go and learn more about the Internet, computers, and how to use these tools in the classroom. The center I went to was called the 8^th floor. It was located on the 8^th floor of the administrative offices of Tulsa Community College and Tulsa Technology Center. All of the local colleges and school districts could send x number of teachers per month for training. I am not sure about the names of the two workshops I participated in but one involved basic skills such as PowerPoint, Photoshop, Netscape Composer, and maybe some Word tips. There was also some pedagogical training. The second workshop I went to was more advanced. It might have been called Lead Teacher training. In this workshop you learned more advanced ways to use the Internet to enhance you teaching. All of the participants made a Unit of Practice. We developed a web page for students to access the materials. The page was hosted on the server of the 8^th floor center. The second training was part of a telecommunications grant. After I completed my unit of practice a representative from the 8^th floor came to my classroom and observed me explaining it to my students. It does seem like there may have been an emphasis on sharing content with outsiders. Reading this article made me think back to this experience. I think I was one of the teachers who were targeted to learn new ways to teach. It is very interesting to know that the initial goals and thoughts about teacher training were centered on collaboration. Like the majority of the people in the article I think was an early adopter of technology; I did not jump right into using the internet to collaborate but I did find lots of ways to improve my teaching and empower students to use the Internet to learn. The 8^th floor still exists today. I went on the website and the 8^th Floor now has 39 member schools. I think these schools pay money to support the center. I know the grant expired many years ago. I would like to know more about what grant it was that allowed me to have my initial training that in many ways put in motion my career change to instructional design.