Introduction

Community. What exactly is a community? It's one of those feel-good, warm fuzzy words that is frequently thrown around and we all want to be a part of, yet it is difficult to come up with a thorough definition of the word.  The truth is, the definition of community is subjective and varies for each person based on his/her own experience's in a community.  For me, a community is a group of people that share similar interests, identities, beliefs, location, or organizations, that are striving toward a common goal.  Within a particular community there are rules and regulations in place to benefit the community and its inhabitants.

I think about my 7th grade math classroom.  I would like to think I have, with the help of my students, developed a community of students who enjoy and see the value in math class.  Within my particular math classroom community there are a wide array of personalities, diverse needs, ideas, attitudes, positive aspects, negative aspects, and one of the biggest things I try to teach my students is respect.  Respect is one of those rules and regulations in place in my classroom to foster a classroom environment that students feel safe in and want to participate in.  One of the reasons I pursued a career in education was to have a job that never gets monotonous and is different every day.  With my community of students and colleagues, I have found just that.  Every day is different and each day we learn something new from each other.

Within my Doodles cohort community I continue to learn ways to improve my pedagogy to most effectively teach children of the 21st century.  Our Doodles community is an example of a community of practice, or a community of people sharing a passion for something (teaching) and we learning to make it better through the courses and coursework of the Doodles program.

Join me on my journey as I embark into "The Fellowship of the Pickle" community.  Within this community I expect to learn how to better create an online learning community as I take on the role of the student.  I plan to use my experience as a student of this course to help my students be better community participants.  Taking on the role of the "e-student" gives me a chance to understand some of their frustrations, as well as things they might enjoy within an online community.  On this blog I will share my experiences and learnings from the course.

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