Over recent weeks I have been considering the phenomenon of professional learning communities as a major theme for the Masters unit I'm currently undertaking. I have been considering the readings for this unit in the context of the community that has built up around the Webcast Academy, and more recently Education Bridges.

The following quote from Haberman (2004, p.52), raises some questions to reflect on with regard to the Academy:

'A group is a learning community when members share a common vision that learning is the primary purpose for their association and the ultimate value to preserve in their worplace and that learning outcomes are the primary criteria for evaluating the success of their work.'

• What is the common vision of members of the Academy community?
• What are the learning outcomes that are the basis for evaluating the success of work undertaken in the Academy?
• How do we evaluate the success of the Academy's work?
• What personal motivations do individual community members have for being involved?

Some of these questions are answered through the way that the webcasting training and requirements have been structured to date. However, I would be interested to get some responses to these questions from members of the Webcast Academy community.

Haberman, M. (2004). Can star teachers create learning communities? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 52-56. Taxonomy upgrade extras: * Webcast_academy * online learning community