I would like to thank the following people for contributing so much to my learning. I’m only nominating in categories where the impact has been powerful and potent. I’m also going to cheat and add a few ‘honourable mentions’: These may not mean much to the Edublog Awards, but they mean a lot to me, (if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll already know that I follow my own rules that work for me in my own learning space).

My Nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are:

Best individual blog: Stephen’s Web

I actually almost never go to Stephen Downes’ blog, as I read his daily email updates. Since his is the only daily read that I do, and since it leads me all over the web and exposes me to so many other ideas and points of view, I can’t say anyone has had more of an influence on my learning this year.

Best individual tweeter: @courosa

So much of what I end up sharing myself has been introduced to me via Alec Couros. He is integral to my PLN (Personal Learning Network – and – Professional Learning Network).

Honourable mention to: @SueWaters since Sue will always step up and extend a hand to anyone in her network, and @ShellTerrell – Shelly is the Queen of ReTweets, she finds gem after gem and shares them.

Best new blog: Mr. Jackson’s Blogosphere

Bryan Jackson is a wonderfully reflective teacher and he has a fantastic job working with some of the most gifted kids in his district. This gives him a great playground for bouncing around innovative ideas and his reflective nature produces wonderful insight.

Best class blog: Huzzah!

I love this caption from the blog, compliments of teacher Jan Smith: “Please notice our successes, not our mistakes. Our blog is a invitation to see what we are up to. Some of our work will be polished, and some will be in draft form. Please honour our attempts.” Jan makes student blogging a learning experience that it should be, and not just an exercise in doing old things in new ways. Don’t just visit her blog, go to her student blogs and check out what they are doing!

Honourable mention to: Clarence Fisher’s Idea Hive. I’m sure there are other classes doing work as meaningful as Jan and Clarence but in my eyes they are in a league of their own. Like Jan’s students, Clarence’s students deserve a visit and a comment.

Best resource sharing blog: Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day

Yes he is probably nominated already, but his is the resource sharing site I most often end up on.

Most influential blog post: 10 Tips for Teaching Technology to Teachers

Liz B. Davis‘ brilliant post that helps others to lead the way with teachers new to tech. A MUST READ POST!

Honourable mention to: Would You Please Block? My favourite line from this wonderful Bud Hunt post: “Students off task is not a technology problem – it’s a behavior problem.” Be sure to skim the many comments too.

Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion: Blogworthy Tweets

I love the opening sentence by Claudia Ceraso: “These tweets of mine need not be noteworthy, except that I want to make a note of them. To make sure they do not vanish in cyberspace. They deserve a spot in this personal learning scenario.” What strikes me with this post is the realization that some of these less-than-140-character thoughts are deserving of more thoughts and discussion. These are not truly a series of tweets but I have a bias in that it was posts like this by Claudia that got me onto twitter.

Honourable mention to: #EdChat I haven’t been on twitter too much to join in recently, but I peek in occasionally and it is always a rich conversation. This isn’t a blog, but worthy of mentioning.

Best teacher blog: Always Learning

Kim Cofino continues to be my teacher and I’m a big fan of teachers who help other educators. Kim is tireless in her attempts to promote globally connected teachers and students.

Best librarian / library blog: The WebFooted Booklady

Lesley @Bookminder Edwards is going to retire soon, yet she is leading the way for the next generation of teachers. I want to be as inspiring as her when I reach that part of my career. She may be stepping away from schools, but I hope she doesn’t retire from sharing her wisdom online!

Best educational tech support blog: The Edublogger

If you are a blogger, you’ve probably used some advice found here, or shared here first then modeled by others. Sue Waters consistently brings sound blogging advice and direction to readers.

Best elearning / corporate education blog: elearnspace

Sorry, no corporate blog here, George Siemens brings you up to speed on the latest ideas in e-learning. If you don’t know what connectivism is, it’s time to sign up for his weekly email.

Best educational use of audio: Seedlings

Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes and Bob Sprankle not only offer great interviews, they support new teachers on their Ning network too!

Honourable mention to: Bit-by-Bit by Bob Sprankle on his own. He has recorded so many presentations worth listening to!

Best educational wiki: PLN Yourself!

It’s Sue Waters again. This time offering an easy launching point for people who want to expand their Personal Learning Network.

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So there are my nominations. Besides Stephen Downes, who only follows one person, I’m connected to every one of these educators on Twitter and I’d be remiss in not mentioning that. In reality, I have seldom opened my RSS reader this year and so the list above was greatly influenced as a result of my connections to some amazing people on Twitter.

I enjoy the Edublog Awards because they always expose me to blogs and connections that I would not have had otherwise. I don’t believe there is a need for competition amongst edubloggers, but I do believe that highlighting the people you admire is worthy. Thanks again to these wonderful people for their inspiration and for being my teacher… I look forward to learning and sharing more with you.

Sue Waters, a friend who has always stepped up and helped me out with just about every request I have ever made to my PLN, sent me an email a couple nights ago. In it she said:

I’ve been asked by some 4th year preservice students to put together a video on the value of blogging. They had wanted me to answer the questions but I decided that it would be considerably better to get videos from people around the World sharing their thoughts — that way we get more ideas.

If you are able to video yourself answering some or all of these questions that would be excellent.
What are some of the benefits of blogging?
How have you used blogging with your students and how has it helped them?
How do the students feel about blogging?
What are some tips for educators new to blogging? (with using them with their students)

So here is the response she got from me, a Canadian living in China:

This was the first time that I used Camtasia, compliments of Techsmith and Alan November teaming up and providing it to all of the BLC09 presenters. It is a great tool that is easy to use with all the features that a Mac lover like myself would expect. The transitions are a little choppy, but I basically sliced and diced up a Powerpoint presentation, ‘This my blog has taught me“, and then recorded my screen as I spoke. The whole process took just over a couple hours and it was a lot of fun to be doing a project like this again, after creating my POD’s are Coming presentation this summer.

I noticed as I watched this and listened to myself that the idea of a blog being a ‘learning space’ came up both when talking about my own blog and when I spoke of the classroom and what technology could do to expand the classroom space. I think that our idea of where learning happens has made a fundamental shift from book knowledge of the last century to anywhere/anytime information access of today. It is exciting to see classrooms make this shift too. Last night I commented on a blog post by a student of Clarence Fisher’s, in Snow Lake Manitoba, Canada. In a way you could say that I visited Clarance’s class. We live in an amazingly connected world and I love that sharing and learning has become so global.

I’d love to see others share their blogging story, and if you do, share them with me and Sue too!

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(Youtube version)
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Credits: I mention Alec Couros’  ‘Thinning Walls’ in the video and I use the following images which I credited, but not very clearly:

• Head Inside: Brain Wash by ArtWerk / Yanko on flickr
• we need more of it. By wei never sleeps / Wei on flickr
• The World through your eyes By The eclectic Oneironaut / Rubén Pérez on flickr

Dear friend,

I remember reading once that we, as human beings, have two consistent social difficulties, saying ‘hello’ and saying ‘goodbye’. Not in the general sense, but rather in getting to know someone and also in finding closure. This is easy enough to see with children getting to know one another. In the course of 3 hours two kids can meet, act shy and uninterested in each other, begin a conversation, start playing together and then on saying goodbye, feel like they are being torn from their best friend, before they even know each other’s last name. ‘Hello’s’ and ‘Goodbye’s’ can be difficult, and they can also provide us with new opportunities.
I’m writing this on a plane heading to Japan. My family will spend tonight in Narita (actually tomorrow night as we are not over the international date line yet), and then Sunday we are off to Dalian China where we plan to live for the next three years.  We made the decision to move in late April and so there has been a whirlwind of activity to get us here, and (finally) on our way. As a result we had to go through many ‘goodbye’s’ in the past week.

But ‘goodbye’ has a really different meaning in this day and age.

60 years ago ‘heading to China’, (more specifically for back then, Hong Kong), would have probably meant a boat trip and reconnecting with friends would have meant slow correspondence through posting letters that would take weeks to arrive back in North America.

Just over 30 years ago, when I was 10, my grandparents went with an Aunt and Uncle on a tour of Europe and Asia. Back then, a long distance phone call was quite expensive. So, Uncle Mike worked out a system to report back to us that ‘all was well’ for free. He would say he was my grandfather Leon, and call home collect asking for himself. When we got the call, we would reply, “I’m sorry, but he isn’t here” and the operator would hang up. Before hanging up, the operator would say, “I have a collect call from a Mr. Leon Burnstein for a Mr. Mike Woo from Tokyo Japan.” Thus we would be informed of their location and know that ‘all is well’.  A few times on the trip they requested to speak with us and we accepted the call, but numerous times we used this little strategy to get free trip progress reports. [Sneaky, and effective… I have a whole other post in my head about how students today can also be sneaky and effective and we should be rewarding them for this].

From avoiding costly collect calls 30 years ago, we move to the free flow of information today. Elaan Bauder is now coming home from a trip she took to Europe and the Middle East. My wife and I had almost daily email reports whereby she gave us a wonderful description of her journey. This included a voice memo from Egypt, (or some would say podcast). We shared in much of her adventure.

So essentially we are not saying ‘goodbye’ like we would have had to on a similar trip years ago. With Google Chat, iChat, Skype, Twitter and even Facebook (when they aren’t blocked), we are connected in ways we never used to be. As Bryan Jackson said in a post about my POD’s presentation, I’m “moving halfway around the world (while essentially residing in the same place).” To many people I’m a blogger here on Pairadimes, or datruss on networks like Twitter and Diigo… Places I will continue to ‘reside in’ regardless of my geographical location. A quote by Marcie T. Hull has stuck with me for a while now, “Access to the Internet has changed our very concept of geography; it becomes almost an idea like time. It has a construct but all the miles melt away when you are on the web communicating synchronously and asynchronously.”

And yet we did have some very difficult face-to-face ‘goodbye’s’ to go through this past week. But as hard as these ‘goodbye’s’ were, they were also very therapeutic for me. You see this trip has taught me a valuable lesson… I don’t make enough times for my friends and family. Why? Because I let ‘life’ get in the way.

As I head on a new adventure, I’m ready to share that adventure in a new way. I’m not going to leave my friends and family behind, and in fact I’m going to make a concerted effort to reconnect in ways that I didn’t make the effort to do when my friends were in my geographical ‘neighbourhood’!

I’ve already started. I seized an opportunity to meet with Alec Couros and Jen D. Jones since they were in town for OpenEd09. I couldn’t join them in the conference, but as I scrambled to leave, my good friend Heidi Gable helped to coordinate the dinner meeting. In meeting them, I had the opportunity to also meet a number of great educators as well. Previously digital friends that I have now met face-to-face… connections new and yet old to foster further!

I got an email from my sister, Sharon, who lives in Toronto, today while we were in the airport. Our correspondence went like this:

From Sharon
Hi All,
You are probably in flight right now… I just wanted to wish you all the very best on the “Truss Big Chinese Adventure”.
Love to the kids… hope it is a smooth adjustment for them.
Keep in touch… send lots of pix.
Luv Shar.

From Me
5 min. from boarding to Japan. Love to all,
funny but we will probably make more of an effort to stay in touch now, so in a way we are moving closer! ;-P

From Sharon
Love u… always glass half full!!

I have two important personal goals to work on in making this move. I need to work on my ‘hello’s’ as there are many wonderful people I’m going to meet in China- new friendships to discover and nurture.  And also, there are some great friends I must reconnect with and stay connected with as I move forward. My glass is getting ‘fuller’ by the minute, and I feel fortunate for the possibilities that good friendships bring! Perhaps I am simply avoiding the hardships of saying goodbye, but in this day and age, I don’t think geographical distance is a reason to say goodbye.

If you are reading this, dear friend, keep in touch.
Dave.

“I can do that without technology” -Actually no you can’t!

Here is the Slideshare.

This was the presentation I first created for BLC08, and I wrote about it here.

I’ve finally edited it for the web… a tedious task as I tend to use a lot of slide transitions that do not convert well to individual slides. I shared a few presentation notes on this Slideshare, but not too much. This is a great feature I’ll probably use more in the future.

Here again is the Ustream: This version was done for student teachers at Simon Fraser University. As a video, it has a slow start with student teachers discussing a statement, and sharing ideas until about the 13 minute mark. Also, the slides in this video won’t match perfectly to the Slideshare above as I had to explain some of the slides for the stand-alone slide show, but it would be easy to connect the two presentations.

I’ll be using some of this presentation as the intro to one of my BLC09 presentations:

The P.O.D.s are coming!

What are PODS? They are Personally Owned Devices, and they are already infiltrating our schools. For now they get tucked away in lockers and backpacks, but as the saying goes, “If there is an elephant in the room, introduce it!” Students are bringing small machines with huge potential into our schools. It is time to introduce these tools into our classrooms and also to make sure that we have the knowledge and the infrastructure to use them to their fullest potential.

And I’ll probably link to this post in my PODs presentation. I first discussed PODs here.

It’s nice to finally be able to share this presentation and as always, I’m offering it with a CC license:

Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated.

My Learning

Yesterday marked 3 years of being a blogger. What a wonderful journey it has been!

I may be over exaggerating when saying my blog is my Phd, after all people like Stephen Downes have done this much work and still don’t have one. Furthermore, the focus and intent of my writing has been far from such a standard, and sure to be rejected as a dissertation… BUT…

I know a few people that have a PhD and they have all shared comments like, “I’m never going to school again!”, and “What a painful experience”, and “I’m sooo glad that’s over!”, and even “I’m Done with learning!”

Meanwhile, I’ve never been so excited about learning. and I’m far from done, I’m continuing my journey and 3 years of ‘work’, of reflective learning, has done nothing but broaden my horizons and make me excited about what’s to come.

Personalized Recognition

So for the fun of it, I’ve personalized my journey with a PhB: A Blogtorate of Philosophy.

So what’s this worth? Personally it means the world to me, I wouldn’t trade my blogging/learning experience for any other, but what would this document get me in the ‘real’ world? We are now throwing (very deserving) accolades to DIY / Edupunk – Leaders… yet we don’t really ‘credit’ them in a quantifiable way.

Accreditation

So how do we credit all this very real, very meaningful learning? How do we credential-ize the learning that people are sharing online… Things happening outside of classrooms and credits and courses? Who does the next big company want to hire, the Harvard Graduate or one of these ‘candidates’?

What is my blog worth in the world of academia?

Does it really matter that what I’ve done hasn’t been for marks? What’s the big deal if this ‘work’ isn’t counted toward some (archaic) institution?

After all, it has been shared with colleagues around the world;

It has been peer reviewed, and quoted, commented on, and even presented… furthermore, it has an extensive bibliography.

Does this count for anything? Should it?

The real value…

This blog has provided me with an opportunity to share my learning, and more than anything else it has challenged me to be accountable in a way that no other professional development ever has. It has reminded me that I love to learn and it is part of a learning process that I truly love. My blog may not get me any more letters after my name but more than anything else, it has set me on a journey I’m going to continue, not for some external reward, but rather for the intrinsic value and for the love of learning.

Appreciation

And now having said all this, I’d like to thank you!

Thanks for being a part of my Personal Learning Network; Thanks for joining me on this journey; And/or thank you for contributing to my learning!

I’ve been tagged by 3 people, Liz, Alec, and Heidi, to participate in the “7 things you didn’t know about me” meme. Well, here it is… sort of…

1. I’ll start with a confession: I hate memes! As I openly admitted here, I was never really good at doing ‘assignments’ and this blog has never felt like that to me. I’ve thought about this post for days and couldn’t get my butt in front of the computer to write it because it felt contrived. Even when I last wrote a meme I sort of cheated and just printed something I’d already written, (my grandfather’s eulogy to be specific). So, the fact is that you won’t see me write too many of these. -Glad that’s out of the way!

2. I have bouts of insomnia. I’ll be fine for three to six months then I get hit with it. I’ll live off of 3-4 hours sleep for 5 or 6 days, then catch up with a 6 or 7 hour night, and then go another 5-6 days on less than 4 hours sleep. Even when insomnia isn’t hitting me I tend to need very little sleep. I slept in this morning and tonight, if all goes as planned, I will probably get 3hrs sleep. When people tell me, “You are killing yourself”, I usually respond with, ‘I might die younger than you, but I’ll be awake longer than you were.’ Oh and for no rhyme or reason sometimes I can drink coffee and then go right to bed, sometimes it wires me awake for hours, and the same holds true for medicines that are supposed to cause drowsiness.

3. I am not Tech Savvy! If I had a pair of dimes for every time someone said, ‘Dave, you are good with computers, can you help me with this…” then I could retire early. I’ll explain this with a tangent example: The fact is that I happen to be a very good driver. Put me behind the wheel of a car, even in a snow storm, and I’ll get you to your destination safely. However, don’t ask me to do anything more to the car than put gas or windshield washer fluid in it… maybe check the tire pressure… that’s it! Give me a working computer and I can do pretty good there too! Not because I’m savvy though… just because I spend hours trying things… see #2 above.

4. I’ve never owned a car. Both cars we currently have are in my wife’s name.

5. I’m am inventor. I commuted on my bicycle when I first moved to BC and I designed my own commuter bag. It was the first time I’d ever had something made that I designed and other than being a bit too small it turned out great!

From ‘03 to ‘05 I dedicated thousands of hours and created a patent for bicycle locks that connect together. At over 140 pages, 90 or so drawings (many requiring pixel-by-pixel adjustments), not to mention about $15,000, this was a huge undertaking! I flew to Boston to pitch my idea and a patent specialist at Kryptonite Locks liked it… But I pitched it to them just after this happened… their money was a bit tied up to be toying with a specialty lock. I also pitched it in my own back yard at Norco Bikes. They wanted it, but could not convince their foreign lock-maker to make it for them… a long story and moot after The World Patent Office rejected my international patent request because they thought my idea wasn’t ‘novel’ enough. This, despite two industry specialists liking it and finding it novel! I decided not to fight it and throw good money after bad, but I’m really proud of taking this as far as I did.

My ideas mostly come during my bouts of insomnia, when my mind won’t rest. I remember seeing Phenomena with John Travolta and in it there is a scene where he describes random ideas flooding his brain, like shortening the mailman’s route pattern and changing the layout of a parking lot to fit more cars. I really connect to what that feels like. I’ve fully developed ideas in my head for bike lights, an alarm clock and bed sheets… who in their right mind tries to revolutionize the design of bed sheets?

6. I was a Treasure Hunter! Some of my closest friends don’t know this… they thought I was doing ‘mineral exploration’… (this wasn’t really a lie). We never found any treasures, but we found some very interesting holes in some very remote places. Basically we always got there too late!

My adventures included: Nights under remote skies where Magellanic Clouds could be seen with my naked eye; Fishing in waist high water, catching barracuda and tying them to a rope attached to my leg -later on that evening called ‘bait’, when I found out that I was in shark-infested waters; An out-of-body experience, alone on spit facing the Atlantic Ocean with a storm passing by; Hiking a desert mountain only to be hailed on in a freak lightning storm- we had no choice but to take shelter under a tree to avoid welts from the marble sized hail… 20 minutes later we were sweating in blistering heat; Suffering from ‘mask squeeze’ on a 75 foot wall dive (my first dive ever)-I was relieving my ear pressure, but not the pressure in my mask and I ended up with the whites of my eyes almost completely red. Being bitten by over 30 wasps in a cave on a tropical island; Not being bitten by a 4 foot rattle snake I almost walked right into near the Superstitious Mountains; Dragging a boat for over an hour through methane-rich muck because low tide prevented us from lowering the motor; Spending 24,000 kilometers in a Jeep Cherokee in one summer… that’s 10 full days calculated at an unrealistic 100km/hr average; Thousands of false beeps on metal detectors and ground-probing radar; Too many holes dug; Watching the tide change in the Bay of Fundy; Horizon-less fog; Mesmerizing dust devils; Unbelievable hikes; Incredible sunsets; And fond memories to last a lifetime.

7. You didn’t really expect me to follow the rules did you? I’m done. And since I don’t like doing these, I won’t pass this on to anyone. If I’ve inspired you to share, leave a comment with a link and I’ll add my own link below this to give you some link-love.

After reading The Fourth Way article in Educational Leadership/October 2008, by Andrew Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley, I’ve been trying to apply personal meaning to this new way. The 4th Way has five Pillars of Purpose, three Principals of Professionalism and four Catalysts of Coherence. But I think The 4th way rests firmly on just one pillar!

“An inspiring and inclusive vision that draws people together in pursuit of an uplifting common purpose.”

Beyond that the other pillars involve Collaboration in order to achieve the vision and common purpose being pursued. The Principals of Professionalism come from having Learning Conversations, or from Collaborators involved in an Active Learning network. And finally we need *accountability Responsibility to ensure the changes that we make are meaningful. I specifically avoided the term ‘assessment’, as that term suggests measuring things in ways that may not necessarily measure what we would consider progress. No ’standardization’ as Hargreaves suggests! Hargreaves’ Catalysts of Coherence are embedded throughout the pyramid.

We need a common vision of what we are in this for… Why schools are important? And how are they of value to our society and to our students? We need to be collaborating more effectively.

In doing so, we need to meaningfully connect Community, Educators, Students and Schools. We need to harness the strength of networks and learning communities and, equally as important, we have to create the time for these communities to meet as part of an educator’s (and student’s) day/week.

We need to be reflective learners, *accountable responsible to our communities that we share our learning with. Principles of Professionalism and Catalysts of Coherence will help us get ‘there’… but we need to collaborate and figure out where ‘there’ is first.

Maureen Dockendorf spoke of:

Not the Knowing, but the Process of Inquiry. Not covering the curriculum, but ‘uncovering’ the curriculum. A focus in innovation and creativity… how do we model this… every day?

We model this by creating meaningful learning communities based on professional inquiry and by giving those learning communities the time and resources to make things happen.

*See update below.

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Inspirational reading and viewing:

School Reform in 5 minutes by Chris Lehmann. Also see his What I want to talk about post.

What business are we in? by Clarence Fisher.

If “It’s not about the technology.” Then What is it About? by Heidi Gable.

Letting Go by Alec Couros

21st Century Pedagogy by Greg Whitby on YouTube

Raising Expectations by Kelly Christopherson

We are ready for The 4th Way!

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*UPDATE: November 2nd, 2008

I originally had “Accountability” in the top arrow, but a colleague suggested that I change it to “Responsibility” in keeping with Hargreaves’ idea of “Responsibility before Accountability”.

In a letter to my Superintendent, Tom Grant, Andy Hargreaves suggested that “Teaching and Learning” be at the top of the Pyramid. He said, “ We would put teaching and learning at the top, though and reflection all around it, probably.” I may change this yet again when I get an understanding of how to represent ‘all around it’ visually. Hargreaves also said to Tom, “It’s great that you are the first in to the fourth way, and in your own way which is entirely as it should be.” This truly is an exciting time for us!

*Update: April 28th, 2009 See my new post: [Part 2]

I grew up watching Sesame Street and singing along to ‘Who are the people in your neighbourhood‘.

Well the concept of neighbourhood has really changed for me. I showed this movie in Powerpoint format at one of my presentations at BLC08 this summer. Afterwards, I think it was one of 3 people, (Liz Davis, Laura Deisley, or Maria Knee), that asked me how many people from my network did I think were in the presentation? I had no idea? Tonight I thought I’d start the search.

See the video on this blip.tv link or click below for it to open in a new window.

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Click to play in this window

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So, here are some of the people that are in my digital neighbourhood, that as a result found their way into this video. (In order of appearance). (Networked teacher images)• Alec Couros | (Blog Comments)• Liz Davis •Wesley Fryer | (Twirl/Twitter) • Martin Pluss •Konrad Glogowski •Sue [Sujokat] • Helen Otway • Melanie Hughes | (Plurk)• SMeech •Liz Davis •GingerTPLC •Jeff McCord | (Del.icio.us bookmarks) •Kim Cofino • Angela Maiers •Chris Lehmann • Jen [injenuity] • Ken Allan | (Google Reader Friend’s shared items) •Darren Draper •Dean Shareski •Lisa Durff •Liz Davis •Susan C Morgan •Kris Bradburn | (Google Documents) •Alan November •Kris Bradburn | (Connect and Protect) •Dave Sands | (Connecting from suburbs) •Kim Cofino • Derrall Garrison •Darren Draper | (Well rounded teacher images) • Jeff Utecht | (The competition) •Lisa Durff | (Blogging) • Arthus •Kris Bradburn | (Wikis) • Clay Burell • Vicki Davis • Julie Lindsay

That’s 30 people, some appearing more than once. Other than intentionally using items from Alec and Jeff, each one of these ’sightings’ are incidental… but significant. Beyond these connections I also have Jabiz Raisdana, Dave Matheson (one of just 3 local connections from my district), Sue Waters, Karen Janowski, and Claudia Ceraso commenting on my post introducing the video.

Claudia didn’t just comment on my post, she wrote a response post that has challenged my thinking. When I’m done here I’m going to her blog to respond… to continue the conversation, and the learning. Claudia may live and work in Argentina, but she has influence over me. Geography and physical proximity no longer matter. (Case-in-point: Sue’s comment offers me advice from Austrialia.)

My digital neighbourhood spans the globe! But this is more than an issue of geography, it is also about influence and significance. Some of these connections are ‘loose’, like the local bus driver on Sesame Street, but others have greater meaning to me.

I may never meet some of these people, but they are my teachers, mentors and friends. This is my network, not my neighbourhood… and networks are fundamentally different than groups/(neighbours). It truly is a brave new world-wide-web, and if we aren’t engaging in the opportunities it provides us then we are missing out… and the same could be said for our students.

Confession #1: I had planned on calling this post, “Edupunk or edubunk?”

That was before reading this simple, but very powerful post by Jen D. Jones. Now I need to change my approach. My main point sits under Confession #3 below.

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Confession #2: I am not an edupunk… I’ve always been too much of an edunerd to qualify.

That said, I’ve always sat ‘outside the box’ looking in. I’ve always felt like a square peg in a round hole. I’m an ‘A’ student who went through my first university degree with a ‘C+’ average. I handed almost everything in late (and almost always with no marks off)¹. I ignored criteria and wrote what I wanted. Sometimes this was rewarded, most times it was punished. When I was disinterested in an assignment I walked a fine, and I might add brilliant, line next to what would be considered plagiarism, it was a great strategy that got me through the mundaneness of many useless assignments. I crammed for exams, and I’d stay awake for 3 days (usually after the due date) writing an essay. I’d go into the library and end up half an isle away from the resources I needed, reading something ‘unnecessary’… my pre-FireFox tabbing.

On my transcript there is a ‘A’ that I got in a course where I didn’t do an assignment worth 25% of my mark (do the math) and there is also a mark of ‘Zero’ for another course. I appealed the ‘Zero’ and then refused to follow the terms of the accepted appeal. I felt the Appeal Board was scolding me with terms I specifically said would make the timeline for completion difficult for me. I punished myself by refusing to meet their requirements on principle… the irony is not lost on me here.

I spoke up and I spoke out- I never bit my tongue in class. I worked my butt off in a warehouse the summer before university and decided that I was going to get my money’s worth while at school. It always amazed me when I’d ask an obvious question or ask for an explanation because “I’m lost”, and students would thank me after class… “I was so lost too, thanks for asking”… Why didn’t they speak up? What were they afraid of?

It didn’t matter if I was in a class of 20 or an auditorium of 200, the professor knew my name by the second or third class… sometimes this was to mutual benefit and sometimes purely my own… but I was not intentionally disruptive and I certainly never ’sucked up’ though I often had to endure the stares of Marshmallows² who thought I was sucking up… I didn’t care.

My favourite learning experience in school was not from a course. I had a Wednesday night class in the second term of my first year, and after the first class I was invited to join a few people for coffee. (As I tell this I have to chuckle at the fact that I have no recollection of what the Wednesday night course was.) We were a motley crew that spent the next 12 Wednesday nights discussing Religion and the Meaning of Life over a cup of java. Present at these coffee-shop-talks were a third-year student who was Atheist, his second-year devout Catholic girlfriend, a 35 year old ex-Hare Krishna of 14 years who served as their head chef for nine of those years, and then there was me. My values and beliefs were challenged beyond any classroom ever challenged me. We had our own Socrates Cafe where Big Questions were asked and we all took turns trying to answer them.

As for classes, well I excelled at classes such as the one on Educational Leadership where the The Tao of Leadership was the text, and topics of study included holistic learning. Meanwhile, I floundered in courses like Environmental Geography where I was lectured to from class beginning to bitter end. I have a box somewhere in my garage with some impressive doodles created in that class.

I remember taking a Philosophy course on Plato in my first year. Whenever I made a point contrary to my professor, or asked him a challenging question, he would respond with, “Well I think Plato would say…”
So, I was no longer disagreeing with him or questioning his ideas, but rather Plato’s instead! I lost all respect for him after he marked a paper with a comment that went something like this:

Very well thought out,
excellent arguments,
too short! C+

I knew the word count quota, but felt I’d said all that I needed to³. So I guess that if I had added about 150 more words of fluff, then and only then would I have earned an ‘A’ or at least a ‘B’ on this philosophy paper? To my Plato-Wanna-Be professor I was no Aristotle. By the end of the term he hated me… that was another fine line that I walked!

My dissent towards criteria was even evident with my Master’s Terminal Paper, (that I finished just two years ago), which is now used as my advisor’s example of what not to do (…of going too far, and being too long). At one point she asked me to shorten my paper so I edited one paragraph by about two sentences and then widened my margins.

So, am I an edupunk? To me, the answer is still ‘No’. I’m not a rebel, I didn’t buck the system. I was just a stubborn learner who let my surrounding environment determine when and if I chose to learn… not a lone wolf as much as a disgruntled sheep. The truth hurts, but I’m a big boy now and I can take it.

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Confession #3: I don’t like the term Edupunk

Stephen Downes loves the term. Alec finds Meaning and Identity:

…I am going to take Jen’s advice seriously when she says about edupunk “Don’t dissect the metaphor“. Edupunk, if nothing more, has got many people talking, exploring their beliefs around education, and in some cases, reminiscing of day’s long past. The educational community is much too diverse, as it should be, for anyone to cling on to one single metaphor for meaning.

Well, it certainly got me reminiscing, so what’s wrong with the term?

These are not Edupunks, they are Educational Leaders! The reality is that anti-establishment, Do-It-Yourself, transformative, collaborative, networked teachers doing new things, in new ways, in new wall-less, time-zone-less, textbook-less, standardized-test-less classrooms are paving the way for a new kind of schooling. I’ll say this again in a different way:

These are not Edupunks, they are Educational Leaders! They are our role models paving a new path to a more meaningful educational experience in our schools. They may be on the fringe, but they are also at the forefront. They are leading the way.

When I went to ContinUO we read Surfing the Edge of Chaos. Here we can find the appeal of Edupunks, but we can see that in reality we are speaking of our new Leaders.

“The fringes are the source of most truly innovative ideas in cultures, economies and organizations.”

But a problem arises in,

“…recognizing when the fringe has created something so important that it no longer deserves to be fringe.” (Alex Trisoglio, pg.31)

Our so-called Edupunks are figuring out a new path as they go… this isn’t about rogues, it is about adult learners who are trailblazing without a map.

“As a general rule, adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.” (pg. 14)

Also in the book, Monsanto’s CEO Robert Shapiro speaks of Foresight (seeing ahead), Insight (seeing deeply), Speed, and Courage (pgs. 82-85). These are all things that I see in the educators being called Edupunks.

Let’s not put our leaders into fringe categories. Let’s recognize them as the trailblazers they are. They are Surfing the Edge of Chaos (or should I say educhaos)… and what they really deserve is our appreciation, thanks, and respect.

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Footnotes: As a teacher…

I guess you could say that at times I too have ‘acted my way into a new way of thinking’. My actions as a learner influenced my actions as a teacher, as these footnotes suggest.

¹ As a teacher, I don’t take any marks off for something coming in late. It is my job to make sure that students demonstrate their learning and meet the learning outcomes during the year. All time lines within the year are arbitrary (and usually teacher determined) and not a requirement worthy of penalty. Exceptions may be made where either Personal Planning or Goal Setting are part of the outcomes.

² As a teacher, I am very vocal about students needing to speak up and ask questions. “Don’t be a Marshmallow!” was a saying that I took from my Grade 10 English teacher Mr. La Point who used it to symbolize placid students sitting in his class and choosing not to speak up. At first being called Marshmallows in my class was funny, but soon students would catch on that they were not meeting expectations when they were being Marshmallows!

³ As a teacher my response to ‘how long does this assignment need to be?’ has always been, “It needs to be as long as it needs to be.” Students hate this answer, but after a while they get it. In a nutshell: I’ve read three brilliant sentences that have said more than three long-winded paragraphs.