Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

Warning! We Filter Websites at School

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

I’m at a Canadian School in China. At a staff meeting I shared a thoughtful blog post by a student reporter for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. It’s a great post by a student that went and visited ‘Tent City’, built to house the city’s homeless during the Olympics: Olympic Games Side Effects on Vancouver. My Grade 9 teacher asked for the Students Live website and a link to this post. (I mentioned the Students Live bloggers here.)

The Students Live website provides a number of different ways to connect and interact with the Olympic reporter student bloggers. However, we live in China which filters a lot of social software websites and so these were the options that my Grade 9 teacher was confronted with:

Facebook: BLOCKED

Twitter: BLOCKED

YouTube: BLOCKED

Blogspot Blogs: BLOCKED

Flickr: (recently) BLOCKED (again)

I had to use my VPN to bypass the Chinese filter in order to cut and paste the blog post, mentioned above, into an email so that my teacher could read it in his class. A potential global ‘conversation’ reduced to a reading, confined to a classroom. Frustrating!

Now here is the thing… I chose to move to a country where a lot of sites get blocked. I can’t imagine what it’s like for teachers in the ‘free world’ that have their own school districts do this to them!

If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance:

The Trap

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Being the edu-nerd that I am, I often look at parallels between my experiences inside and outside the world of schools and education, (see Bubble Wrap for another example). Now, two-and-a-half weeks into my Thailand & Vietnam holiday, such parallels are jumping out at me, and I think of them as ‘traps’. It seems that everywhere we go on this holiday there are tours being offered and trinkets to buy. The packages and prices are all designed to steer you to the ‘deluxe’ version, “…for just a little bit more, you can also get…”.

Then on the way to your destination the washroom or lunch break also happens to be a great place to buy more trinkets and souvenirs and artwork and…. (insert ‘local’ artisan specialty here). This is also known as a ‘Tourist Trap’- you are committed to the tour, now let’s see how much money we can extract from you while you are here.

One parallel that I see in education is the ‘Textbook Trap’: “Buy our textbook and get the free online supplement! Oh, and by the way, each teacher will want our Teacher’s Guide, and don’t forget the Blackline Masters and the Student Workbook will save your students hours of copy-time so they can focus on the learning. Also, notice how we have designed the books to build upon themselves, you’ll also want to purchase for the next grade too. Of course if you bought more then we can increase your savings to 40%!”

… And there is the trap, you aren’t buying a textbook, you are buying a program. You are ‘investing’ a significant portion of your budget in a fixed ‘paper’ product designed with both features and flaws that become, over time, what teachers ‘deliver’ to students: A fixed/set curriculum, (that is based on, but is not necessarily the mandated curriculum).

That brings us to the next trap, the ‘Curriculum Trap’. I hear curriculum as an anti-technology ‘excuse’ all the time. I won’t even get into the Standardized Testing Trap: “It’s easy to integrate technology into the lower grades, but I have so much content to deliver that I can’t ‘waste time’ with a project like this.”

Instead, I’ll look into another aspect of the ‘Curriculum Trap’… The whole idea of curriculum being ‘fixed’: “After chapter 1 we will do chapter 2, then we get a little crazy and do chapters 4 & 5 before going back to do chapter 3.”

I’ve never seen a curriculum with a requirement of ‘Chapter 3′, and I’ve never seen a textbook that could teach a curriculum better than a creative, imaginative teacher. My kids may not remember what they did on the beach in Ko Phi Phi over a one week span, but they will remember sleeping in a floating hut just a one minute kyak ride away from viewing wild monkeys in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand. They will remember repelling from a 50meter tree after zip-lining from platforms equally as high. And they will remember riding on the neck of an elephant. These events were not part of our planned vacation, they were the side-trips, the unscheduled add-ons that became the memorable moments.

Comparatively, the ‘meaningful’ learning experiences of my education were the side-trips and ‘teachable moments’ that just came up… Discussions about world events and personal interest stories that were meaningful though not mandated or designated as essential.

The opening scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan can exemplify the horrors of war more than any textbook, just as Cry Freedom can teach students the racism of apartheid in South Africa. It’s one thing to talk about Leonardo Da Vinci and still another to watch one of his inventions at work on YouTube, or digitally turn the pages and read one of his notebooks, an opportunity only recently provided to the masses. We have to make time to be side-tracked by things that interest us and make learning memorable.

And one final parallel is the ‘Pro-D Trap’. Professional Development in education has become a fixed-time-and-date ‘event’. There is almost nothing professional about it… Punch-in, do your time, punch-out. The greatest reward a presenter can offer to participants is, “if all goes well then we’ll be out of here an hour early”. Yet, we have entered an era where anytime, anywhere learning is possible. I wrote my last post on a 3.5 hour van ride from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. I’m writing this on the return trip a day later. I’m ‘unplugged’, but I’m thinking, reflecting & learning. I’ll be adding these posts to my blog over the next couple days and hopefully others will comment and contribute to my… perhaps ‘our’… learning.

And yet we somehow try to compartmentalize our ‘professional’ learning into ½ & 1 day sessions and we even divide those up into 45 minute, 1hour and 1.5hour sessions. Often these sessions are not even contextually meaningful: “We’re going to talk about blogging for the next hour, and you’ll know how to sign up for one when we’re done… But we don’t really have any time today to look at, comment, or discuss effective examples of blogs.” Hmmmm.

In the last two Pro-D sessions that I ran, I provided ‘play time’ in the agenda. I also provided choice: “Here are a few different resources that you might find useful. Go to one of them now, ’start’ you learning here, use me as a resource too.”

We need teachers to participate and interact with tools that engage learners and learning. We need them to take their own learning outside of their Pro-D sessions. We need them to try, to participate and to have a safe environment to make mistakes and learn from, and through, the frustrations of their mistakes. We need them to take this ‘real learning’ back to their schools with them and be the lead learners in their schools and in their classrooms.

It’s easy to fall into these traps, it’s harder to recognize them for what they are and step out of them.

Nominations, Appreciation and Inquiry

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

This year I have been honoured with nominations in two categories for the 6th Annual Edublog Awards. I won’t ‘win’, nor do I deserve to, but that really doesn’t matter. I put a lot of time and effort, (and love) into this personal learning space of mine, and to be placed in categories with bloggers and friends that I both admire and respect is wonderful.

Two things come from these awards that I really value: First of all, (hopefully) a bigger audience. My thinking is often challenged by my readers and commenters, and so more readers means a greater personal value to me as a lifelong learner, and an educator who wants to make a difference. Secondly, these awards introduce me to amazing people doing interesting, thoughtful and compelling writing and sharing. I’ll be spending the next few months expanding my network thanks to these awards.

I would like to thank Bryan Jackson for his nomination for Best Individual Blog. Bryan is a fairly new blogger who deserves a bigger audience and could easily have fit into both the best teacher blog and best new blogger categories. Add him as one of your regular reads, you will enjoy his thoughtful, reflective posts.

Best Individual Blog Nominee, 2009 Edublog Awards

I would also like to thank Jan Smith for her nomination for Best Teacher Blog. Being an Administrator, it is such an honour to have a teacher like Jan, (doing amazing work with her student bloggers and someone who belongs firmly in this category herself), include me in this category. In my heart I am and always will be a teacher first and I think there can be no better honour than to be nominated in this category.

Best Teacher Blog Nominee, 2009 Edublog Awards

So, if you are new to my blog, explore some posts and see if you are interested. There are a few popular posts, and some of my favourites highlighted in the right-hand sidebar… and be sure to Subsrcibe if you like what you see!

Also, here are 4 of my favourite categories to check out in the awards. As I said, it will be months before I get to all the reading and learning that these awards serve up to me.

Make a commitment to click on at least one new blog from each category and if you see something you like, don’t just subscribe, take the time to comment and participate in the learning of others. Thanks again to so many of you for taking the time to read and comment on my blog, and for being my teacher and a co-learner.

Most influential blog post

Best new blog

Best teacher blog

Best individual blog

  1. Ann Marie Cunningham’s Tech addiction ‘harms learning’ …..really??? $24.99 and I am no wiser
  2. Anseo.net’s Head in the Clouds
  3. Danah Boyd’s Spectacle at Web2.0 Expo… from my perspective
  4. Dan Maas’s Writing with Laptops
  5. Burcu Akyol’s Spread Your Knowledge series
  6. Bud Hunt’s Would You Please Block?
  7. Dan Myer’s A Fifth Year Teacher’s Creed
  8. Dan Meyer’s What I Would Do With This: Groceries
  9. David Wiley’s A few notes about openness (and a request)
  10. Dean Shareski’s Student and Teacher blogging that succeeds
  11. Doug Johnson’s Where are the others?
  12. Intrepid Flame’s This, This, That
  13. James Clay’s The VLE is Dead – The Movie
  14. Jon’s A Manifesto for EduChange in the Eve of Hacking Education
  15. Joyce Valenca’s My 2.0 day and the response/rant about our cover argument
  16. Joyce Valenza & Doug Johnson Things That Keep Us Up at Night
  17. Liz B. Davis’s 10 Tips for Teaching Technology to Teachers
  18. Marisa Constantinides on  How to become an ELT Teacher Educator
  19. Martin Weller’s Using learning environments as a metaphor for educational change
  20. Michael Fienen’s The Great Keynote Meltdown of 2009
  21. Michael Smith’s Germ X Generation
  22. Scott McCleod’s Calling all bloggers! – Leadership Day 2009
  23. Sean Nash’s The Four Pillars of Technology Integration
  24. Shelly Terrell’s EdChat’s “Join the Conversation”
  25. Stephen Downes’s An Operating System for the Mind
  26. Steve Wheeler’s Another nail in the coffin?
  27. TeachPaperless’s Top Eleven Things All Teachers Must Know About Technology (or I promised Dean Groom I wouldn’t write a top ten list; so this one goes up to eleven.)
  28. Wes Fryer’s Debating the propriety of blanket censorship by school IT departments
  29. Will Richardson’s The Obama Speech
  30. Will Richardson’s Don’t, Don’t, Don’t vs. Do, Do, Do
  1. Agnostic, Maybe
  2. Chris Leach
  3. Classroom Book of the Week
  4. David Cox’s Questions?
  5. Dr Brown’s Blog
  6. East Dragon Den
  7. Edgalaxy
  8. edVisioned.ca
  9. EFT Musings and other Tidbits
  10. I’m A Dreamer
  11. In the pICTure
  12. JonBischke.com
  13. Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
  14. Ken Wilson’s Blog
  15. Kristen Winkler
  16. Learning to Speak ‘Merican
  17. Look At My Happy Rainbow
  18. Marisa Constantinides – TEFL Matters
  19. Mr. Wiemers’ Shop
  20. Ozge Karaoglu’s blog
  21. performance.learning. productivity
  22. Read…Write…Talk
  23. Reality 101: CEC’s Blog for New Teachers
  24. School Food Matters
  25. Sweeney Math
  26. TAGMirror
  27. The Educators’ Royal Treatment
  28. Teaching Village
  29. Teach Paperless
  30. Teacher Reboot Camp
  31. Technology Tidbits
  32. Thinking in Mind
  33. This Week’s Education Humor
  34. The Web 2.0 Optimist
  35. Trails Optional
  36. Webmaths
  37. West Coast Left
  38. Why Did the Chickenman Cross the Road?
  39. Zarcoenglish – Tools of the Day
  1. Always Learning
  2. Andrew B. Watt’s Blog
  3. Blogging About the Web 2.0 Connected Classroom
  4. Blogger in Middle-earth
  5. Blogush
  6. Box Of Tricks
  7. Cool Cat Teacher
  8. Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere
  9. Darcy Moore’s Blog
  10. David Truss: Pair-a-dimes for your thoughts
  11. Division By Zero
  12. dy/dan
  13. edTe.ch
  14. f(t)
  15. iTeach
  16. Langwitches Blog
  17. Learn Me Good
  18. Life Feast
  19. Kelli’s Blog
  20. Mr Robbo – The P.E Geek
  21. Music is Not For Insects
  22. Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher
  23. Nashworld
  24. Philly Teacher
  25. Pissed Off Teacher
  26. Practical Theory
  27. Science Teacher
  28. The Scholastic Scribe
  29. Tip of The Iceberg
  30. Tween Teacher
  31. Two Writing Teachers
  32. Welcome to NCS Tech
  1. 2 Cents Worth
  2. Always Learning Blog
  3. Betchablog
  4. Blogush
  5. Blue Skunk Blog
  6. Dangerously Irrelevant
  7. dy/dan
  8. edte.ch
  9. Education Innovation
  10. elearnspace
  11. Free Technology for Teachers
  12. Ideas and Thoughts
  13. Informal Learning Blog
  14. Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom
  15. Jane’s eLearning Pick of the Day
  16. Joanne Jacobs
  17. Kalinago English
  18. Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch
  19. Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL
  20. Learning Is Messy
  21. Learning Vision
  22. Learning with ‘e’s
  23. Making Change
  24. Moving At The Speed Of Creativity
  25. Open Thinking
  26. Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts
  27. ProfBlog
  28. Scholastic Scribe
  29. Six Things
  30. Social Media in Learning
  31. Stephen Downes OLDaily
  32. Sue Waters Blog
  33. Teacher Reboot Camp
  34. The Ed Techie
  35. The Innovator Educator
  36. The Neverending Search Blog
  37. Weblogg-ed

My 2009 Edublog Awards Nominations

Friday, November 27th, 2009

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 @ShellTerrellShelly 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.

___

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.

Cassie and Katie have blogs!

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Please welcome my daughters, new bloggers Cassie and Katie to the blogosphere.

Cassie has uploaded some photos of our Xi’an trip to tell you a bit about our recent vacation. Katie started her blog with 3 simple introductory sentences and an updated ‘About’ page. I’m not sure how much they will use their blogs yet? My hope is that they will chronicle their adventures here in China, however I don’t plan on making writing on their blog mandatory. They get enough homework here that I don’t want to add anything to their plate that they don’t want to do.

I was waiting for a friend to help me get my daughters set up on a blog. Turns out that my host, Bluehost, makes Wordpress blog integration really, really easy and a quick Google search led me to this blog post with an instructional screencast to help me out.

I’ve added clustermaps and feedjit traffic feed information to their blog sidebars because I think an authentic global audience does a lot to maintain interest in blogging, as does getting comments and feedback. I try to – commentonstudentblogs – regularly because I know how much it is appreciated.

If you have a moment, drop by and say ‘Hi’, or just click on their sites to give them a visit from your part of the globe. Comments are moderated, I’m letting Cassie moderate her own comments via her email address, with more supervision early and less as we go. I’ll be moderating Katie’s comments, showing her as I go. This should be fun!

Drum Tower - Xi'an, China

Drum Tower - Xi'an, China

Blogs as Learning Spaces

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

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

My blog is my PhD

Monday, March 30th, 2009

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 / EdupunkLeaders… 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;

The last year, since moving to DavidTruss.com

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!

Girl Power

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

I’ve always been surrounded by women. I grew up with three sisters, and I have two daughters and a wonderful wife.

Yet when I think of the people that I look up to as heroes and leaders, I inevitably think of men… I was tempted to list some here, but that’s not what this post is about.

The simple fact is that women should rule the world.

I’m not talking about Madonna or Britney Spears, I’m not even talking about Hillary Clinton… I’m talking about down-to-earth, community focused, compassionate women… I’m talking about the force of Yin in a world of Yang… I’m talking about women who lead by example and women who are nurturing and caring.

Two places where I connect to some pretty amazing women are in my Twitter and blogging networks. Tonight I came across a tweet by Claire Thompson about a post by Betty Gilgoff:

Just watched ‘The Girl Effect’ http://snurl.com/8jp4g via @bgilgoff http://snurl.com/8jqed It is well worth a look. 2008-12-16 22:09:02

I met Betty when she invited me to present to a couple of her TLITE groups. Here is the subject of her post:

There has been considerable research done proving that loans, support and education for  women in developing countries has a significantly better impact than when similar services are provided to men. Women are doing amazing things to change our world… and yet I seldom see women being highlighted as true leaders and role models.

So here are a few real educational leaders worth watching, and more specifically reading: (Alphabetically)

Kim Cofino: Her blog says ‘always learning’ but she is ‘always teaching’, and she really gets collaboration!

Liz B. Davis: From her Two for Tuesdays, to her book and presentations, she is always helping others learn.

Vicki Davis: The Cool Cat Teacher leads the way with world-flattening collaborative projects.

Heidi Hass Gable: Parents are educators too, and Heidi is an educational partner, thinker, and leader.

Sue Waters: Like Liz, Sue shares a wealth of knowledge and she is extremely supportive to people in her network.

The wonderful thing about my digital network is that I could easily add another 10 inspirational women to this list… but for now I’d rather leave the list as something manageable to look at and explore. Please take the time to ‘visit’ these wonderful leaders and learn from them. And feel free to share a link to one of your inspirational leaders with me.

Also, ask yourself Who Have You Helped Today, and if you can’t come up with a name, then take Claire’s advice on Betty’s blog post and maybe donate some money for loans through Kiva… when you do so, think about loaning it to a girl!

Edublog Awards Nomination

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

It is indeed an honour to have been nominated for the Edublog Awards in the ‘Best Individual Blog‘ category.

Special thanks goes out to Liz B. Davis for nominating me. There is a reason why Liz showed up ‘in my neighbourhood’ more than anyone alse when I created my Brave New World Wide Web video. She is a true educator who helps to make my digital network incredible!

If you are a regular reader of this blog… thank you! If you are new here, please check out some of my more popular posts linked to in the right-hand sidebar. I appreciate your comments and contributions to my learning.

What I have enjoyed about the Edublog Awards in the past has been the opportunity to be exposed to many amazing bloggers doing wonderful things. I just made a short visit to the 34 other blogs nominated in this category and I’m looking forward to exploring them further!

There are a few familiar faces on this list, like Sue Waters (x2), Kim Cofino, John Connell, Steve Dembo, and the very missed student voice of Arthus. There are also a few more blogs on this list that I’ve visited before, and then a full two-dozen that are new to me… and that is just in the Best Individual Blog category!

There is so much to explore within the 2008 Edublog Awards. Take a little time and check out some of the great resources that have been shared. This isn’t really a competation as much as it is a learning opportunity!

Here are the categories:

1. Best individual blog

2. Best group blog

3. Best new blog

4. Best resource sharing blog

5. Most influential blog post

6. Best teacher blog

7. Best librarian / library blog

8. Best educational tech support blog

9. Best elearning / corporate education blog

10. Best educational use of audio

11. Best educational use of video / visual

12. Best educational wiki

13. Best educational use of a social networking service

14. Best educational use of a virtual world

15. Best class blog

16. Lifetime achievement

Thank you for joining me on my shared, reflective, learning journey!

This, my blog has taught me – Presentation 1, BLC08

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Description: Since keeping a blog I have learned that little lessons can form big ideas, altering what a teacher can and must do. I’ve recently moved my blog, and in doing so, I have reflected on every post along the way. Here is an anecdotal look at a few things my blog has taught me.

Here is the second part of the presentation where I ask participants to join in on the journey or the conversation…

Thanks for being part of my presentation… answers to your one question, thoughts, feedback, and comments are all welcome. If you blog a response, please add a comment with a link below.

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David Truss
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My picks
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Two Wolves Which wolf will you feed? A Remembrance Day Post
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My blog is my PhD I have given myself a Blogtorate of Philosophy.
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Bubble Wrap What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap.
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Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? My (digital) neighbourhood spans the globe.
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