Yesterday I went to renew my drivers license and after being away for a year I did not realize that the office had moved. So, a planned, (very short), walk to the renewal office became two, (very long), bus rides across the city of Coquitlam into Port Coquitlam. But this isn’t a post to whine or complain, rather it is to say ‘Thank you’ to the everyday bus-goers of the city I call home. It was at the very first stop that I noticed the start of a trend.

A young lady took the bus only one stop from the station then stood at the back doors to get off. When the bus stopped and the back doors opened she paused and said in a loud voice for the driver at the front to hear, “Thank You!”

On my 4 bus trips I think I heard ‘Thank You’ to the driver at least a dozen times. This got me thinking about the reading and watching of the news I’ve done recently, (something I rarely do except on holidays). Earlier this summer I read about a bus driver that had been attacked by a passenger. I don’t remember the details, it was one of a number of depressing things that I read, forcing me to put the paper down in disgust. Some bus driver in a far-off city gets harassed and it’s news, but wonderful thankful people are never mentioned. They may not be ‘newsworthy’, but I’d like to think that they are ‘blogworthy’!

A couple days ago I watched the late night news and the two headlines on Canadian National news were 1: The high incidents of drowning this year, and 2: A shooting in Connecticut, USA, by a disgruntled beer and wine wholesaler employee. Depressing.

So to end ‘Part 1′ of this post, ‘Thank you’ to the wonderful people of Coquitlam for being so kind and uplifting! I too gave the bus drivers an inspired ‘Thank You’, and my last one was followed by several others as we all departed at the final stop of the run. And a big, ‘No thank you’ to newspaper reporters and newscasters who drivel on and on about all the evil in the world. I’ll stick to blogs and twitter for my information and take a pass on reading and viewing news about countless tragedies and disasters and perhaps, if I’m lucky, one ‘feel good’ report. There is too much good in this world to have you shift my attention away from it.

– Part 2 –

I’m currently reading a book called Disrupting Class, by Clayton M. Christensen, and one of the key messages early on is that schools have done a remarkably good job over the years, but the measurements we use to judge them keep shifting. To use a sporting metaphor, they keep moving the goal posts… with ‘they’ being parents, policy-makers and society in general. The shift to greater and greater standardized testing has compounded this because we are on a shift away from that kind of learning being important, but the goal posts have not shifted away yet. However if you read ‘the news’ then schools are filled with failures on every level. Meanwhile, my news feed is filled with wonderful teachers and amazing projects.

So ‘Thank you’ to all the amazing teachers in my network that I learn from whenever I get online, and ‘No thank you’ to people who complain about ‘the system’ and ‘failing schools’ who don’t actually try to do something about them.

– Part 3 –

I remember watching The Razor’s Edge years ago. Bill Murray plays Larry Darrell a taxi driver ‘in search of himself’ who at one point serves as an ambulance driver in World War II. His partner/co-attendant Piedmont is a sour man that is bitter and unpleasant.

If memory serves me correctly there are also two wonderfully optimistic, volunteer, British ambulance drivers that work with Larry and Piedmont. In a scene, these two happy-go-lucky ambulance attendants have engine trouble as they attempt to bring injured soldiers to safety while under fire. Stalled, the Brits attempt to repair their ambulance while enemy fire pinpoints their stationary location. Bombs get closer and closer until they blow up the ambulance, killing these two men. Larry is distraught and the bitter Piedmont says a few kind words about how nice these two were and then says, to Larry’s disgust, “They will be forgotten.”

Later, Piedmont is killed (I don’t remember how), and in a monologue Larry talks of this unruly, unkind and cantankerous man and then says, “He will be remembered.”

I was still a teenager when I saw this movie but it has a powerful lasting affect on me. I realized then and there that we tend to pay far more attention to people and things that are negative and annoy us than on the things we should be happy and appreciative about. I’d like to think that this is learned and not human nature. We don’t have to focus on the negative, and we are better people when we don’t.

– Epilogue –

So I’ll take heed of lessons learned and avoid the “No Thank You’s” as I bring this post to conclusion.

“Thank You” to the bus-goers of Coquitlam for inspiring this post. Thanks also for reminding me of the valuable lesson Bill Murray taught me so long ago.

“Thank you” to the amazing people in my digital network that inspire and teach me. You make lifelong learning fun!

And, “Thank you” to those that read my blog and to those that take the time to comment. I appreciate the conversation and the encouragement.

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.  ~John E. Southard

Congratulations edublogger, you’ve been duped!

Here is a wonderful badge to put on your website.

Now all you have to do is link back to our website and you get to share this wonderful badge on your blog. That’s right, all it costs is a link to our site where we advertise college degrees or not-so-free ‘free educational resources’.

You see, we are “an organization dedicated to online education and learning technology and would like to recognize the top resources on the Internet that parallel the same goals of promoting the expansion of learning into new and innovative formats.  Your website has shown its commitment to the advancement of education and this award is intended to commend your efforts.”

Translation: We create a fancy award badge, tell you that you are great, then you freely put a link to our blog or website on the sidebar, and thus every page, of your blog. We get free links and an improved Google/search engine ranking and you get a shiny badge.

Thanks for playing along.

Wow – 4 years!

At the time of publishing this: 171 Post (including this one), 627 Comments (since moving my blog to davidtruss.com 2 years ago), 736 RSS Subscribers, and over 28,000 Visits (in my 4th year).

To me the numbers are staggering in that I really started this just for me. But the sharing of my blog is what makes it so special. The real ‘value’ of my blog is something I shared in my post a year ago about my 3rd blogiversary:

My Blog is My PhD (or rather my ‘PhB – Blogtorate’ as I coined it)

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.

Thanks to all of my blog readers and to those that have taken the time to comment, I sincerely mean it when I say ‘thank you for contributing to my learning’! My blog to me is about participatory learning and engaging within my digital neighbourhood and I can’t show enough appreciation for the part you play!

Here is my blog’s year in review. The posts I’ve written and a sentence or two to summarize them. I hope that you will find something that appeals to you to read, to share and/or to comment on.  (Mouse-over the links to find out a bit more about each post.)

———-

A Gr8Tweet-ing Experience: Educators new to twitter, here is a little walk down memory lane… Remember that it takes work and effort to build a meaningful community of friends.

Black and White Education: How many channels of information do our students experience outside of our classes? How many in our classes?

Hargreaves and the 4th Way [Part 2]: Professionals acting responsibly and holding themselves, and others, accountable in the interest of teaching and learning.

The Road Less Traveled: Sometimes you can’t just take baby steps, and you’ve got to commit fully to experience something… I’m leaving my job, my home, and my country.

Collaboration, Contributors and a Comment on Classroom2.0: I think most of these ‘digital natives’ we talk about are very good at connecting to socialize and communicate with their peers, but not to collaborate and learn.

“Chasing the A”: I think that the ‘missing piece’ when it comes to education today, is that it tries to fill us with important things rather than make us feel important and valued… it feeds us content, but doesn’t leave us contented in any meaningful way.

Learning in Louisiana: When introducing ‘new’ tools to teachers what’s the right mix of breadth and depth? How much should we expose teachers to at one time? And how deep should we get with a single tool, a tool that may or may not interest all of the participants?

The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant- On SlideShare: “I can do that without technology” -Actually no you can’t!

The POD’s are Coming! BLC09: This is a story I think all educators need to hear. The question I wonder is, ‘Am I telling it in a way that they will listen?’

A letter to friends: I remember reading once that we, as human beings, have two consistent social difficulties, saying ‘hello’ and saying ‘goodbye’.

Destinations and Dispositions: …Perhaps I might have let persistence cloud my powers of observation, and I could have learned this lesson sooner.

Variable Flow: As I say in my ‘POD’s are Coming’ presentation, ‘Filters filter learning’ and I’m finding the lack of information flow rather challenging to deal with.

Bubble Wrap: I think schools have become a bit too bubble wrapped too. We protect the kids from impending harm, bubble wrapping their learning. However I think sometimes we harm them in our attempt to keep them safe.

Blogs as Learning Spaces: …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.

Openness and Acceptance, Mr Deng and his Allegories of Windows, Flies and Coloured Cats: This marked the first step in China opening many windows and doors to the outside world. Yes, with the fresh air, some flies will follow, but China has become a world economical powerhouse because of it’s choice to ‘open the windows’.

Facebook Revisited: So yes, to answer your question, I do have students as friends on Facebook. Here are my self-designated rules…

Caring across the curriculum: Sometimes I get tired of seeing the school day broken into subject-matter based courses. We don’t teach subjects we teach students, and students of all ages engage in a real life that matters across individual fields of study.

Cassie and Katie have blogs: 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.

moments: How would you define a moment?… I love it when teachers take a resource like this and make it meaningful to the classroom.

My 2009 Edublog Awards Nominations: 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.

Convergence, Cofino and a Connected World: As someone living in Asia now, Kim’s metaphors in Part 1 really hit a chord with me… Kim states,“We have to find ways of more nimbly, realistically and effectively adapting to the new status quo.”

Shifting Education: To the unshifted: Shift or retire… regardless of your age and number of years experience. We have the means to teach differently, now! It doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts today.

Nominations, Appreciation and Inquiry: This year I have been honoured with nominations in two categories for the 6th Annual Edublog Awards… to be placed in categories with bloggers and friends that I both admire and respect is wonderful.

Holiday-Christmas-Concert: We called it our Holiday Concert, but in hindsight it was just a Christmas Concert. It wasn’t intentional, it was unintentional bias, but all of the songs performed were either Christmas songs, or songs that we tend to associate with Christmas.

T’was two nights after Christmas… A story of lost innocence: It was only two nights after Christmas and both kids were tucked away in bed. Then the older of the two came from her bedroom and, doing all that she could to contain her tears, she sat on her mother’s lap…

Broken Presentations and Broken Photocopiers: There were a lot of reasons to roll my eyes and complain. There were a lot reasons to let frustration prevail… and there was an opportunity for me to model for everyone that it really isn’t about the technology.

Augmented Identity: … seeing someone’s Learning Resources and connecting to their Learning Environments… instantaneously… that’s something that can be very exciting for education!

Olympic and Blogging Fever: …as we encourage students to blog and connect online it is important for us to not just encourage but also to support these endeavors! One of the key things that makes blogging an effective learning tool is that it gives students a legitimate audience.

The Trap: 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.”

Google Buzz and George Costanza – Worlds Collide: there is nothing in my Facebook profile that I am ashamed of or that I wouldn’t want others to see, but I talk differently there to my family and friends than I do on other networks. I tend to share my blog everywhere and so that too has a different voice than with other tools in other contexts.

Warning! We Filter Websites at School: If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance…

Teachers as Lead Learners: I think that if a teacher goes into a class believing first and foremost that they are ‘model learners’ and that they will learn with their students, then that teacher will create a meaningful and engaging learning environment for their students.

Product You: It’s nothing new that we are the targets of advertising. And it’s nothing new that advertisers are getting better at targeting us. But…

The Role of a Principal: (You probably won’t find these in a job description, though you should!)

Shifting Learning: Here are 4 trends that education is moving towards: Greater Transparency, greater Responsibility, greater Individualization and greater Permanence.

———-

That’s a year of posts! I hope that you have or that you will find something valuable to your own learning, and as always, I welcome your feedback.

Think good thoughts, say good words, do good deeds.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 – comment – on – student – blogs – 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

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 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!