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 had the opportunity to join a team from November Learning last week in Louisiana. Our fearless leader Jim Wenzloff, with GPS in hand, brought together Seth Bowers, Lainie Rowell, Howie DeBlasi and I, and set us up to present the world of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting, PLN’s and other Web2.0 tools to groups of teachers divided up by grade groupings.

The teachers were great! Their school year just ended and there they were all ready to continue their learning, challenging themselves in a way that, for many of them, was still fairly new and very challenging.

I had the honour of working with the Red Team.

Megan, a teacher in my group, wrote this on a VoiceThread:

“One of the challenges I face  is mastering one piece of technology before a newer one is introduced. I feel as though as soon as I become comfortable with one method of technology, I am asked to learn another and incorporate it into my teaching.”

This really coincided with something that Elaan Bauder wrote as a guest blogger here on Pairadimes. Elaan ends the post:

There is amazing & inspiring work going on around the world, in your own country and in your own district. It is important to not only make it accessible, but also realistic and digestible for teachers. When we support growth amongst ourselves as professionals, we are better prepared to nurture growth for our students – because after all, we are all students in this journey together!

There was a lot of learning that went on in Louisiana, but just as in my 2 Point Oh Yeah presentation, the learning created more questions than answers… at least for me.

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?

How do we differentiate instruction for our learners?

What kind of incremental successes should we build in? (For example, I wanted all of my participants to contribute to the VoiceThread, and to edit and practice working on our wiki).

How important is the process?

Perhaps it is just me, but I wonder sometimes if we don’t drown people with our good intentions? We send wave after wave of information ‘at’ them hoping something floats. This doesn’t work with our students, what makes us think it will work for adults?

Don’t get me wrong, I think there was an incredible amount of learning that went on. In talking to teachers it seemed that they were genuinely excited about what they learned. The goal for this training was that every teacher would take one thing back to their classrooms and to their schools to share… my sense was that the teachers we worked with were excited about doing this!

My questions are about my own practice and my own learning. How can I be more effective and have greater influence when introducing learning tools?

Or is it really the tools that even matter?

In my presentation on Thursday morning to the whole group, I spent a bit of time talking about how as adults we let fear hold us back. Perhaps this is where we need to spend more time. Carolyn Foote talks about having a Beginner’s Mind:

Teachers are often accustomed to being considered the “expert mind,” so it is not just that we are asking teachers to see the uses of a particular tool in the classroom–what we are really asking is for is an entire paradigm shift–for teachers to approach their classrooms with a beginner’s mind, a child’s mind.

I’m trying to bring that beginner’s mind to what I do as a presenter. What can I tinker with and try in order to help teachers play and learn more meaningfully?

Another thing that I’m still trying to figure out is how to effectively ’show’ teachers the value of a PLN?

As Miguel Guhlin says here:

If you fail to connect to the network of learners, you miss out on a global conversation about what you are passionate about. And missing out is a darn shame because it can save you time, energy, and increase your reach, no matter how brilliant (or not) you are. That’s a powerful idea. Smart people get smarter because they have access to the network of learners. People who are just starting out are able to learn as fast as they can to accomplish what they need to do.

Something interesting happened at the dinner table with our team on Tuesday night, (we were joined by Thomas Daccord and Brian Mull who were working locally with another group). The waiter asked, “Where Y’all from?” And we had to go one-by-one around the table naming different cities across North America, and yet we were there as a team. And now miles away from them, I am hyper-linking to them and inviting them, and inviting you,  to help me look at my own growth and learning. This sharing, linking and conversing is hard to quantify to someone who doesn’t live it.

How do you explain that a simple request on Twitter leads to a flurry of emails and a list of great examples of effective use of digital tools for learning that I never could have found on my own?

In summary, a lot of great learning went on in Louisiana! The question now is how do we meaningfully continue it?

How do we improve our effectiveness in promoting meaningful integration of technology for learning?

How do we show teachers the value of developing a PLN?

How do we continue to challenge ourselves on our own personal learning journeys?

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.

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…

| View | Upload your own

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.

Well, I decided to go ahead anyway! I can’t use our useless communal teacher lab, but I got to spend the 2nd half of the first class in the library using the computers there, and the next 2 days in our Computer Teacher’s lab. Although I won’t be able to use any lab again until next Wednesday, my students (who all have computers at home) have all started blogging.

In fact, it is 12:15am and a peek at my Meebo chat box I put on the site tells me that there are at least 2 students on the site right now!

Christina K

Comments

1. They have similar noses, forehead, similar bone structure, similar smile or smirk and if you look closely they have similar eyes. I’m not sure if they are siblings, but they might be the same person.

   ChristinaL on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 02:22 BST # |

2. Wow, their facial features look almost identical! I researched about the painting on the left and found out that it’s called the “John Gesture” and is a portrait of John the Baptist. As for why he’s raising his index finger, many historians think that it’s because Jesus was always shown raising two fingers while he blessed people. Therefore, John wanted to show people that he was superior to Jesus as one comes before two. I don’t really see any connection between John and Mona Lisa but I guess Da Vinci must have had some reason for placing these two paintings within sight beside his deathbed before he died.Viola C on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 02:47 BST # |
3. But why would Da Vinci make John the Baptist look like Mona Lisa? Da Vinci couldn’t have actually seen John the Baptist…

   ChristinaL on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 03:19 BST # |

4. They really do look identical. So if one was John the Baptist, and the other the Mona Lisa…what’s the connection that could possibly relate to the two paintings being of the same person in a different form? Was John the Baptist in a different time than Da Vinci? If he was then that’s just crazy that these two people look identical. Again the two ideas were that they could be siblings or they could be the same person. I just don’t understand why they would be the same person..

   Christina K on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 04:52 BST # |

5. I can’t believe how John the Baptist and Mona Lisa, two people from totally different worlds, could look identical. I think it’s more than a coincidence that Da Vinci painted them so similar. I guess it’s just one more secret that Da Vinci didn’t want to share with the world.

   Viola C on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 05:29 BST # |

6. Well, this is what I think. As a humanist, he opposed the church in telling how other people should live their life. Could it be that he wanted to show his dislike for the church secretly through many little things he did. Could it be that by drawing John the Baptist with similar facial features as Mona Lisa, he is showing that he may have seen John, therefore completly going against what the church and the Bible says. But then again, my ideas are crazy….

   Jessica N on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 08:03 BST # |

7. Da Vinci was a very mysterious man, so it’s not very surprising that he made Mona Lisa and the John the Baptist look the same. No one would understand his geinus mind and like Viola said, this would be one more secret that Da Vinci wouldn’t share with us and the world.

   ChristinaL on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:17 BST # |

8. Take a look at Mona Lisa’s shoulders, compared to to other picture. They are practically the same in every way! Mona Lisa’s shoulders are large and manly (no offence Mona Lisa). Now look at the other picture. Can you spot a dramatic difference?

   Sara on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:18 BST # |

9. Woah thats pretty interesting Christina!The picture of the guy, is probably another painting byDaVinci. He probably didn’t want to show it to others, and hid it somewhere

   where he thought no one would find it.

   It also can be a painting of him when he was younger!

   Yeah thats all. Good Job!

   Tijana M on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:20 BST # |

10. also if you look in the picture of the last supper
    there is a man holding up one finger like
    the picture of John the Baptist 

    JessicaT on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:26 BST # |

11. I was just looking at the picture of Mona Lisa.http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/leonardo_ext.htmlI observed her close up at 200% and I noticed a really weird line going across her forehead… the line seemed really out of place. From my discovery I looked a her hair on the left side and I noticed that there was a veil type thing, maybe she was getting married, or she was getting married to John the baptist Any other Ideas?

    Katie Z on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:32 BST # |

12. This is amazing. If I was to first see these pictures I’d think they were twins. There smile is identical. Also there noses look exactly the same. Only if there hair was the same I would think that it was the same person.

    Amrit C. on Thursday, 17 May 2007, 21:33 BST # |

Now here is the challenge for me… LET THE ‘CONVERSATION’ HAPPEN!

When I read, “…maybe she was getting married, or she was getting married to John the baptist…” I really wanted to post a little timeline. Earlier I actually started typing a comment suggesting that perhaps Da Vinci used the same model for both paintings, then erased it rather than posting it… I forced myself to ‘bite my tongue’.

The fact is that I am not used to letting students take ownership of their learning in this way. I want to ‘teach’ them… isn’t that my job?

But if I had put that “perhaps Da Vinci used the same model” post in after the 5th or 6th comment, would the other comments have followed?

If I chose now to comment on the century-and-a-half millennium-and-a-half chasm in time preventing John the Baptist from marrying Mona Lisa, then who will I be taking this away from? Whose voice will I be stealing? Who will I prevent from asking ‘Exactly who is John the Baptist?’ Who will I be stopping from researching and answering that question?

Would JessicaT have been inspired to write this post?

In Christina K’s blog is the picture of John the Baptist and how he
is pointing his finger, I did some research and in the picture of the
Last Supper, there is one of the 12 deciples on the right side to Jesus
is pointing one of his fingers out. Also in another picture by Da Vinci
two versions. One was rejected by nuns, and one wasn’t (the picture
above was the rejected one)

Comments

Interesting research you have done! Thanks for putting all these together to compare! Are you going to look into the meaning behind the ‘pointing finger’?

Mr. Truss on Friday, 18 May 2007, 04:54 BST #

I am hoping to promote inquiry.

It is the classic ‘guide on the side’ rather than ’sage on the stage’ issue. However, it isn’t easy to stand back and let all this learning happen without me. But, in a web2.0 world, where students are meaningfully engaging in Learning Conversations, we really must bite our [digital] tongues.

After an incident delayed getting feedback from my students until last Monday, things got extremely busy with preparation for the Renaissance Fair and my Grade 5 Transition Retreats [the subject of a future post]. All this included 3 afternoons out of my classroom at other functions… I blinked and it was Friday afternoon. And only now have I noticed that not everyone has given me feedback yet. What I do see there is very encouraging.

Before reading the feedback, my initial impression was given in my Some Assembly Required post. To expand on that,
I wrote this in a comment (over a month ago) on Kelly Christopherson’s blog.

Carolyn Foote, mentioned above also added this comment after mine:

This is brilliant feedback. It isn’t rocket science for a seasoned teacher that really should know this, but scaffolding that is student directed is something we should all be reminded of from time-to-time. I think that in my excitement to get things started, and my desire to have students choose their own topic, I let technology supersede pedagogy.

I intended to put some student feedback highlights here, but I won’t. If you are interested, READ THEIR WORDS.

Here is a very short summary:
• Students really liked this project. Some of them considered it the best ever!
• They loved that they got to choose their own topics.
• They felt challenged.
• They hated the issues we had dealing with crappy computers, and yet they were willing work through the frustration.
• They thought this was a valuable experience… so much so that many of them wanted to do another similar project and/or suggested that I should do this again next year.
• And finally, using their words: They enjoyed being able to share their ideas, “What I am most proud of the most from the page is when I was how I typed out information to let others read it and learn from what I learned,” and being able to see what others did, “I thought this was a great project because it was always fun, and when you needed inspiration, it was easy to just click on someone else’s page, and see all the neat stuff that they’ve done, and then it makes you want to make your page just as good (or, it did for me).” Also another student commented about how a different group’s project touched him, “I learned a lot of stuff over the period of time that was given. I especially enjoyed learning about the diabetes because my aunt has diabetes so it was interesting to see what she goes through and how she’s affected”.
I’m proud of my students and I am very happy with our first attempt at creating wikis. I believe that for many of my students we truly did bring Science Alive!

1. Scaffolding
Here are some comments: [Their words/spelling/grammar, no editing on my part. Students can't edit a Discussion topic like they can their wiki page.]

Since Carolyn made some great topic development suggestions above, I will look more at some other ideas.

I realize now that I didn’t really give them enough of an outline. This is a challenge for topics like this… especially in a middle school where the students are still young. So many times in my teaching career I have shown a creative exemplar to students and then had a dozen photocopy-like replicas handed in. Also, in all honesty, I didn’t really know what to expect from my students and so it was hard to tell them what it was I expecting! I think that if I spent more time getting them involved with their topic and exploring possibilities early on, some of this stress would have been alleviated.
I did a lot of conferencing with groups and discussing ideas, but often I didn’t relate this back to specific things I wanted to see on their page. [Notice the control-freak teacher in me said "specific things I wanted to see" rather than suggestions that would enhance their learning. This is a learning curve for me as well as them.]
One frustration for me was that I taught Science for just 40 min. classes (a first for me this year having taught 80 min. classes in previous years). Take away login and log out times and sometimes it seemed that I would have just 2 or 3 really good conversations about projects and the class would be over.

Here is a very interesting comment:

The specific thing that I didn’t like in this case was that the experiment that they wanted to do had way too much variability and opportunity for chance to influence their results… this group did the experiment they wanted to do it anyway. Although I don’t think it was a great decision, I am glad they realized that I really did give them a choice.

The task at hand is to offer support to those that need it, and challenge those that don’t – not much different than any other project. The difference from other projects is that criteria is very hard to offer when you open up a project and allow everyone to demonstrate their learning in different ways. (Note Gabriela Sellart’s and Claudia Ceraso’s comments on my Some Assembly Required post- found in the reflection section.)

More from my students:

Scaffolding not instructions and criteria lists.

I had no idea how long this project would take. It went longer than it should, but I wanted to give ample notice when I finally did choose a date. Looking back, I gave the students notice on a Monday that it was due the following week Friday, then gave them until the following Monday… a lot of time! Yet, the lack of a stated completion date really seemed to bother students. I would love to see students keep updating their projects even now- why can’t they continue to pursue their interests? However, in the future I will start with a specific due date. Will this light the fire under students’ seats and get many of them on task, and/or more focussed, sooner? I don’t really know?

I had students research who were experts in their fields and intended to have them contact some of these people. Reality sunk in when I realized that I didn’t know these adults and I would have Grade 8 students contacting strangers directly. In the future, I would want to create a specific contact page for field experts to use to contact us. Then I could route initial contact through me. I would also notify parents that this would be happening well in advance of doing it. I think that this could happen in a safe way if it is well thought out, not flying by the seat of my pants as I was doing in this first attempt.
I could also have used some experts of my own. I’ll point again to Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy post, Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models and once again beg for a Web2.0 service like Fieldfindr. (I created this mock site in February and it has had over 1,200 visits since the middle of March… who can make this a reality?

Imagine giving a ‘C’ to a student who writes:

Is a ‘C’ meaningful feedback? What are you telling that student about lifelong learning? What does the mark accomplish?

…And a Happy Note
I can’t get myself to end this post on a sad note, so I will end with a very positive observation:
This year has been cathartic for me.
• I have fully embraced using this blog as a learning tool since about November.
• I have read more and thought more about education in the last 6 months than in any given 5 years of my life.
• I am embracing technology like never before.
• I am engaging students in their learning like never before.
• I believe that we will see some (very exciting) fundamental shifts in education over the next few years.

…And Back to the Science Alive Wiki
If you have any observations that I may have missed, then feel free to be my teacher. Thanks!

Here is the write-up for the 2 hour Professional Development seminar that I ran today for 9 dedicated teachers who showed up on a sunny Saturday, after a full day of Pro-D on Friday.

Start Your Own Blog
A practical session that will introduce you to blogging.
You will see how others use their blogs and you will get a chance to create your own blog.
You will also learn just how easy it is to create links, add pictures and even movies to your blog.
Also, you will learn a bit about web2.0 and very easy to use tools that make your time on the web faster and friendlier.

Start Your Own Blog on Edublogs Wiki on Wikispaces

& a blog post with instructions on how to hyperlink, embed images and videos, as well as tag a post on edublogs,

Making a Splash with Your First Post

I did my best to make these resources that could be: a) used by others to structure their own Pro-D sessions; and b) used as a self help tutorial.

… any feedback would be appreciated.

The power of WE: Special thanks goes to a few people who saved me hours of time by helping me out, and by having great resources already built, so that I didn’t have to create them myself.

• Kris (Wandering Ink) for helping me find worthy links for my example page: A variety of bloggers, blogging mostly about blogs and blogging. Kris also edited my ‘Making a Splash‘ post. I hadn’t published it yet so I threw it into a Google Document, where she edited it. We chatted on MSN throughout and then I cut-and-pasted the edited sections back into my post. It was easy to do – especially with our dialogue via chat. A teacher and a former student collaborating, (late on a Friday night), to create a tool for teachers, in a way that was impossible not too long ago… very cool!

• Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis for 10 Habbits of bloggers that win and How to comment like a king (or queen)… both great posts!

• Mike Temple for his blog Edublog Tutorials. This blog linked to another great resource: MSU (Michigan State University) video tutorial. Mike has done a great job with this blog!

Thank you to these people, and all the wonderful people that I linked to in on the wiki.

-This was the first time I tried to do technology based professional development, beyond introducing a few tools to my staff, and I am happy with how things went.

-We only had about 1:45 minutes and this would be a great 3 hour Pro-D. A typical teacher blunder when trying something out of your comfort zone… pack too much in!

-As a mac user, I need to be a little more familiar with a pc lab.

-I really should have them make their blogs first, as was suggested.

-I only got the e-mail address of 4 of the participants and none of their new blog addresses- I’ll have to hunt these down for a feed I created. I think this is a good idea to offer support and community for new bloggers, and I should make the collection of this information more formal.

* I invite feedback on the Start Your Own Blog tools… and I hope that others will find them useful!

Thanks,

Dave.

An honest look at my blog.

The Good: • This site, elgg.net, is not going to be called EduFilter (seems my e-mail wasn’t the only complaint). Elgg is now EduSpaces, a name a number of us recommended – though I bear no claim to my voice being listened to since I also offered a dozen other alternatives.

The Bad: • All my links to the site need changing, this isn’t necessary since elgg rather than eduspaces in the address still works, but I would rather that my Flickr, Curriki, LinkedIn, & other blogs etc. all had my updated links.

The (I wish I was) Indifferent: • My Technorati URL needs to change. THE BIG QUESTION: Why did this bother me?

There are two reasons that I can think of: TIMING and EGO.

Timing:
My blog is getting more attention than it ever has. Some noted bloggers: Stephen Downes, Scott McLeod, Wesley Freyer, Miguel Guhlin, and Vicki Davis (on EdTech Talk ) have all given my Web2.0 Prophecy: an Adventure a plug and linked to it with my old elgg address. This attention has doubled traffic to my site and I thank them for this! Yet I sit here pretending it didn’t bother me that they are linked to my old Technorati address rather than the new one. This leads to the main reason the URL change bothered me…

Ego:
I while back I e-mailed Scott McLeod in response to his top edublogs? post and wrote this:

Here comes the honest part: I like to go to my sitemeter and see where people visit me from. I like seeing the dots grow, in number and in size, on my clustrmap… and I like when I see new links in Technorati. Why?

The fact is, that I want to be well read, and I want my blog to be recognized. Scott McLeod says it best at the end of his ‘top edublogs?’ post:

1. Square Peg, Round Hole – a collection of other people’s ideas around schools not fitting kids that I have been adding to until recently, now a second post is in the works.

2. Portal Needed to Connect Classrooms to the World: Global Citizens can Share Talents and Skills with Students and the accompanying wiki fieldfindr, (yesterday fieldfindr had more hits than my blog… almost a month after I created it as a mock-up to go along with the post). When will someone make this a reality?

3. The digital native, the digital naive, and the digital divide – among other things, the idea that maybe students of this generation aren’t fully at the digital native stage… yet.

4. Leadership Lesson Plans – found in my files rather than my blog. Thanks mostly to Curriki, these get visited and downloaded a number of times daily. I am glad I can offer these resourses that I have found useful in teaching Leadership.

And in my opinion, the most under-rated post: School 2.0 Participant’s Manifesto – Manifesto’s are big in education and schools2.0 but they mostly focus on the changes needed to the system. Here, I look at the responsibilities of the learner- remember them?… the people we are ‘doing this stuff to‘. (ok, that was a bit cheeky!)

To anyone reading my blog for the first time, Learning Conversations is a post that quotes a lot of my other posts and gives a sense for what this blog is about, and what it means to me.

The Good:
•Quality. I take pride in my posts and although I still do them primarily for myself, I am keenly aware that I have an audience. This has made me a much better writer… (and it can do the same for students!)
•Recognition. My site is slowly growing in readership. Fear not ‘A list’ bloggers your position is safe, I’m not tilting the blogosphere on its’ head here, but I do consider myself an agent of change, and I will make my world a better place!
•Meaningful dialogue. I have enjoyed the learning conversations that I have had online. I have not been this excited about learning- ever! Was it like this in school for anyone? Not me.

The Bad:
•In-click/Out-click. I am amazed at how ridiculous some of the Google Searches are that lead to my site. For example I have the phrase ‘Webkinz-dot-com’ in a post that happens to touch an image of a (totally unrelated) bridge. 2-5 times a week I get hits from Webkinz (stuffed animal) image searches – Hardly what I would call a meaningful hit.
•Time. I spend too much time on the computer. I can’t keep up with my feedreader. Both reading and writing are slow processes for me. I started highlighting ‘New Voices’ but have stopped recently because I haven’t read any recently. I resolve this by sleeping less, but I can’t keep this up much longer. Who is doing all this well? And what is your secret???
•Comments. I spend a bit of time each week commenting on blogs… continuing the conversation. But I seem to generate very few commenters on my blog. This might be a result of my next point.
•Post length. I am long-winded. Most of my posts are lengthy. Are readers even getting to the end of them? I think it was Vicki Davis who wrote ‘write it, then cut it in half.’ I have to learn to do this… it won’t be easy for me. Even this post is probably too long!
The Indifferent:
•Technorati. It took a few days but I’m over it. I really don’t mind that I am starting over. I will enjoy watching the links grow again. I have never gone to Technorati to see someone else’s ranking and judged their site as a result. In fact, in a comment on Christian Long’s post Stop Blogging Because You’re An Educator I state: “…Warlick and Richardson seem to be more about post-cards than edu-posts.” I’ve noticed that many of the really meaningful posts that I have read recently have not come from the ‘big boys’ but rather the boys and girls- like me – that are in the trenches, trying to make sense of where schools are now, and where they need to be.

Images: Foster City Reflections and Under The Bridge 2 are both by Peter Kaminski on Flickr.

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I have been participating in this on-line conference for the last few days (or rather nights!) This is the introduction to the conference that convinced me to participate:

“The evolution of teaching and learning is accelerated with technology. After several decades of duplicating classroom functionality with technology, new opportunities now exist to alter the spaces and structures of knowledge to align with both needs of learners today, and affordances of new tools and processes.

Yet our understanding of the impact on teaching and learning trails behind rapidly forming trends. What are critical trends? How does technology influence learning? Is learning fundamentally different today than when most prominent views of learning were first formulated (under the broad umbrellas of cognitivism, behaviourism, and constructivism)? Have the last 15 years of web, technology, and social trends altered the act of learning? How is knowledge itself, in a digital era, related to learning?”

The gem of the ‘Learning Conversations’, that have happened so far, has been a discussion thread started by presenter Bill Kerr tittled, “a challenge to connectivism”. A considerable amount of the discussion is theoretical and I will admit that some of it is ‘over my head’ in that I have a lack of background knowledge to fully appreciate all that is being said. What I have enjoyed in this discussion is the healthy discord that has occurred. Stephen Downes, web guru and another presenter at the conference, posted in this discussion thread, ‘What Connectivism Is‘. This spurred discourse after Tony Forster said in a post reply to Stephen, “I am disturbed by your statement…”

Two things have made this enjoyable:

1. The fact that at a Connectivism conference the very definition of the topic is open for debate by the presenters. This speaks volumes to the unchartedness/ the newness of this way of connecting to one another, and it embodies the idea that knowledge is both fluid and reconstructed/remixed in this new connected world. We are continually Synthesizing and Adding New Meaning as we connect in new ways.

2. This discourse is something that I have seldom seen in the world of educational blogs. There seems to be an unspoken etiquette about being non-confrontational when discussing ideas on other’s blogs. Essentially teachers don’t criticize others’ opinions. Even when there is disagreement it is often polite, reserved and… well, annoying. On the other hand, there seems to be thoughtful discord and discourse happening in the Connectivism conference forums.

I think that our concern that discourse and discord are forms of argument sometimes prevents us from having meaningful, healthy discourse. In their book Metaphors We Live By, Lakeoff & Johnson consider the metaphor ‘ARGUMENT is WAR’. This is the metaphor that often prevents us from having meaningful discourse.

Formal debates also fit neatly into this metaphor: point-counterpoint/attack-defend.
As a society, we aren’t going to change this embedded metaphor any time soon, but we can separate argument from discourse. Discourse, discord and disagreement need not be argumentative.

It is fascinating to me that in the blogosphere there is a noticeable shortage in meaningful discourse. Teachers encourage critical thinking, challenge students to consider alternative views and encourage meaningful discourse in the classroom… and then walk on proverbial egg shells when commenting on blogs.

Now, I am sure that there are some wonderful counter-examples to my point, (and I encourage anyone reading this to send me links:-). But I do wonder if it is just me- and the circles I hyper-surf around in- or do others notice this subdued politeness that hinders meaningful discourse?

I am encouraged by the healthy discourse and discord that I see happening at the Connectivism conference; I think a lot of new, innovative and creative ideas/concepts/theories can and will be born out of it!

So what is Connectivism?
George Siemens, conference organizer, says in his Connectivism Blog,”Connectivism is a learning theory for the digital age… For me – call it whatever you want – connectivism, social constructivism, navigationism (pick your own)…learning today must be seen as social, knowledge distributed across a network, capacity enhanced by enlarging the network, learning/knowledge as multi-faceted and complex, incorporating technology, etc. I’m generally not in a mood to argue against other learning theories (though, at times, it’s required simply to achieve a frame of reference). I’m much more interested in arguing for effective learning representative of what learners require in order to stay current today. Evangelizing connectivism is a secondary concern as compared with discussing effective, relevant, “sustainable” learning.”
In another post, he adds this interesting point about connecting in new ways, “Dialogue does not need to be direct in order to be effective. Dialogue of greatest value is what I call parallel, or dialogue of awareness. At this level, the comments and views of others are within our cognitive network (i.e. we know they exist) and their influence weighs in our reasoning and thought formation.”

In my small contribution to the discussion thread I say,
“My limited experience in blogging suggests to me that it is the cross-disciplinary meandering and hyper-linking that brings us deeper levels of understanding, as well as peripherally participating with a mentor or expert. In fact, I think innovation and meaningful learning/synthesis of ideas comes from the fringes… connectivism isn’t about the theory- the great body of knowledge to be shared, it is about the ability for any Joe (or Joan) Schmo to meaningfully add to the learning conversation. (As I hope this Schmo has )”
[Note: This has actually been adapted from my original post. Another contributor disagreed with a specific point I made- and I agreed with him! Originally I said 'as opposed to' instead of 'as well as' (italicized above)]

Please feel free to disagree!

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Reference: G. Lakoff & M. Johnson (1980), Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press.(Paperback edition, 1981, *pg. 5, **pg. 4)

Image Credits:

“Arguments Yard, Whitby” by David Hastings (Flickr username: dr1066)

“Definition of Discourse”: Mac PowerBook Dictionary Version 1.0.1(1.0.1) Copyright © 2005 Apple Computer, Inc.

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Excerpt from My Feedback/Reflection post on the Connectivism Conference, (Feb. 10th, 2007).

About me:
Well I still have to look at/listen to the Stephen Downes presentation before I would feel comfortable saying that I have come close to concluding with the conference. As I say in [this] blog post, I have found both the discourse and even discord refreshing. I think best when I am surrounded by people who challenge what I say and what I think. At more than one point I felt misunderstood and had to clarify myself… but I believe that ‘the meaning of your communication is the response that you get’ and so I take full responsibility for my lack of communication. In an effort to clarify my words, I do the same with my thoughts… isn’t that what being a life-long learner is all about? This conference has provided a considerable amount of fodder for me to chew on for a while. I have had many opportunities to synthesize and add meaning to ideas both new and old alike. I have also found many new friends!

Thank you all for contributing to my learning!

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An antithesis to my last post, “Acceptance of Mediocrity, Web 2-point-oh-oh!”

Well, actually more of an ‘alternate spin’ on web2.0 than an ‘antithesis’. I must admit to seeing an element of accepting mediocrity in some students that concerns me. An example of this is the quality of work that students believe is satisfactory to hand in.
When a student asks me, “How long does this need to be?” my favorite answer is, “It needs to be as long as it needs to be!” The idea here is that a good answer can come in 4 or 5 eloquent sentences, and it can also come in a 7-page treatise… Unfortunately a poor answer can also vary in length considerably- often weighted on the light side. What surprises me is when I read something far less than exemplary, that a student hands in, and I ask, “Are you happy with that?” or “Would you like to work on this some more?” many students choose to settle for what they have already done… (“Perhaps you didn’t understand that I wanted a good copy and not a first draft!”) Anyway, that is a small example that may be a comment on my assignment as much as it is on the acceptance of mediocrity.

So this post is not about discrediting the point of my last post… rather, it is about validating the use of an interactive web that engages students in ways that may not always be apparent or available in a ‘webless’ classroom.

Here are my Ah-ha moments with the world of Web2.0h-Yeah!
These are two on-line ‘conversations’ that happened to in my 10-day Da Vinci – Renaissance Fair Project that I did, which included a blogging component. Neither of them are outwardly profound, but when they happened they were profound to me in that they showed me the potential the web has for engaging students as ‘owners’ of their learning.

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• In Vanja’s first blog entry, she posed an open-ended question and then said she was going to search for more information on the topic. She got a comment on her post and personally responded to it, mentioning that she was still seeking information. Then Charlotte commented and here is Vanja’s next response:
“ ..umm Charlotte I was actually hoping that you would actually post something to either contradict or go along with my observations.. not just say that’s meaningful and true.. Tell me what you think is meaningful and true!!” – - – - -

Vanja both wanted, and demanded a learning conversation. For me it was wonderful to see a student expecting more from her peers, or should I say, from her community of learners.

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• In our Social Forum, (a community blog), Andrew asks, “we need some help trying to figure out what the animal in Leonardo’s drawing is.

Here are the first 5 of 16 comment responses:

1. From what I can see thats a bull. I can see horns..at least thats what I think it is.
Vanja

2. I think that is either a bull like Vanja said or it could be an ox.
Erica

3. I think it’s a bull or goat. If you ask me, it looks more like a goat.
Alessandra

4. Its probably a cow……….
Jason

5. According to my close observation, it looks neither like an ox or a cow. Because it’s horn is too long, and it looks too slim and skinny to be like a cow or an ox. So I think it might be a goat or something other than cows. (Like what Alessandra had said) But why is that animal over there? It is there for a reason??
Lily – - – - -

I was asked yesterday in a Math Learning Committee, “How do you know when your students are learning? My quick response was, “When they are asking the right questions.” That is exactly what Lily did above. What I liked most about her comment is that I thought of her question, (Why is the animal there?), before reading the comments. That question was going to be my ‘teacher comment’… but the students didn’t need their teacher here!

I couldn’t believe the breadth and depth of what was shared on-line.

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These are small but significant occurrences in the wonderful world of web2.0h Yeah!

Here is the Powerpoint I ran continuously during the Renaissance Fair. It showcases some of the online learning that occurred during our time together: Part 1 and Part 2.

Here now are a few parting comments from students. These are from a voluntary reflection on the course:

From Cynthia, “I learned more by sharing than by searching.”

From Mona, “You actually get to learn with each other and help others learn.”

From Michael, “I really liked the use of blogs and forums for this project. It really keeps everyone connected even outside of school.”

From Lily, “It was fun doing this project and I enjoyed this kind of learning experience when you get to find your own knowledge rather than laying it all out for you. I feel that I have achieved something really good each time I’ve found some interesting facts on the blog and the dialogues, which made me put more time into these things. I realized that this could be another way of learning new things and also communicating with each other rather than finding information by yourself. Our project was very successful because our new idea really amazed a lot of people, rather than showing off Leonardo’s inventions. I wish that people still contributed to the blog either on the forum or on the dialogue next year!”

(Lily checked in with her last post about 3 weeks after the course ended.)