Lagniappe for Learning

As an ardent ‘learn-aholic’, I take advantage of most professional development opportunities. The STAR Discovery Education Network National Institute was an outstanding one – a lagniappe, it went beyond my expectations!

Why? For a number of reasons, not the least of which was the learning environment: a Caribbean-bound cruise ship with ports in Freeport and Nassau! But on to the other reasons – my take-aways:

• Collaboration with others to build a meaningful project – in less than four days the 50+ attendees were grouped with two tasks: 1) create a 90 second video using the AFI door scenario and 2) build a comprehensive project with a 3-5 minute video, quiz and writing prompt – oh, and be sure to include a web 2.0 tool with global implications! This was constructivism at its best!

• Creative and emotive play – Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind emphasizes humor, laughter and joy as one of the six essential aptitudes for the conceptual age – and it was definitely part of our learning (from the ‘finger’ to Senor Frog’s dancing). Learning is much more likely to ’stick’ when there it is pleasant (we’ve got to remember that when we are teaching!!).

• Hands-on practice of new learning tools – Between Makin’ Movies (Joe Brennan), Google Earth (Hall Davidson), Premiere Elements 3.0 (Lance Rougeux), and various Web 2.0 tools (Steve Dembo), there was an abundance of learning. The key for this learning was not only the auditory and visual presentations, but most importantly, the hands-on manipulation of the tools!

• Sharing – Thanks to Jannita and her Discovery judges (Lance, Brad, & Scott), Cruisin’ with the STARs was not only entertaining, but a huge success as STARs shared favorite websites and/or applications. Additionally, time was carved out to share the results of both assigned projects. What a coup!
• Most importantly – Connections with other participants – Though I didn’t get to know everyone very well, there’s an immediate connection when you share such an experience. Fortunately, many of us are continuing conversations on twitter – what an awesome group!

There were a couple of deltas on this cruise: lack of consistent and reliable bandwidth and time. Those factors are not limited to cruise ships…and were overshadowed as negatives with all of the positives!

Most importantly for me – was this learning transformational? Though that will be measured by teaching others what I learned and embedding the new knowledge and skills into my routine, I can heartily say that it was a great learning experience!

Technorati Tags: professional development, DNI07, collaboration, video, connections, play

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