This past week, many of us in the edutech world have been experimenting with Plurk, a microblogging/social networking site. Popularized by a combination of NECC 2008 participation (both f2f and virtual) and the continued presence of the Twitter whale or other Twitter errors, Plurk is gaining some attention! It is similar to Twitter, but it is different enough that most of us need to banish any expectations and keep our minds open to what this new platform can provide.

Experiencing the learning curve and facilitating others through the process of learning is a great reminder for our role as teachers. Thinking about the Plurk process, I immediately called upon the KWL strategy as a reflection point:

• K – What did I know (or think I did) about Plurk? (Most would likely respond that ‘it is similar to Twitter’)
  
• W – What did I want to know about Plurk? (Is it collaborative? social? How does it work? Will I be able to develop/keep others in my networks? Why would I want ot learn/use Plurk?)
• L – So what did I learn about Plurk? (Learning Plurk is a process and it involved an ‘unlearning’ of Twitter to some degree…Unlike Twitter, Plurk is designed to encourage threaded conversations,
  which allows for a depth of discussion revolving around the original posting/comment/question. With Twitter, the focal point seems to revolve around the ‘twit’ (person posting). Digging deep is an important goal and Plurk may offer a viable infrastructure for developing that interactive manipulation. Though connections certainly occur, the interactions on Plurk are much less focused on individuals.)

Reading new Plurkers’ (and experienced edutechers) initial posts, one remembers

• the importance of understanding the ‘learning curve‘ (patience, persistence, and hands-on exploration),
  
• the frustration and confusion that often accompanies the learning of a new skill or content,
  
• the pay-off of guidance, support and encouragement in the learning process, and
  
• the amazing synergy that can occur when learning is social!

So, as I reflect on the improvement of my own teaching, I’m constantly reminded of what it’s like to be a learner – how about you?

Photo credits to bella lago for self-p and Cayusa for Rainbow Ts

I’m so excited to be a small part of the world-reknown Horizons Project 2008! This global group of students and educators, led by CoolCatTeacher, Vicki Davis, and her “partner-in-learning,” Julie Lindsay takes advantage of global human resources and collaborative skills, web 2.0 tools, and higher level thinking/learning skills via analysis of the New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative’s Horizon Report 2008 to bring meaning to everyday education! This huge undertaking is a model for what can/will/should be the norm for secondary education now and in the near future. It reflects a strong commitment to curriculum, instruction, and assessment – the foundational triad. I’m also excited to see friendly twits (Tanya Gray and Ryan Bretag) involved with participating schools. More to share as this project evolves…

A much appreciated SHOUT OUT to Carol VanHook as she participated in my presentation to district Media Specialists (Google preso) and then invited me to chat with some folks from state leadership positions about web 2.0 and the collaborative impact on learning. My own experiences in meeting and working with Carol (she is in IA and I’m in FL – we met via a Discovery Educator Webinar about Second Life!) reflect the amazing connectivity and powerful collaboration that our world not only offers, but demands!!

Since the onset of 2008, I’ve (at least so far) committed to my pledge to take and write about “a daily image” – I didn’t officially join the 366 Day group, but I’ve been both frustrated and rewarded each day as I find a ’shot,’ post it on Flickr and write a description and/or reflection about that visual. Most of the time I relish the moments seeking out a good picture and making various attempts to capture it – and rarely, I struggle to find an appropriate inspiration and/ore reflective words to describe the photo. Overall, I’m not only thrilled that I’ve continued into the second quarter (!), but also that I’ve found different levels of meaning in the ‘exercise.’ In case you’re interested, here’s the link and here’s one to view…

Enough for now! I’m predicting a more consistent and regular posting – though, no promises!

My current PLE includes

• reading posts from approximately 175 blogs (education-related, technology-related, and just plain thought-provoking), writing to my own two blogs, and commenting on occasion,
• interacting daily with about 100 “edublogger-twits” on twitter
• dabbling with a number of different social networking tools, including ning and facebook,
• creating collaborative wikis and Google documents,
• backchannelling chats in scheduled and spontaneous webinars, webcasts, fireside chats, and ustream productions,
• sharing favorites via del.icio.us, flickr, slideshare and diigo
• listening to inspirational podcasts, and
• experimenting with a variety of web 2.0 tools for my own productivity and for student learning.

The key to my PLE is that it revolves around me and my needs – wow, that sounds so self-centered…and it is! I control my blog readings (and yes, I’ve learned to become comfortable with unread feeds in my aggregator) and I manage (usually!) my time for the amount, type and place of these interactions. These facets work for me – they are my unique monogram, but they are not designed to work for everyone. PLEs are meant to be personalized, individualized – not standardized. What works for me probably won’t work for you. I may differ from you in time priority, content interest, learning preference, and stage of development – among other things. It’s okay – in fact, that’s the way PLEs are suppose to be! So, if you don’t get twitter, that’s ok – it’s also ok if you don’t want to follow me or the others I follow. You may use blogs for personal reflection or to communicate to parents or for ruminations that invite conversations – it really is your call!

Stephen Downes’ Web 2.0 and Your own Learning and Development is well worth your 20 minutes. His triad of interaction, usability, and relevance along with guiding principles are excellent foundations for thinking about the ‘personal’ your PLE. The presentation is also a good reminder for some of us trying to make these tools work for others – most of them are quite flexible in their design and their value may be best derived from personal meaning.

So much for the ‘personal’ in Personal Learning Environment – next up is the ‘learning’! I’m off to twitter now! And a future post will focus on the “L” in my PLE….

Credit to Bella Lago for Self-p and Leo Reynolds for monogram on Flickr

Technorati Tags: PLE, web 2.0, twitter, Stephen Downes

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• one of the high school students made me laugh when he said to me, “…you make me think!” in a light conversation after school – seems I habitually challenge him to engage those brain cells even though he is no longer in the classroom! What a concept – learning anytime, anywhere! And it led to further discussion about learning how to learn! smiles…

• our Principal, Jeanette Johnson, scheduled an early release day inservice with the theme of Personal Learning Networks and required ‘homework’ via a Google Doc (thereby necessitating Google accounts/gmail – a challenge for our limited wireless IP address with 40 some simultaneous account requests). She also demonstrated twitter and the power of her own PLN after a view and discussion of A Vision of Students Today. What an innovative Principal – we’ll keep her!

• considerable work was accomplished on launching our online programs this week – between the work with FATDEC (Florida Adult and Technical Distance Education Consortium) and piloting Angel, there’s a lot of learning going on…and much more to come!

• two web 2.0 sites are now educator-friendly with ‘no ads’! The social networking site, Ning, is now offering ad-free Ning sites when using for student-based projects. My request to remove advertising from the Mustang Book Club Ning (private at this point) was handled professionally, immediately, and with kindness! As Vicki Davis said on her CoolCatTeacher blog, “Companies who understand education know that the students will be creating their own spaces now or later and that they will benefit.” The wiki, Wet Paint, is also going ad-free for educators, according to Jason Welker on U Tech Tips ! I set up a Wet Paint wiki a couple of years ago (since abandoned), but ended up using other software – not necessarily because of the ads, but habit, I guess! Looks like Wet Paint might be worth another look! More importantly, it demonstrates the commitment of businesses (at least a few) to help educators impact 21st century learners – so educational institutions: are you up for the challenge, as well?

• today I was able to tune into a couple of Ustream presentations at the Tech Forum in Austin, Texas! The ability to not only chat, but tweet during Wes Fryer’s keynote was almost like being there! An extra special thanks to Carolyn Foote for keeping the pipeline open (especially during my early obstacles related to bandwidth and filtering system) via @technolibrary! Though I didn’t capture all, I was especially moved by Wes’ emphasis on becoming a catalyst – precipitating, accelerating change. Need to go back and review/rehash my thoughts on change theory, as that is a key!

Yes, just another ordinary week full of extraordinary experiences in my world of living and learning!

Photo credits to MisterBisson and bhermans on Flickr

Technorati Tags: TechForum07, wikis, social networking, twitter, innovation, PLN

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So, last week Jennifer (injenuity) announced she would be developing a Google Doc presentation for her job interview as the Director of Distance Learning at Bellingham Technical College. Furthermore, she invited her network of twits to participate in a backchanneling chat which would, by the nature of Google Doc presentations, be PART of the presentation! There is no doubt in my mind that she had to have WOWed them – time will tell whether that translates into a job – but the power of immediate communication through virtual networking is a compelling tool in the world of online learning (to wit, most edutwits consider twitter a daily dose of professional development!) and she didn’t just talk about it, she demonstrated and modeled it.

Back to the backchanneled interview, there were some obvious cons with the lack of audio and archived chat – though Kristin Hokanson thought to screencast much of it. Furthermore, still fascinated by the technology itself, most chat participants were not tuned in to the backchanneling guidelines – but wouldn’t that be powerful? Imagine a discussion with a network of folks facilitated by the candidate … what might that reveal that a limited conversation with only the interviewee would not? Add in an integration of skype and/or ustream audio/video capabilities and there is potential for much needed depth to the interview process.

This would be a great exercise for our students as they get ready to interview for a job…or even a capstone experience for a senior project collaborating with a business partner. As we continue to prepare our students for the 21st century, use of these tools in such an authentic manner can build skills and confidence – doing it in partnership with the non-school community bridges the gap to “real world” and provides meaning. Another lagniappe for learning!

Photo Credits to Monica’s Dad for Open and Maurice for The Swan

Technorati Tags: GoogleDocs, Injenuity, Interview, 21stCenturySkills, connections

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Time for a new blog meme to help spread the word about the upcoming K12 Online Conference 2007.  When you are tagged– simply create a blog post where you link to this flickr photo. Then write your 3 reasons and tag several others who will do the same thing. After you tag someone in your post, please email them to let them know so they can help spread the word.

Please share either three reasons to participate based on your experience from last
year or (if you didn’t attend last year) three things you hope to gain from the experience this year.

My Three Reasons

1. No travel $ = No problem! *BONUS* You can learn in your pj’s or with a glass of vino!
2. New features in 2007: Take My Hand (for newbies) and Attendr Map (for personal collaborative opportunities)
3. Last year’s sessions are still available for ongoing reflection!

Tag – You’re It! to:  Jeanette, Karen, Carey, Dennis, Bridget, Howard

Technorati Tags: k12online07

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It all started over the weekend when I sporadically followed the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai (now in a dynamic and ‘to-be-continued’ status, thanks to Jeff Utecht) – the Ning site was a great mashup of information and served to help me not only understand the value of social networks, but also to virtually meet educators in international schools and read the blogs and tweets of the participants and presenters – interesting to note that this was partially structured as an “unconference” too with opportunities for all to “drive” the direction of the conversation.

On Tuesday at work, I participated in the Florida Adult and Technical Distance Education Consortium board meeting via Elluminate and conference calling since our travel monies are frozen with statewide budget cuts. That evening in the comfort of my own home, I joined the DEN/EdTechConnect webinar, along with about 40 other educators, to hear Lani Ritter Hall and Darren Kuropatwa present information about the K12 Online Conference coming up in October. Using WebEx conferencing software with audio, PowerPoint and chat was not enough though, as there was at least one skype chat backchannelling and my own twittering (which btw brought in another twit to participate in the webinar!)

The next day there was a twitter notice from CoolCatTeacher, Vicki Davis, inviting us to collaborate on the newly unveiled presentation tool in Google Docs. Though I didn’t get there to participate “live”, I ended up at checking out the published presentation at the same time as Lisa Durff. We chatted a few lines before heading off to the Women of Web 2.0 online broadcast and chat. This production was extremely active and I found myself having difficulty keeping up with various directions the chat was taking – but what an awesome group and the topics of conversation were just what I needed.

My online connection Sunday morning was welcomed with another twitter-initiated conversation – this time with the web conferencing tool WizIQ. Sadly, I missed the missed the synchronous version once again, but the hour-long impromptu discourse among educators from all over the world was recorded! I took some time to ‘eavesdrop’ and explore yet another free web-based tool that could change the way our students learn.

So, what do all of these connections mean – some quick reflections:

• It seems as if I’m working in two different worlds – kinda feel like the kids who have to leave their myspace and youtube and cell phones, etc at the school house gate – my online world of edubloggers who create, collaborate, and vision for the future and my offline colleagues who often rely on traditional, static and often antiquated resources.
• Though I’ve always valued the asynchronous aspects of online connections, I’m beginning to better understand the necessity for ‘real time’ connections, as well. There is a need for both types in our learning environments – do we have the capacity? do we have the courage to make them a priority?
• All of these online conversations seemed pretty comfortable to me, having experienced them over the last few years, but what about others? What about those teachers who still teach sans online communicative tools? What about students who know the tools, but not always how to use them with the appropriate ethics?
• How do we balance the connection overload that can occur when we juggle both offline and online communication tools? And, once we look deeper at connections, how do we utilize them to truly collaborate for a common creation?

Another week underway…what will evolve as a result of these connections? I can’t wait to be a part of it all!

Photo credits to Hicks97’s 9-13-07 – Day 32, Eglantine’s Conversation,  and AardvArt in a Field of Clovers’ Conversation Heart Box

Technorati Tags: online learning, ning, conferences, webinar, twitter, Google Apps, WOW2, connection, collaboration

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1. A fifteen year old student asked me (the old lady) what TTYL and BTW meant – it was a major LOL (so as not to embarrass her, I waited until she left)!  It also made me feel like I might actually have some ammunition for closing the so called immigrant/native gap.                                                                                                                            
2. Our afternoon of inservice included another showing of Shift Happens – an opportunity to review and refocus.  I twitted my disappointment of the lack of documentation.  Despite the important messages in the video, I miss the opportunity to dig deeper into the displayed facts (I have a similar complaint with Friedman’s The World is Flat).  The lack of citations also runs askew to what we are trying to teach our students about digital ethics.  The cool thing was getting a response about the Shift Happens wiki from injenuity (whom I only know via Twitter) within a few moments.  The network connection is definitely a sign of the times!
3. An awesome “feel good” story – a teacher delightfully revealed that he is really reaching his students this year.  His secret?  He’s letting them lead the way!  Though his class does have more flexibility than others, he has discovered that allowing students to help determine direction of content and instruction can lead to learning goals, as well as “learning how to learn”.  His enthusiasm and pioneering is contagious – can’t wait to observe his class in action!

photo credits to jeremy foo’s  so many connections on flickr and aaardvaark’s enthusiasm on flickr

The premise of the book, Teach with Your Strengths, is that teachers need to discover their own innate talents and utilize them in their educator roles in the classroom. That makes sense to me! The authors go on to explain that knowing one’s strengths alone does not guarantee a great teacher, but that one must also consider skills, knowledge, and the development of strengths.

My concern with the emphasis of strengths is that the balance scales tip too away from the concept of realism. Positive attitudes and emotions are certainly desirable, though I didn’t find their claim of “this principle has altered several branches of psychology and created a new one: strengths psychology.” (Liesveld & Miller, 2005, p. 45) – at least not in the divisions of the American Psychological Association, though there is a reference to Positive Psychology in Wikipedia.

Optimism has been found to fight cancer, increase creativity (Pink, 2006, p. 225) and in general, provide a more productive atmosphere. But in my own optimism is caution as I fear too many will turn a blind eye to the reality which is often negative and downright ugly. I still advocate for a balance and that requires one to consider their weaknesses – sometimes that just means acknowledging them and accepting them, but often, it behooves one to seek improvement and change for those weaknesses.

Liesveld & Miller (2005, p. 53) claim that “working on weaknesses means that you keep doing, with dogged and pained determination, what you don’t – and can’t – do well. Even with all that effort, the best you can hope to become is mediocre.” Not only does that seem like a ‘cop out’ for dealing with reality and working towards improvement, but it then begs the question, if we don’t need to work on our weaknesses, why are we expecting students to do that in their day to day lives in our educational institutions? Do we hold a different standard for them?

Again, for emphasis, I’m not against examining and taking advantage of our strengths – those attributes will undoubtedly lead us to the best ‘fit’ in avocational, vocational, relational and personal pursuits. A closer look at our weaknesses does not have to lead to negativity – indeed, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” (quote attributed to Winston Churchill). So, I only propose that we balance those strengths with the continual consideration of reality – because, after all, we will have to face it on a day-to-day basis. As our Professional Learning Communities continue to explore the relationships of strengths to teaching and learning, I’m sure I’ll grow with additional reflections and postings, as well!

Liesveld, R, & Miller, J (2005). Teach with your strengths.NY: Gallup Press.
Pink, D (2006). A whole new mind. NY: Riverhead Press.

Photo Credits: Partsnpieces’ Strength in Numbers at Flickr, Harshad Sharma’s Optimistic at Flickr, Scoobymoo’s Reality Tag at Flickr.

Technorati tags: StrengthsFinder, Teaching, Learning

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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