March+2011

March 9, 2011
I mentioned to a couple of colleagues today that although the pace of work & life is busy, that I felt like I was on top of it. I do not surf, but so often it seems to me that the continual sea of demands provides all kinds of swells and opportunities to "ride the wave". Having an ocean of demands is daunting, but it also provides an ocean of opportunities beyond that of simply drowning.

Our 21st Century and 1 to 1 initiatives are continuing to grow. These are exciting times at work- so many new things going on- new initiatives, new ideas, new people deciding to get involved. While we have our own initiatives, it was interesting for me to read in [|Bruce Dixon's blog] recently about all that is going on in [|Queensland, Australia]. Quite the bold 1 to 1 program, and it seems so well organized! Sometimes I wish I had the ability to travel to jurisdictions like Maine and Queensland where significant, system wide work on 1 to 1 learning is under way.I would like to learn not only what the glossy and well designed materials have to say, but I would also like to hear from the adults and students who are learning and teaching in these systems.

Bruce Dixon seems to think that reaching the number of "10 million" 1 to 1 students is a bit of a red herring. Real change will come a bit at a time, be hard to measure and quantify, and require persistent effort by those who are convinced that the new tools of this new information age will supplant many of the older technologies currently used in schools.

This graphic by [|voxy mobile learning] tells the story so well:

So, I continue to surf. Funny how a sea of demands or a sea of information can seem so daunting, wild, and unmanageable. Any literal ship-wreck story is a cruel and stark reminder of the power of oceans; I suppose a surfing metaphor works well for riding above and within the power of the ocean.

I think that Bruce Dixon has it right- there is no comfort in reaching an arbitrary mark of ten million students involved globally in 1 to 1 educational programs, and in fact such milestones may serve to slow the pace of educational reform. Folks like me, working daily with teenagers and computers, figuring out how best to define a slew of new literacies have a massive work ahead of us.

Surfing aside, there is a sea-change underway. Far below the surface of the "sea of demands" and the "sea of educational reform" the ocean itself is changing the way that we perceive what it even means to be literate or intelligent. All of us get swept away with the current sooner or later. We change by choice, or we change by default, but nonetheless, all of us will be changed. I know that I am changed.

I am surfing on the energy of a revolution in education, and fending off the possibility of drowning in all that life demands.

Friday, March 11, 2011
I just spent about 30 minutes pulling together the basic wiki for the new 21C Learning PLN that was approved by our division today. Looking forward to connecting with colleagues for Professional Development using new tools. Funny how we never really know in the morning how the day will unfold. Today was a good day. Good for my students, good for me too.

When I think about how differently I approach professional learning now that I am becoming a small part of a mammoth online community it surprises me. Five minutes here, five minutes there, and I meet people and connect with experts and create a bit of content that never existed before, that may come in handy to a colleague in our building, our division, or flung across the globe. I know- it was about time to end that sentence. Blame it on enthusiasm. Time to end this brief Friday night post as well.

Sunday Night, March 13.
Busy creating things over the past few days- just finished a 57 slide presentation all about Ed Philosophy, and Ed Leadership Philosophy. Enough of the epistemology for now! Loading it up on slideshare so I'll have "cloud" access without having to remember a thumb drive. We changed the clocks this weekend, and so it feels like I'm in another time zone. Start it all over again tomorrow morning. Tempus Fugit, and forward march!

Thursday, March 24, 2011.
What a fantastic PLN meeting this morning! It is so helpful to gather committed and professional people together to share their experiences. Thanks to all of you who attended and made it such a beneficial time! The conversation prism came to mind many times. How many different ways can we create conversations, and establish connections in this web 2.0/3.0 world? I sure wish that we could all more fully grapple and accept the multiple channels that we have at our disposal for establishing all kinds of neural networks...starting to sound like [|connectivism], and that's a good thing! Click on the picture to learn more about it. We have so many high quality options for the creation and dispersal of information, and hopefully teachers can learn how to use a wide variety of these tools to enhance and customize student learning experiences. "[|Infowhelm]" is a persistent reality in 2011, but building up walls and ignoring the reality of this information age will not prepare young people for their world. We all have to learn to be more open, more collaborative and more sharing in this connected 21st Century world. Face to face meetings like the PLN experience I had this morning are golden, and yet we all know that networks of people have less and less to do with face time. Still, it was so good today to gather, to confirm our understandings, and to discover so many new things together!