Nexus

Skimming my Twitter messages yesterday, I came across a request from Dr. Alec Couros from the University of Regina to help him respond to a writer who took issue with his use of the phrase “authentic learning” in an article, Safety and Social Networking, that he had written for TechLEARNING. The writer in question characterized the term “authentic” as meaningless edspeak.

While I couldn’t take the time yesterday to respond, many others did and are quoted in Alec’s post, Authentic Learning Environments. The comment by Rob Wall hit home with me.

First - “authentic” means genuine as opposed to artificial, contrived or imitative. In traditional schooling, many experiences are contrived. We tell students to write for their audience, yet the audience for whom they are writing is just the teacher or perhaps their class. An authentic audience is an audience beyond the teacher, class or even the school. It is a heterogeneous audience as one would write for if one wrote in a newspaper or magazine article. It is an audience that chooses to read what is being written instead of a group that is chosen by the writer or a teacher.

There’s little to argue with in Rob’s comment and most language teachers can see snapshots of their classrooms when reading it. But gosh, it’s hard! How do you move beyond the artificial when a contrived system dictates that:

• you will have 27 twelve year olds with no choice but to sit in front of you;
• during a time frame that an artificial schedule has determined to be “language” time;
• ready to learn about “planning for writing” because a prescribed curriculum mandates it?

What’s a teacher to do? Carefully craft a lesson centered around a topic that will hook the interest of as many of those twelve year olds as possible, ripe with examples from literature and shared writing, logically broken into meaningful steps, rich with opportunities for students to practice and apply what they have learned, all coherently and masterfully logged in day and unit plans. Does learning take place in this scenario? Certainly some. After all we have test scores that verify this fact, don’t we?

What can a teacher do to break out of this artificial mould, to move towards more authentic learning opportunities? I think the first step is to realize that authentic learning is often not scripted nor planned for. The teacher needs to open up the classroom and see who and what will enter “naturally”. A good first step is blogging. Here’s an example in one of my project sites, Ontario Blogs, where blogging has opened a classroom to authentic learning.

The teacher has asked students to share responses to the books they are reading on the Ontario Blogs site. There are many classes from across the province using the site, so there is the potential for a wide audience for these young writers. Student “Bam” shared her response to “OK to Be Me”, a short story written by Monica Marie Jones and published in “Chicken Soup for the Girl’s Soul”. The author of the story came upon Bam’s post and contacted me to ask for a login to the project site so she could respond to the student. A meaningful dialogue is shaping up here and a learning network has been started involving students and author. Please read the exchanges yourself, but if time is lacking, I’ve picked out some highpoints:

Jones

My name is Monica Marie Jones and I am the author of the short story, “Okay to be Me” from Chicken Soup for the Girls Soul. That story is an excerpt from my novel, “The Ups and Downs of Being Round.” I was so glad to see that you wrote a blog about my story. Reading it really made my day.

Bam

I am the writer of this blog and I was so exicited to have you respond to my blog!

… I was wondering if my class could blog back and forth to you?

Jones

I would love to blog back and forth with your class.

Bam

Wow, wait until Tuesday when my class finds out about this!

…When you begin a book or are brainstorming for a book do you go right to typing or do you draft up a mind map first? Do you have a little “inspriation book” for when you think of story ideas when you are on the go?

Bam’s teacher

WOW!!! I am very excited the you are interested in blogging back and forth with my class Ms. Jones! When I first showed your response to BAM they were thrilled and applauded her. It has definitely been motivating for all of the students to hear comments from an author.

Bam’s classmate

That is very cool that mjones responed on our blog site
that means any author can get an account and repond on anything on here that is really cool

Jones

When I write a book, it begins as an idea in my head. From there I start by writing short stories or situations that I see happening within the book. I guess this is kind of like my way of doing an outline. I write everything that I want in the book, then I go back in and fill in all of the gaps and the details.

Hmmm… now let’s compare this experience with the lesson I mentioned earlier, the well-crafted one about “planning for writing”. Which experience is more authentic? Which has more impact? Authentic learning - meaningless edspeak?

Technorati tags: authentic learning, blogging, Alec Couros, Rob Wall, Monica M. Jones

What images come to mind when you think of a fireside chat? Crackling fire? Intimate group of friends or colleagues? Stimulating conversation? Laughter? Companionship? Glass of wine (or other libation)?

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of attending the K12 Online Conference - Fireside Chat with David Warlick. What a treat!

Crackling fire? No, but picture all of the participants cozied up to their desktops/laptops/PDA’s etc.

Intimate group of friends or colleagues? Not exactly. How about 100+ educators from…Prince Edward Island, South Carolina, New Brunswick, California, Oklahoma, New Jersey, New York, Sudan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Australia, Michigan, British Columbia, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, Texas, Manitoba, Korea, Illinois, New Zealand, North Carolina, Arizona, Ontario, Scotland, Mexico, Kansas, Quebec, and Maryland, (my apologies if I’ve left anyone out), gathered together online irrespective of time zones and geographic distance? Not exactly an intimate group, but there was a very warm feeling of collegiality.

Stimulating conversation? You bet! And for those of us whose brains have been wired in a more or less linear fashion over the past few decades, a mental workout! The chat flew by on the screen like snippets of conversation in a crowded room, competing with the audio and video being presented elsewhere on the screen.

Screenshot of David Warlick’s Fireside Chat

Laughter? Yes, and other social conventions you would associate with a face to face conversation - greetings, informal chitchat, asides, questions, interjections etc.

Companionship? Yes, evident by the fact that people were drawn to the event. It wasn’t necessary to attend the live chat in order to understand Warlick’s keynote address, Inventing the New Boundaries, yet there we were, more than 100 of us from around the world. We are by nature social creatures and need contact with others. We are coming to the realization that we not only socialize, but also learn in networks. Teaching has longtime been a solitary, sometimes even lonely, profession. We spend most of our days, not in the company of professional colleagues, but in a four-walled room with our students. Having the opportunity to quickly and easily reach out to colleagues is very empowering. In blogging about his keynote session David Warlick wrote:

The session was installed and opened around 7:30 yesterday. Part of that web page were instructions for using a chat program to discuss the opening presentation as people were watching it. During the first few minutes, messages appeared from the U.S., Korea, SecondLife (that was me), Australia, Thailand, and The Philippines.

I can think of nothing that illustrates the changing boundaries of our teaching and learning environments than this. In almost 24 hours, 2,539 messages were posted to that chat room.

We are discovering the power of the network in droves.

So, what did I take away from this experience?

• Affirmation that I am a member of a professional learning community, that there are colleagues upon whom I can call (twitter, skype, comment…) to help me or act as a sounding board.
• An appreciation of the skillset that students bring to the classroom, the ability to communicate in non-linear fashions.
• Experience using one of the many tools, (Elluminate), available to us for online collaboration.
• An appreciation of key roles that must be played in order to reign in chaos.
  • The first is facilitator. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach played this role during the session and she is incredibly skilled at it. We have much to learn from her.
  • Conversation rudder. Wesley Fryer played this role expertly. If you read through the chat, you’ll see him updating the group on points made by the speaker, restating key points, reframing questions…
• Increase in comfort level in participating in environments that have new boundaries.

Technorati tags: k12online07pc, k12online07, David Warlick, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Wesley Fryer, K12 Online Conference 2007

Image Citation
Superciliousness. “200510 fireside chat.” superciliousness’ photostream. 30 October 2005. 10 Aug 2007 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/superciliousness/57898245/>.

David Warlick, consummate story-teller and king of the metaphor has done it again - kicked off the K12 Online Conference in style - entertaining, engaging, stimulating, and challenging us to “Invent the New Boundaries“. The video takes a while to download but is well worth the wait. The audio file of course downloads faster. Use it for your second listen; you’ve got to watch the video!

Warlick states that he is not comfortable using this video style of presentation in the absence of feedback from a live audience. I have to say his stated discomfort is not evident to the viewer; he seems completely at ease in front of the camera, setting up his shots in interesting locations, engaging even bystanders. I admire Warlick for continually pushing, breaking down and re-inventing the boundaries. He reminds us, not in words, but through his actions that we need to move beyond our comfort level in order to explore our personal boundaries.

I think that at least on an theoretical, if not practical level, most educators would agree that the nature of learning is changing in the information age and the traditional school boundaries are disappearing. Warlick outlines for us three new conditions that are converging in our classrooms, which have the potential to be the new boundaries off of which we can gain needed traction to move learning forward. There were quite a few attention-grabbing ideas here for me!

Condition #1

Students are more info-savvy. They are accustomed to rich information experiences, connecting with the world through “invisible tentacles” in the form of multimedia, mobile phones, video games, and social networks. They look to a network of people who can help them learn what they need/want to do.

In rather graphic terms, Warlick asserts that in schools we are “chopping the tentacles off…because we want our children to be the students we want to teach, rather than teaching the students that they are.” Wow, puts a whole new spin on all of the filtering, blocking and banning we are doing!

Condition #2

There is a new information landscape. On a daily basis all of us must make decisions as to what information we are going to use. Warlick states: “In the information age, information must compete for attention…in exactly the same way products on the shelves competed for attention in the industrial age.” I hadn’t thought of it in this way but it concerns me. I see lots of evidence that students are being swayed by “glitzy packaging”.

Condition #3

We are preparing students for an unpredictable future. Very tough assignment!

There are so many conversation starters in Warlick’s presentation and there are a number of ways to get involved. If you blog, tag your posts k12online07pc. Do a blog search for that tag on Technorati and join the conversations that resonate with you. David has started a wiki and invited all of us to edit the pages to comment and join the discussion as he fleshes out the concepts. I for one intend to take him up on the invitation!

Technorati tags: k12online07pc, k12online07, Warlick, K12 Online Conference 2007

I am a passionate learner. Never am I more energized than when I am learning and contributing to the learning of others. Having said that, I rarely get as excited about organized professional development opportunities as I am about the K12 Online Conference set to start tomorrow, October 8, 2007!

Last year’s conference completely changed the way I look at PD. Never again will I sit through a one-off “sit and git” presentation.

For me the conference started off with a real eye-opener in David Warlick’s Keynote, Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning. In his opening remarks Warlick stated:

You’ll spend some time paying attention to me and others, but the best part of this conference will be the time that you are reflecting on what you see, hear, and read, and then writing in your blogs and populating wikis, and then reading other people’s reflections, and reacting.

How true! I was enthralled by the video/podcast format that allowed me to pause, stop, restart and replay the keynote presentation as needed. I spent a remarkable day working through the one hour presentation as I engaged in my own learning sidetrips:

• I paused the podcast and explored the links to Blogger and Edublogs. I set up accounts at both and “played” for a bit.
• Back to the presentation…
• Paused again, this time to explore Bloglines. Found several interesting feeds there to which I subscribed. I wasn’t sure at that point whether or not I needed an RSS Reader; man, have I come a long way in a short year :-).
• Stopped, this time to get some work done…hate it when that happens…
• Back to the presentation, …paused at conference HitchHikr. Wow! I’d never seen this application before. Spent a long time exploring the related blog posts and cloud tags. I made connections to bloggers I’m still reading.
• And then there was the keynote wiki! At that point I was aware of Wikipedia, but I’d never seen a wiki used in any other context. I spent a long time there, exploring the wiki interface, following the links, but most importantly reading and reflecting on the comments left by other participants who were also taking their own sidetrips through Warlick’s presentation.

What a thrill! And that was just one keynote from a packed conference agenda!

This year’s conference promises to be just as exciting. Here’s the welcome message from the conference wiki:

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2007 conference theme is Playing with Boundaries. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote by David Warlick the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations.

I’m so looking forward to this year’s conference. The theme, “Playing with Boundaries” is very à propos given what we’ve all learned this past year about active participation through all of the back-channelling, sharing, blogging, tagging, and twittering activities in which we’ve been involved. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada; so there’s no need to start the day with my nose to the grindstone. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the day than David Warlick’s keynote. If you can’t “make it” tomorrow, don’t worry…enjoy the presentation when it best suits your schedule. The conversation will continue long after the event; just join in when you’re ready! See you there!

Technorati tags: K12 Online Conference 2007, k12online07, k12online07pc, David Warlick, professional learning

This is a question that has been tumbling through my mind recently. I’ve spent this past week as a guest of the Canadian Space Agency, touring the Kennedy Space Center, and watching the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. That means I have spent my time in the company of people who, at the very least, have a profound interest in space exploration.

I had the opportunity to listen to some snippets of conversations that were occurring all around me that presented misconceptions as fact. I was surprised in this environment for instance, to hear people talking about the “zero gravity” environment of the Shuttle and the Space Station. This is a very commonly-held misconception, certainly among the students in our ISS07 project. The reality is that there is lots of gravity, about 90% as much as on Earth. In fact, it is the Earth’s gravity that keeps spacecraft (and the Moon) in their orbits around the Earth. Therefore a better, and more precise way to describe this environment is to call it a “free-fall” environment. In orbit a spacecraft is actually falling (accelerating) directly towards the centre of the Earth. (The astronauts inside are falling at the same rate and therefore float). It is only as a result of the spacecraft’s enormous horizontal (tangential) speed that it is able to maintain a more-or-less constant distance from the Earth’s surface.

So what does this example mean for educators? I’ve been listening to or taking part in conversations with many edubloggers over the past year about the need to give our students the tools and experiences required to develop the skills to build personal learning networks. I’m getting the uneasy feeling that at least some of us are assuming that authority will reside in the network. As my gravity example shows, the group, or by extension the network, can be wrong. What then?

Where do we go for authoritative information? I’ve noticed a trend in responses students have been posting to challenge questions in both of our Polar Science projects and now our ISS07 project; students start with Wikipedia. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, especially as a starting point. But should students stop with one information source?

In a recent post on his Connectivism blog, George Siemens states that the popularity of Wikipedia is due not so much because it is an authoritative resource, but more because it’s good enough and easy enough to find what he calls “quick and dirty” knowledge, such as “How is beer made?” Siemens states:

Wikipedia provides “gap filling” information, not necessarily foundation information on which we base world views. For foundational world view information, we don’t rely on a singular resource. We blend many - experts, our own experiences, our own thinking, influences of colleagues, articles, books, and so on.

David Warlick in today’s post talks about plans to add a comment feature to Google News and the implications this will have for authoritative journalism. Warlick asks:

So, where’s Walter Cronkite when you need him?

This takes me back to the question I asked a couple of paragraphs ago, where do we go for authoritative information? If there ever was, there certainly is no longer, a comfort zone, a respected authority under the watchful eyes of authors, editors, journalists, experts. The answer lies in what Warlick calls new literacy habits:

The only comfort — our ONLY safety — is in people who are critical thinkers, skilled information workers, who ask questions about the answers that they find — by habit.

Develop that habit in the context of what Siemens calls “blending” many information sources, and then I think we can have confidence in the authority of personal learning networks.

Warlick says:

That puts the ball in our court, teachers.

Amen! And what an incredible responsibility and exciting challenge!

Technorati tags: Canadian Space Agency Kennedy Space Center Space Shuttle Endeavor gravity misconceptions edubloggers Wikipedia Polar Science ISS07 George Siemens David Warlick Google News

On her blog, Musings about Using Technology as a Tool for Learning, Sharon Peters talked recently about the “evolution of the über-blogger“.

I love the phrase, “uber-blogger”, and wish I’d thought of it. The following is based on a comment I made to Sharon’s original post. It (my comment) seems to have vanished into the blogosphere, but I thought it was worth writing, so I’ve added to it and posted it here instead.

I wasn’t sure what to call this phenomenon, but it is extremely powerful! I first witnessed it during NECC 2007. I was only able to physically attend the Edubloggercon immediately before the NECC conference and then had to return home. Once home, I used my RSS reader to follow the rest of the conference. One of the first feeds I pulled in was a skype chat posted on Jeff Utecht’s blog, from the Skype conversation held during Will Richardson’s presentation, “From Hand It In to Publish It: Re-Envisioning Our Classrooms“. This just blew my mind! There were eleven people involved in this conversation. Some of the participants were physically present in Will’s presentation; others were “skyped in” from elsewhere.

In itself it is extremely valuable to read the notes and interpretations of edubloggers who so freely share from the conference sessions they attend. But to see the conversation that took place among that group of skypers during Will’s presentation was extraordinary! It added so much depth to what was already an outstanding presentation conference session. To get a feel for yourself, try this:

• Open Will’s wiki page and follow his session outline;
• Listen to the podcast of the session posted by Wesley Fryer;
• Follow the skype notes posted by Jeff Utecht.

Do you get the same sense of “Wow!” that I do? This is blogging on a new level, hence uber-blogging.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I was travelling last week in Saskatchewan and following the Building Learning Communities conference being held in Boston. As I followed the conference via Google reader, I found that the backchanelling activities started at NECC not only continued, but flourished. Cathy Nelson wrote about her experiences taking part in BLC07 sessions by skyping David Jakes. Just search her blog for BLC and you’ll see the incredible impact this type of participatory activity had on her professional learning - and she didn’t physically attend the conference!

I also noticed that the uber-bloggers were honing their new skills. David Jakes in my mind is becoming a master at facilitating backchannelling sessions. Here’s a good example. David “hosted” the skype chat for Ewan McIntosh’s session - Is Your Public Body Public? Read through the chatcast and you’ll notice David played a role beyond conversation participant. He facilitated the chat by:

• reminding readers/skypers of the session title
• articulating main points as they were introduced by the presenter
• summarizing main points
• clarifying skypers’ comments

Last but not least David added a few text conventions such as italics to make it easier for the rest of us to follow.

Call it what you will - uber-blogging, backchanelling, whatever, there’s a lot to think about here and I know I need some more processing time. I need to think about this from different perspectives: professional development leader, project designer and facilitator, teacher, learner…

Right now though, I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all of the uber-bloggers who so willingly and effectively share these rich learning experiences!

Technorati tags: blogging uber-blogging NECC07 NECC2007 NECC 2007 NECC 07 BLC07 BLC 07 BLC2007 BLC 2007

Here I am in sunny Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, accompanying my husband at his national optometric conference. Before me lies the gift of four days to do as I please! Of course I’m going to explore the city, shop, and walk the beautiful trails along the Saskatechewan River that runs through the city. I brought along my PDA so I can check e-mail, approve registrations on our ISS07 project and keep up with my Google Reader feeds. But since there is only so much shopping and walking you can do, (seriously), I thought I’d also “attend” a conference.

The Building Communities Conference is currently being held in Boston. Not an easy commute from Saskatechewan! No worry, I’m using my RSS aggregator (Google Reader) to bring the conference to me. This is the power of tagging! Bloggers who are attending the conference are tagging their posts with either blc07, blc 07, blc2007 or blc 2007. All I need to do is use a blog search engine to search for those tags. I like Google Blog Search because it integrates seemlessly with my Google Reader and displays nicely on my small PDA screen. Since I can read my Google Reader RSS feeds offline, once I’ve downloaded them to my PDA, I can browse through the blog posts about the conference from park benches as I stroll along this beautiful river. Now that’s the way to attend a conference!

I could put links here to all the things I’m learning, to share with anyone who might be reading this post. But you know what, I’m not going to. This is my learning - personal, and highly effective for me! From David Jakes’ invitation to be skyped into sessions, to Ewan McIntosh’s invitation to get a free front row view of the conference, complete with vidcasts and podcasts from his blog, I feel personally invited to pull in these feeds, digest them at my leisure, and make my own connections and meaning from the conference. This is professional learning that works for me:

• pulled in from the network of edubloggers I’ve been reading and interacting with
• accessible anywhere, at any time
• interactive, as I can post comments on the blogs where the writer has made points that resonate with me.

I encourage you to take charge of your own professional learning. Fire up the RSS reader of your choice and immerse yourself in the ideas and issues that matter to you.

Now, I’m off to explore the Saskatechewan River!

Technorati tags: blc07 blc 07 blc2007 blc 2007 professional learning

Lately I’m starting to feel like a nomadic blogger. In one sense that’s perfectly fine; many conversations that take place in the blogosphere bounce around from blog to blog, needing no fixed place or time. Ideas cross geographic borders in a heartbeat and find welcoming hearths in diverse locales. So, does it really matter where I blog? Until recently I thought not.

I blog with students, teachers and scientists on all of our collaborative project blogs:

• Polar Science
• Phoenix - Out of the Ashes
• International Space Station 2007

I blog with teachers, students, and pre-service teachers on all of the Ontario Blogs sites. I blog with educators exploring the concepts and tools of Web 2.0 on the Classroom 2.0 ning social networking site. And last but certainly not least, I comment on the blogs I read, (if I feel I can make a contribution to the conversation that justifies taking up blog real estate).

So what’s missing?

One of the most important things I’ve learned this past year is the power and wisdom of the “network”. Through the “magic” of RSS, I have been able to pull together an incredibly effective personal learning network from the edublogspere. I have learned more in a shorter period of time than at any other point in my very long career - from reading, commenting, reflecting and conversing with edubloggers. My learning network has become almost organic; it changes as my own thinking progresses and morphs as conversations start, finish and evolve. My Google reader regularly drops and adds feeds, letting me pull in, aggregate, tag and take part in the conversations that resonate with me at any given moment.

What I feel I’m missing is a way to add to the network, to nurture connections I’ve made and forge new ones. I need a way (or more specifically a place) to pull my thoughts together or just let them flow organically, a place to both start conversations and archive my thoughts and experiences. This is the place I’ve chosen to settle - a tiny, new node in the network. Welcome!

Technorati tags: personal learning networks edublogs connected learning