Blogging as part of the learning

ccoffa Blogs ,

Any reader of this blog will know that I love blogging and often use it personally to ask questions and explore issues.  I have been lucky enough to introduce personal blogging to a group of 10 – 12 year olds and used the Student Blogging Challenge to launch this process. They very quickly applied new skills: adding widgets, commenting, navigating the dashboards and adding posts.  Most did only what was required while a few seemed to ‘click’ with the notion that their blogs could be an added tool in their learning.  The ‘showcase’ element of blogging is easy: create a product, publish it, get feedback (always positive).

Listening to and reading the work of Ideas Lab, I was keen to explore another facet of blogging.

Rethinking Transparency

Communicate the whole learning process not just student achievements.
Schools also need to reimagine what students publish. Rather than simply showcasing student achievements and reflections upon the process as a whole, students should be encouraged to share the entire learning process.
Schools should teach and encourage students to share their project ideas, their reflections, their progress and their achievements. School should also consider whether every student should have a blog, a journal where they have the freedom to plan, share and reflect.

http://www.ideaslab.edu.au  – Understanding-Virtual-Pedagogies

An opportunity arose recently when a student published his ‘unfinished’ narrative.  He put a note on the class Edmodo page,  explaining that it was not finished.  Having developed a wonderful PLN (including one author), I immediately thought, here was an opportunity for our young author to connect, to get feedback during the process.  I contacted an author (thanks Kelly) and within minutes, the student had a beautifully written commentary on his draft story.  Lovely feedback and constructive suggestions for improvement from a credible, experienced writer.
It remains to be seen, as this was only yesterday, how this translates directly to the piece of work in progress.  But I cannot see, how this intervention cannot have a positive effect on the young writer.  He knows he has an audience, he knows there are people with skills that can assist his growth and that they are not all in his classroom or school.

At a recent day with other educators including Alec Couros, we discussed how teachers can be the nodes for our students learning, how we can create a network around ourselves and consequently around our students.  This was a perfect opportunity to prove this concepts value.

How can we help our students to develop their own Personal Learning Networks?

TeachMeet – What else did I see?

ccoffa TeachMeet ,

Another Teachmeet is over and they just seem to get better and better.  Yesterday around 60 teachers gave up their Saturday afternoon to gather and inspire each other at Teachmeet Melbourne (hosted by our beautiful Immigration Museum).  After a previous Teachmeet I explained what I saw .  I can now add to that list:

http://openclipart.org/people/eady/eyes-for-the-world
  • I continue to see passionate teachers who obviously deeply care about the craft of their teaching, willing to take risks and continue learning
  • I see people using the power of Twitter to synthesise their thinking, to note-take and to share their experience.  Many have replaced taking notes, with Tweeting, serving double purposes
  • I see wonderful stories of classroom practices by very new teachers and those not so new
  • I see well thought out and clearly illustrated pedagogical theories
  • I see old relationships re-kindled and re-ignited
  • I see a strong emphasis on games based learning opportunities for our students
  • I see new relationships being forged.  People extending their professional learning networks.  Following the twitter stream afterwards, there is plenty of evidence that people found new opportunities to connect and will have tangible evidence of the value of attending.  I see conversations started that will lead to wonderful relationships.
  • I see teachers who are understanding that teaching is no longer a private endeavour – accepting that so much can be gained by sharing their experiences

It is interesting to note that so many of the things I see, are not technology related – technology is the conduit that brought us together (Twitter, Wiki etc) but the depth of the experience is the relationships formed.   All details are available on the TeachMeet Melbourne Wiki  .   I wonder what I will see next time ? What would I like to see?

Keeping in touch – Class Blogging

ccoffa Blogs

I work at a school where the teachers have taken to Class Blogging – they use their blogs as wonderful tools to communicate, connect and collaborate. I am only at school two days a week and so I could have the potential of feeling disconnected, isolated from the comings and goings occurring when I am not there. Nothing could be furtherer from the truth. All I need to do is check out the blogs and I can see what is happening.  Even if I was there full-time like most, in a busy staffroom, we often don’t get to hear all the news from the other classrooms, but blogging allows that news to be disseminated in a wonderful way.

Tonight, I browsed the Senior blogs, here and here, and was updated about today’s excursion to ACMI. I then saw a tweet from a Prep teacher and found that the nesting boxes the Preps made last term, now have a home and inhabitants! I also learned that the senior students had been helping their Prep buddies developing lessons for the peers.

I found out the Middle students have been conducting Sports clinics for their classmates.  I saw a new Junior class blog spreading it’s wings and asking questions, hoping to get parents involved in the class conversations.   I could keep going, but you have got the gist.

I also see

  • class groups commenting on other class blogs
  • parents commenting on the children’s learning
  • students commenting on class blogs
  • teachers affirming each other’s practise
  • a wonderful chronicle of the general happenings within the school
  • classes appreciating the potential of asking questions of a worldwide audience
  • students reflecting on their learning and sharing their thoughts

I am very happy with what I see, we have come a long way and keep on evolving in our purpose, methods and styles.  I wonder what it will look like in six months.

That’s about it … social learning

ccoffa Professional_learning

students teaching learning with students
teachers  teaching learning with students
students  teaching learning with teachers
teachers  teaching learning with teachers

In “So many opportunities”, I  wrote about the plethora of  opportunities to be inspired to think about education.  Stephen Heppell says  “It’s a very exciting time for learning. It’s the death of education, but the dawn of learning.”   Alan November’s message at #ictev12 was and I para-phrase,  “peer tutoring is in the upper echelon of what will make a difference. ”   The obvious value of the social side of learning is coming through in so many of these conversations.  Will Richardson, says  “it is about what you do with others “ – not about learning alone.

The value of engaging a network of other learners, whether face to face or by on-line interactions is becoming a greater force – not simply as an end product but as part of the learning routine. I spent yesterday with a group of highly networked educators at the State Library of Victoria,  It was exciting to hear the questions and issues in the minds of those in the room. Hamish Curry conducted a wonderful dialogue and Alec Couros brought some of his vast experience to the room as well.

As I see it, the shift is in the use of the internet, from merely publishing final products to involving others in the process of creating the product.   The web was a place to publish, now it is a place to collaborate and create.  No new ideas here really as Web 2 products have been available for many years.  The idea is that good ideas are the consequence of the melding of many other ideas into something new and our sharing can make that happen.   Being open to risk sharing your thinking, despite your doubts that there are many who may think differently or know more is something many adults shy from, this I believe is a great challenge for adults but perhaps not for our younger students.  The concept is described as  ‘learning collectively’  in the Ideas Lab “The Collective Knowledge Constructive Model”.    This collaboration, importantly face to face is enhanced by the use of the tools at our finger tips – nothing beats the personal relationships.

Whilst I love the sound of all this, questions keep arising in my head

  • How do we shift the thinking of people who have a complacent comfort in continuing their isolated existence?  or for that matter should we?
  • How can collaborative learning ‘fit’ the current exam focused assessments our students are required to complete?
  • How equipped are many teachers to become ‘nodes’ in a network to support their students learning?
  • How do we learn and then teach others to filter the enormous wealth and diversity of thinking and knowledge?
  • Is social media a leveller – allowing conversations between people of all ‘levels’ of knowledge, skills and ability?
Luckily I will be able to continue these discussions and ask more questions next Friday, back at the State Library but this time it will be Will Richardson as our    ‘carrot’ offering his perspective.  If this taster is any example, it should prove to be another thought provoking experience.

 

iste-presentation from Will Richardson on Vimeo.

Patience is a virtue …. help !

ccoffa Professional_learning

I have been experimenting with App Building using a lovely site iBuildapp.com.  The App creation part is easy enough – fun to fiddle with options and explore the possibilities.  Click on the image to take you to the test page.

 

The trouble I am finding is in the execution.

I think I am able to read fairly well, have average comprehension skills and reasonable problem solving strategies.  However, I am going in circles with the publishing part of the process.

I have my Apple Developer credentials but am lost in a circular war with .cer, .p12 files, Keychain Access etc etc.

Amongst the trouble shooting efforts, I have read the Forums on the site but they have yet to yield any assistance. So what would any reasonable person do when they can’t work something out?

 

Tweet it and blog about it and see what happens!

 

 

Before I could even finish writing this post I had a reply to my Tweet – I love my PLN !

Fingers crossed