Being Connected - a Twitter Reflection

A few weeks ago I tweeted my 6000th tweet. I marked it with a shout out to my current & past students at BU. This 'milestone', and I use the term lightly (I am not a prolific user of twitter, well that might be relative, I tweet more than many, but less than many others), along with being a participant in someone else's Ph.D. research,  prompted me to reflect back over my use of social media. It was really starting this career as a teacher educator and educational researcher that prompted me to start using social media to connect. While I had dabbled in some forms of Web 2.0 and social media as a school Principal, I started really using social media seriously in 2009 for many reasons. Primarily I thought I should know more about the media that many educators were using and beginning to use in the classroom. I did not want to be one of those people who criticize social media without a real knowledge of it. As I started using twitter - and adding in other media - slideshare, several Ning groups, LinkedIn ... (I now have too many social media accounts to keep track of) that I began to realize even more value. About this same time I also began blogging - this one is my first, started as part of a course in my Ph.D. program, and I added a few more after that. I found twitter to be the mainstay of my PLE, it was a way to share and discover resources, articles and posts of interest, but was even more so a tremendous way to connect and keep in touch with others. It is also, at times, a source of amusement! I follow many educators at all levels (I think it is vital to keep current with what is happening in schools given my role as a teacher educator & researcher) in addition to many other people from many walks of life. I have met so many of these people face-to-face, through online chats and other ways and each adds value to me as a person and a professional. I could go on to name some of the people I have met, but there are many & I have mentioned some in previous blog posts. This is the real value of twitter (& social media) - it is a technology, but it is much more - it is about people, and it does us well to remember that the people we meet - in person or online, that give life value.

A Tough Question

Recently my friend Rob Fisher (@RobCFisher), a Principal at a school in Northern Manitoba, asked me to skype in to a group of aspiring school administrators for a few minutes. I was one of three guests he had skype in to talk about being a connected school leader. The question he asked me to consider was to reflect back about how I thought being connected through social media, as I am now, would have affected my role as a Principal. You see, I left the Principalship about 5 years ago to a new career in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University. It has been since that move that I really began to get connected - to explore and use the tools of social media. Rob's request had me thinking and reflecting - how would it have changed me? Has being connected online changed me? Would I still be a Principal?

 Rob's request has prompted me to do some self-reflection (that is having an effect on current events as well). Whether or not I would have stayed on or not is difficult to answer - maybe I would have - my connections through blogs, twitter ... and more - provide a source of many resources, ideas, conversations, provoke thinking & self-reflection, and support. They provide all that now and it has added to my growth as an educator - of course, my experiences in my Ph.D. program has prompted much growth too. That is why it is hard to answer, learning can indeed be transformative and changes in perspective can occur  as a result of a single dissonant or life-changing event. I think most of us, however, grow through our experiences in a cumulative way. My years in admin were ones of great growth, so have my experiences as part of an amazing cohort of people in my Ph.D. program over the past 4 years, so has my almost 5 years in higher education - teaching adult students, as well as working with thoughtful and intelligent colleagues. And, of course, so have my connections made with so many people through my interactions on twitter, blogs, flickr, diigo, instagram, google+, MOOC participation ... Many of my views about education have evolved as a result of these experiences. Whether or not I would still be a school Principal might be a moot point, but if I was connected more as a school Principal, I know my PLN would have provided me, as it does now, with:

• resources
• conversation, both to reinforce and to provoke thought: critical, reflective & creative
• new ideas
• support
• inspiration, and
• fun!

No matter your role, getting connected, building a PLN can be of benefit to you. Let it grow!
(Thanks, Rob - it was a short call, but fun!)

Connections & Connecting

Photo Credit: cbucky via Compfight cc

This past few weeks has been all about connections for me - and they (the past few weeks, that is) have been pretty well a blur too! First off being a connected educator has been the theme over the first few weeks of the course I teach here at BU's Faculty of Education called 03.467, Internet for Educators (#I4Ed is our twitter hashtag devised by one of my students). I have also decided to TRY to take part , as much as I can in a very packed term, in #etmooc, which has Connected Learning as one of the first topics - and is in fact the nature of the course. Fortunately, since this is the 'stuff' I teach - the tools and methods of connecting are, for the most part, not new to me. I must digress to say that I am getting a new view of Google +. I never really paid much attention too it, but connecting with more people on it and the use of the communities feature is giving me renewed enthusiasm about it - and thinking of ways to use it in my teaching and future research projects.

I have been fortunate and honoured to have three amazing speakers present to my class over the past few weeks to talk about the topic of PLNs and connectedness. John Evans (@joevans, MB Education) came out to share his experience as a former teacher and principal to talk about PLN's and MAPLE (a soon to be released network for all Manitoba teachers). Then Dean Shareski (@shareski) skyped in to present his lessons about being a networked educator, and finally Dr. Alec Couros (@courosa) popped in via Adobe Connect to share his wisdom (this almost right after he presented to etmooc folks!). It is interesting to note that I really got to know this educators through online means (mainly twitter) before I met them in person (to be honest, I did meet Alec briefly when I was in the process of applying to the U of R Ph.D. program - I decided, however, to attend U of Manitoba instead). I like sharing how I have met some incredible people online and that these relationships are every bit as real as the face to face ones (but the 'separation' of online & physical spaces is a topic for another post). Having these various points of view coming into my class spurs great thinking about teaching on my student's blogs (here is a list of their blogs if interested).

Photo Credit: courosa via Compfight cc

One of the tasks I asked my class to do was to consider their connections as educators and to map them out (using Alec's famous diagram shown on the right) as a guide. I also asked them to consider the connections that their students have - and how these connections might impact on their own classrooms. I will share some of these diagrams. One of the first ones in was by Tyler and is pretty remarkable, and here is the next, by Kirsten (btw, Tyler and Kirsten - are taking etmooc with me - we did our lip dub line together - it is enjoyable to have these two along, and now another student, Lisa joined up). If you wish to see more of these visualizations, check out some of their blogs - which I mentioned in the previous paragraph (I made one of these for myself a few years ago and need to reconsider it). I find this an interesting assignment; reflecting on our connections gives an appreciation of the breadth and depth of our connections and how they contribute to our learning. Considering how our students connect gives us insight into their worlds and how we can use the information in our teaching. I really enjoy following the thinking that goes on as my students and I try to make sense of the implications connected learning has for their future careers as teachers. And, these people will be amazing teachers, so if you are a school Principal, start signing them up.

Note of Thanks! (Power of a PLN)

This past term, one of the courses I taught was Internet for Educators. This course is an elective course in Brandon University's after degree B.Ed. program. The students are in their last year & last term of their program and are generally in the middle years or senior years stream, they have a variety of teachable areas. This is the second year I have used an approach using ideas I have 'borrowed' from members of my PLN, in particular Alec Couros and Dean Shareski. The major assignment for the course is to keep a blog, there are required weekly posts, based on the topic of the week, usually presented by a special guest speaker. The students explore the idea, bring in own experiences and reflections. I started this last year, and grew and refined the idea this year. From both my perspective - and from the students, it was a huge success. The responsibility for learning was theirs, while I set the general topics, along with the speakers I invited, the learning took the direction the students wanted to take it. Many added extra posts, sharing resources, ideas and commenting on each others blogs. I want to publicly acknowledge the invited speakers - members of my PLN - who took time and effort to join us, in person and digitally. I learned as much from the presentations and interactions as my students did. The presenters were:

John Evans (@joevans) - a former Principal and now a consultant with Manitoba Education, presented on PLNs - and on the first day of classes. What a great way to start. John got us off with a bang talking about the power of a PLN and demonstrating some tools for building a PLN. John shared his wiki on PLNs.

Howard Griffith (@HowardCDN) - Howard is one of two educators who coordinate & develop Web Based Courses for Manitoba. Howard led a discussion about the whys of online learning and showed the resources and courses available in Manitoba. Student teachers are able to sign up for courses so they may use the materials as resources and to explore.

John Finch (@jfinch)  - a former teacher and Technology Consultant, John is also with Manitoba Education and is on the Literacy with ICT team. John led a hands on session looking at using social media in the classroom, sharing ideas and issues.

Glen Gatin (@ggatin) - was next, Glen is an ed tech researcher and delivers a graduate level course for Brandon University, and other Universities. Glen presented a session looking at learning in a networked world. In particular he looked at various learning theories, including constructivism, constructionism and connectivism. He also discussed MOOCs and MUVES (second life). He finished with some good advice for beginning teachers.

George Couros (@gcouros) - Principal of Forest Green School in Stoney Plain, AB skyped in from his school. This was a treat as a Principal in the field talked about "Unintended Benefits" and shared his experiences as his school embraced social media. Here is a Principal with an amazing philosophy who lives what he says. He also gave advice for beginning teachers seeking their first teaching job. His presentation is embedded below, with his permission.

Unintended Benefits

View more presentations from George Couros

Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) - Darren is a high school Math teacher on secondment to Manitoba Education (in the  Literacy with ICT - French language side). Darren is a very sought after speaker and presents around the world. He presented on "What can we do now?". Darren talked about how people learn and talked about assessment and illustrated many ways to use technology in the classroom. His presentation is below.

What Can I Do Now? (web 2.0 pedagogy) v4

View more presentations from Darren Kuropatwa

Dean Shareski (@shareski) - well, we did not actually have Dean speak to us directly, however, I assigned his great K-12 Conference keynote "Sharing - The Moral Imperative" for viewing. His presentation sparked some great blog posts. I thank Dean for reading & commenting on a few of the posts.

Alec Couros (@courosa) - having the famous Dr. Couros, University of Regina, join us via elluminate is always a treat. Alec truly lives his 'open doctrine'. As busy as he is, Alec joined us for an hour right after his own class finished at U of R. Alec was a perfect final speaker and he summed up his thoughts on 'Open Learning in a Connected World' and spent about fifteen minutes answering questions and discussing ideas. Just the week before, I had the honour of introducing Alec on his first foray into Manitoba when he delivered a keynote to WestCAST - an annual conference for pre-service teachers, held this year at Brandon University. His slidedeck is below:

Rethinking Teaching & Learning in a Networked Reality

View more presentations from Alec Couros

Of course, I did hold a few classes myself ;-) and we spent the last class together discussing and pulling together the themes from the course & speakers. The student blogs were amazing, and their final reflections were outstanding. Links to their blogs, including the reflections, are on this wiki - so please take a look & comment! These folks will make fine, thoughtful teachers (anyone hiring?). It is also gratifying to see a few of them continue posting to their blogs in the few weeks since classes finished.

Once again, I want to thank all these educators for their contribution to the development of these new teachers. I met & got to know some of these people on twitter, and they did not hesitate to take part. This success shows the power of a PLN (or whatever term you want to use)! This experience was valuable to both my students and to me - and I hope for these fine presenters as well - I know some have some new twitter followers and blog readers from this class!

Week #12: Recognizing the Japanese Zero, Slide Rules & Other "Learning Objects"

Okay, Gary - I beat you to the punch this week (But I notice Julye was before any of us - missed you tonight Julye!)

For tonight I will only put up this video, similar to the Ma and Pa Kettle (enjoy, Ben!) More to come later!



____________________________________

OK, back again...

Japanese Zero was an interesting film, for many reasons. The methods used for teaching was the main one, however, I also found it interesting for its historical value. Here is a photo of a P-40 (this was at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in Michigan - used in air shows) and a Zero (taken at the RAF Museum in London, UK) from my collection (aircraft, and in particular WW II aircraft is a interest/hobby of mine, I routinely drag my wife to air museums). Can you recognize them?

The film used a number of features to get the important point of the instruction across, from repetition to animation and the entertainment element was added in so the repetition could be put into a real context. It even used multiple learning styles, using visual and aural. As I watched, I thought about all the ways we use for getting information across. In this case, it was really rote learning, yet it was a matter of life and death so the message had to be made so it was automatic. In many skills like this, we know that ‘practice makes perfect’. Anyone who coaches a sport knows this well (as do musicians, dancers, etc), certain skills are practiced over and over, perhaps in different drills, so the skill becomes routine or automatic. Using mathematics as an example, if the goal is to learn to factor a trinomial, we of course want the student to understand the concept, however, if one wants to be proficient in factoring, then the old ‘drill and kill’ does work. Constructivist learning theories are in vogue, and I do believe they work; yet I wonder if all the various theories of learning have merit. Does the method really depend on what is to be learned, the reason for learning it and the nature of the concept to be learned?

Part of looking back is to see what these artifacts can teach us about our practice now. This also applied to the ‘podcast’ Denis showed us in the form of the large vinyl record. I really was struck by Denis’ comments (my recollection of this!) that many of these ideas are not anything new, that we have always experimented and made use of the media of the day in creative ways. The question, as Denis put in his comments about the presentations (about mine in particular) is which of these technologies will be around in 5, 10  or 15 years? Will they become like the old vinyl records – unusable and lost? Or will they withstand the test of time?

Our TED talks:

A few quick comments on the presentations, all were every interesting, I feel fortunate to be in such company & look forward to the rest next class!

Paul’s slide rule brought back many memories; I even remembered how to do some of the operations. As soon as Paul started I recalled the scene in Apollo 13 that he mentioned where the engineers all grabbed their slide rules to verify the orbital burn calculations. The technology and engineering skill used in making this calculation device is amazing – again illustrating how old technology does not mean it was ‘primitive’. It speaks to the ingenuity of humans when so many successful moon landings were carried out with such ‘primitive’ technology! Modern graphing calculators can be wonderful tools that allow us to skip some of the drudgery and examine concepts, yet to use the slide rule you REALLY had to know place value & estimation, skills we try to get across today.

Lana’s holographs was interesting, just like Star Wars in 1977! The interesting thing was that CNN (Wolf Blitzer) spent most of the time cooing about the technology and not about the point of the broadcast – the election results! So much for seemless, but I guess there has to be a first for everything (although it wasn’t there as Lana pointed out!).

Young Mike’s look back was interesting. It looks like his course back in ‘96 (ha!) was a good one, but more interesting is the changes from then to now. It also shows why we shouldn’t just throw all our artifacts away – they have value even 15 years later!  

Gary’s look at learning objects was well done (especially considering his illness the last week - many good sites to go back and look at, Gary). The Ma and Pa Kettle clip, although old, could still have value as a teaching object. It is amusing, but a math teacher could show this and ask students to explain the errors or find another example that would work in Ma and Pa’s methodology. The discussion about the use of the learning objects was also interesting.

My presentation is here, if you are interested. Once you get to slide 2, just go to the next and the intro video will play!The images that appeared and disappeared on certain slides are a jumble… sorry!

Building a PLN

View more presentations from Mike

Finally – Denis talked about standards and used the ISTE standards to illustrate some of the concerns. We have considered them before so in the course, as well.  This video of Sir Ken Robinson on the Bonnie Hunt show is a good one about the shortcomings of standardized tests! Enjoy!