My learning and teaching today

How do I teach today? How do I learn now? How did I learn when I was at school? I read a post a few weeks ago by Susan Carter Morgan “How did I learn yesterday?” It made me reflect about how I learnt but then I got caught up in the start of the year rush at our school and my thoughts got lost in the chaos of school camps and orientation for new students.

This week in Victoria  a new curriculum was launched. All state education systems now have to begin the change to a National curriculum. Many teachers are saying they need more time to implement the change and that they need to learn about the proposed changes and what new skills they will have to teach, in other words they will have to go back to being learners for a little while. The talk has been about having to go back to learning rather than it being another aspect to their ongoing learning.

Since moving into the web2.0 world of social media I now think I would describe myself as “a learner” even before the tag “teacher” as I am constantly learning from all sorts of people  and in many different ways.

So, going back to my original paragraph, how did I learn over the last 24 hours? The following are some of the different sources I have learnt about useful (and important) information. I have learnt from:

RSS feeds from blogs that I like (including SCMorgan’s blog)

the dedicated and sharing educators on the  Classroom2.0 and English Companion Nings

listening to my iTunes podcasts from numerous sources but some edtechtalks were yesterday’s podcasts

suggested links from others in my Diigo groups

traffic advice via a friend’s iphone as I drove to the airport

from the smart and interesting people via my twitter

a video link from @Darcy1968 for a new video I collected on Vodpod

face to face conversations with teachers I work with at school

telephone calls to a parent and a colleague at the SLAV office

In a few days I have to talk to my fellow teachers about creating a technology  toolbox that will work for each of them. My hardest part of my task is about not overwhelming them but giving them a taste of what is out there for them and trying to get them to thinks about what would best suit their needs.

Twittering in Plain English

I am getting very bored with people bagging Twitter. Many of the radio commentators constantly have snide little comments but, from these comments, it is clear that they don’t really use it well or understand the tool. I have found twitter useful especially for my professional development. I don’t go out looking for thousands of followers or follow huge numbers of others. I like to follow other people who enhance my learning and development, especially in the field of education and technology. I have had some great information shared with me, advice given when I have needed help and I hope that some of my tweets have been useful to others. I also like to get a number of news broadcasts and, using Tweetdeck, have searches running of various subjects/topics. There are other tools as well.

In his latest TED Talk, Clay Shirky explores the evolution of social networks further with the introduction of Twitterand looks at the influence on our social infrastructure and historical outcomes.   During this past week or so Twitter has been used by the people of Iran to get their message out to the world following the recent election. Quite a conversation has been going on in Will Richardson’s  Weblogged about social media (including Twitter) and the Iran elections. 

Clay Shirky suggests that we are experiencing the ‘largest increase in expressive capability in human history’.  The Internet has become increasingly social, with citizen reporting within personal networks a powerful force and we are seeing the impact of some quite revolutionary change on all levels of our society, including education. Will Richardson suggests that we all need to be our own editors as we are new receiving so much information. The comments have been interesting to read.

Have a look at these two information sources, what do you think about Twitter and the evolution/revolution in information gathering - and have you gone “Twitter green ”?

While I am talking about Twitter there is also a new video (thank you Jenny Luca )  Twitter Search in Plain English by leelefever.  The YouTube description:

How Twitter Search creates new opportunities for business feedback, tracking news in real time and discovering trends.

Joining the on-line crew

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship. (Louisa May Alcott)

Uploaded to Flickr by desiretofire http://tiny.cc/ZgDmr

This could be, it seems to me at least, a good analogy for teachers and technology. By starting to learn about the technologies, by giving themselves time to “play” with the different tools, options and by reading about /talking to/sharing with others who have been using technologies in classrooms, they will feel comfortable to use them themselves. They will gain confidence in their abilities and more comfortable about being able to handle the unexpected.

A post that I found somehow reassuring was Love thy Luddite: The Importance of the Non-Techie or How I Learned to Stop Pulling Out My Hair and Love my Luddite by Mick Jacobsen

He discusses how he approaches bringing people into the on-line world under 3 points; 1. Listen 2. Don’t push too hard and 3. Respect.

The points he discussed rang true and I would add “patience” and empathy to the list of requirements. I must not be too anxious, impatient and too much of a technology zealot. I do try to avoid these traps but sometimes it is good to be reminded.

So, going back to the sailing/ocean theme, do we aim in schools, to try to stand tall, braced against the waves (of technology) 

Uploaded to Flickr by ziga-zaga http://tiny.cc/c5ErX

or are we learning to sail, charting our path and going forward (and bringing others with us)  

 

 

 

Uploaded to Flickr by sailorbill http://tiny.cc/qNowd