Back to our beliefs

Wow, here it is...

It's been 7 or 8 months since I reflected on anything using my blog. Something has been speaking to me lately that it is time to start up again. This is the first of a new burst of posts. As I warm up to the idea of doing my masters, I think I need to dust of the keyboard and get back into writing. There is so much to think about, reflect about and write about. Sometimes I hope to draw, sometimes write. Maybe even find other ways to reflect.

In my new job, as a specialist, I get to work with amazing people. Both the team I collaborate with, and also the teachers I get to learn with too. Visiting over 35 schools in the short 5 months I have worked in this role, has already opened my eyes to many new things.

One of the biggest things I have come to realize in all the work I have done lately, is how we need to continually remind ourselves of the core reason we are in this work. To learn. In our work to help support school in design think, maker education, learning commons, educational technology, learning resources, and whatever else we do in our team, we stumbled across a reminder shared by our #CBEliteracy team about the importance of focusing on our beliefs about learning first. It is important to consider what we know about learning, before we start planning our lesssons/projects, and also choosing our resources. Routman (2014) says our "practices are our beliefs in action" (p.85). He talks about how we often start with resources, then look at our practice and the finally, think about beliefs. He also suggests that we need to do a hard flip of way we do things.

What often happens...

What needs to happen...

I think this is always a good grounding for us as teachers. What kinds of things do we remember as learners. What learning experiences stuck out to us? As Will Richardson suggests in his Ted Talk, we'll all come up with a very similar list.

The following image is one I created a while back, as I reflected on some of the work I had done overthe previous year.  After sharing that image on twitter, it was retweeted a lot. It has turned into the most retweeted tweet I have ever shared. Such a simple idea but something that has resonataed with many!

This is something I am going to continually keep asking and reminding myself.

References:

Routman, R. (2014). Read, write, lead: breakthrough strategies for schoolwide literacy success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.​​

Continuing the Work

To follow up on my last post, I have also been thinking what I need to do in order to make the best possible impact in the work I do. Here's what I'm thinking and am going to do in my work:

• Work with and encourage as many people as possible in the building to use technology as a learning tool.
• Step back from controlling and focus on coaching the use the Learning Commons.
• Continue to suggest ways in which technology can be integrated into learning tasks.
• Encourage colleagues to share their ideas with each other.
• Continue to build capacity to understand the learning commons as a learning space.
• Run mini workshops and brown bag lunches to support teachers and students.
• Continue to make the learning visible in the learning commons so others can see what happens in there.
• Keep doing what I'm doing...

I also don't think there is any one 'correct' way to do this, I just have to continue to focus on good learning and teaching. Hopefully it will stick and others will want to continue the work.

Learning to Share the Learning

5 Days in and I'm still bubbling with enthusiasm about school this year...

My Problem:

I'm excited about all the NEW learning that will happen this year, in and out of the classroom. Over the past year I have learned that, as a teacher, I learn so much from both students and colleagues. The power of social media has really hit me hard lately. However, I have a problem - I need a clean and powerful way to share this learning tool to other teachers I work with. How can I prove that this will the best PD that they will ever be involved in. How can I hit them over the head with Twitter hammer and knock some sense into them?

What Tools Do I Use Now?

Currently I utilize the following social media and Web 2.0 tools to document and share my learning:

Twitter

Twitter is my main hub for learning through social media. Everything else I use came from Twitter in some round-about way. I browse through Twitter and find tweets that interest me from people within and outside of my Personal Learning Network(PLN). I find new people to add to my PLN through retweets(RT) and mentions. As my PLN grows I find it harder and harder to keep up with it all. Maybe I have to start using a different Twitter client other than the Twitter App itself, or simply find better ways to filter the amount of information.

Blogger

Obviously (as you're reading this) I use my blog to reflect on things I learn about or things I wonder about. I use it primarily for myself but love to share my thoughts with the wider community.

Pocket (formerly Read it Later)

I use Pocket to save articles I find on Twitter so I can read them at a later time. I have never referred to one of those articles or shared one from my Pocket account.

Evernote

I have been using Evernote for a while now but this year have started to focus on using it to help myself become paperless. I do use various Apps to help me cut down on stickies and other paper, but Evernote is great for making notes, jotting down ideas, and other times when I need to write something down and save it. I also write some of my draft blog posts using Evernote. Another reason I like this App is because it is so accessible. I can access it on my phone, iPad or laptop.

IFTTT

This is an automation website. It works on a simple formula of - IF That Then This. As impersonal as automated tweets might seem. IFTTT allows me to do things such as record or be notified of tweets from specific people or hashtags. IFTTT allows me to filter my twitter feed easily. I also use IFTTT in conjunction with Buffer.

Buffer

Buffer is a social media client that allows you to post to social media sites at specific times. This allows me to post when I think  might be a better time to post a tweet. At the moment I mainly use Buffer in conjunction with IFTTT to thank people who follow me on twitter.

Diigo

I transitioned from Delicious social bookmarking to a new Diigo account early this year. I believe that Diigo is more powerful than Delicious, especially for teachers. With Diigo, I can follow other educators and the webpages and notes they save. At this point I haven't really utilized it that well. I have recently just begun to bookmark interesting websites again that I find through colleagues and my PLN. My Diigo account can be found here http://www.diigo.com/user/stevewclark

Google+

I saw this great video advertising Google+ yesterday http://goo.gl/O02TW. I have a Google account but have not really started using Google+. I use Facebook and have not seen the point in using book of these Apps. Although, I think Google+ is more powerful for educators as it allows you to share in many different ways. My Google+ account can be found with stdevo@gmail.com.

Facebook

Facebook for me has always been a way for me to stay in touch with friends and family. I made the decision, when I joined Twitter, that I would use one Facebook for personal connections and Twitter for my professional connections. I'm starting to think that they will merge in the future. We'll see.

Where Next?

After looking at this list, I begin to think that I have too many things to think about. However, each one of these Web2.0 tools have unique uses and offer me something that other ones cannot. Also, as time is precious to me, I wonder if juggling all of the different accounts is too much. I guess I will continue to use them all and if one drops off the radar then so be it. 

My real dilemma and the reason I started thinking about this post is that I need to share what I learn from twitter with the Face-to-Face colleagues I work with. Most of them do not use social media as a professional learning tool but do for personal social networking. Not many use Twitter and do not understand how it works. Once I have them on-board with joining up I will be able to run little workshops and tinker sessions but first I have to get them to believe in it and buy-in.

What I need is a way to give a picture of what twitter is about. I need to keep certain tweets, articles and examples of how powerful it can as a learning tool. I think I will try to expand my blog and add pages for the different purposes of sharing. Here I can also house a hub for my different Apps and their associated accounts. I'll post more on this development as it unfolds.

An Inspiration to all

I'd also like to thank the people that have inspired me to share and learn from others as well as develop my own PLN are the greatest advocates for social media as a PD tool. Here are some snippets of their work.

George Couros (@gcouros)- George is a Division Principal for Innovative Teaching and Learning in the Parkland School Division in central Alberta. This video is a presentation George did at Syracuse to promote twitter and PLNs http://goo.gl/O02TW - The work that George does is documented on his blog website http://georgecouros.ca/blog/.

Dean Shareski (@shareski)- is a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I love the way Shareski shares. He has a slick blog that has different pages that presents himself and what he has learned.http://www.shareski.ca/ simply has links to the social media sites that he shares on.His blog site can be found at http://ideasandthoughts.org/about/.

Alec Couros (@courosa) - Is George's older Brother and another advocate for social media in learning. Dr. Alec Couros is a professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Through Twitter he also shares plethora of amazing links and stories about social media as the best PD tool. His blog can be found at http://educationaltechnology.ca/

Mobile Learning: An Exploration

Here is web site I have been working on. We have just begun exploring the value of iPads as a learning tool.

My impression so far is - AWESOME!!

http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/marlborough/mobile/Exploration/Home.html

Delicious to Diigo

This week, I made the transition from Delicious to Diigo. I have hardly heard anyone mention Delicious as of late. However, I've heard everyone talking about and recommending Diigo. I have yet to find out the extra capabilities but I'm sure it's better for my needs as an educator. I now need to make it come alive for me as a resource. Sharing it through my blog is one way for me to start this process.

It was easy to do. I was able to export all my bookmarks (including tags) from delicious to my computer's desktop. It saved the file as an HTML document. Then once my new account in Diigo was created, I just imported the saved file and BOOM! It was done!

The next job is to go through my bookmarks and find obsolete ones. I'm hoping there is a tool for that.

Here are my ever-changing Diigo tags displayed in a cloud.

My Diigo Tags