Informal Learning - Show me the money

Jay Cross has made Chapter 3 of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance available online. I went through my copy and noticed that I had  a note stuck in this chapter, when I had used it for a previous workshop:

The leading human performance authorities “have all demonstrated that most performance deficiencies in the workplace are not a result of skill and knowledge gaps. Far more frequently, they are due to environmental factors, such as lack of clear expectations; insufficient and untimely feedback; lack of access to required information; inadequate tools, resources and procedures; inappropriate and even counterproductive incentives; task interference and administrative obstacles that prevent achieving desired results” (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2002, p. 1).

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A 5/8 Meme

AQuiram tagged me for this meme, so here goes:

What do you hope to accomplish with your blog?
I use this blog as a means of reflecting on my practices (but not as much as I should), helping others, and sharing resources. It is my hope that visitors find some of it useful and interesting. I also hope that visitors might be inspired to try blogging, too.Are you a spiritual person?
Hmm… in a manner of speaking, but probably not like most people think. I’m Christian, but I teach at a Jewish school. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt the presence of God in a church, but I have outside in woods.If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things would you want to have with you?
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Write It!

Years ago at a language arts in-service training, one of the presenters showed us a game called “Write It!”. I used it a few times, tweaked it a bit, and now its one of my favorite writing activities … and my students’ too.

Because note writing in class between students is usually about spreading rumors or setting up a fight or other negative issue, and makes paying attention or staying on task problematic, I have a strict rule against note writing … unless we’re playing “Write It!”

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An Education President

Like him or not, what Barack Obama did yesterday, in my opinion at least, epitomizes what we need our next president to be, namely a teacher. Agree with him or not, can there be any doubt that anyone listening to that speech yesterday is not thinking harder and more expansively about race in this country and in our lives today? Trust him or not, is there any question that he articulated a real truth about the state of race relations from both a black and a white perspective?

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So now I?m a Moodle expert?

Got this email today, not sure about this, I feel uneasy. What do you think?

David wrote:
Slide share - Moodle.

We are looking for advice and we are willing to pay you for it. We have a
project where Moodle is the center of focus.

David

And then a second email that said:

Chris - sorry - my bad.

By the way, the MOODLE deal is the beginning of some big projects and I feel we
need a sharp expert who knows the technology. I wouldbe asking you to help us
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Connections are everything

Connections (obviously, but still worth noting occasionally) are central to how we socialize with and without technology. Technology brings to the forefront the sometimes less obvious connections found in a pre-internet world. How we used to network in face to face environments is now permissible at a more advanced level. Connections are everything: "My connectivity to individuals in libraries around the world have made me better at what I do and enabled me to build a rich understanding of practices different than just those I am surrounded with on a day-to-day basis. Maintaining these connections are incredibly important...connections are everything in the very technical sense that understanding and interacting with modern information technology can be seen as the management of connections."

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What matters

This post defintitely goes to the top of my list of noteworthy posts. “The Kind of Evaluation that Matters” It sums up so eloquently these educational blogging communities where students have choices over their learning. This post gets to the heart of what is so special about blogging with students. It is putting the writing and learning squarely in the hands of the students and they are responding (and teaching us as they go! It’s the journey and the learning and the unknown paths you end up traveling. It is a community like none other. Konrad really hones in on the issue of giving up control and letting students have choices on what they write and learn. Konrad discusses how this shift in having students primarily create the course< content has had a profound effect on him as a teacher and on his classroom. I have had similar feelings. Konrad points out how it is not easy to move away from set curriculums and standardized tests because it means (to some extent) relinquishing control. He talks about a community of writers and learners where students discuss and share their work. He says that to the students, the best kind of evaluation was in the form of discussions with peers or comments written by others about their work. I've said it in round about ways. I call it the process, the dialogue, the conversations,the voices, the dynamics of learning together that is unique to blogging. Konrad puts it into words so precisely and so effectively. Konrad says that Linda Rief said it best and I have to agree ….

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Lessons Learned

It’s good to have Anne back, isn’t it? Her presence on our panel yesterday was really great, and her list of things she’s learned from blogging has inspired me. Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

Weblogs are disruptive. I think that’s what I find most intruiging about this technology is the way in which it changes much of what it touches. Weblogs disrupt the notion that the best way to deliver curriculum (or publish the news, or run a campaign) is the same way we’ve been doing it for eons. It’s not. Weblogs are personal. It doesn’t matter what I blog about, I leave a piece of my soul every time I blog because I’m always feeling the reader on the other side of the screen, imagined or not. I’m not just putting words out there; I’m putting a part of myself, and even though I’ve been doing it for four years now, each post still feels like a risk. Blogging is thinking. I know I say that all the time, but if you’re not expending some brain cells when you blog, you’re not blogging. Blogs take work. They need to be nurtured. They demand attention. It really is like planting a seed and then consistently tending to its growth. Blogs are not for everyone. Although I wish everyone had a blog, I can understand why many choose not to. Blogs are as flexible as your imagination. I’m still amazed by the different ways teachers are employing this technology in classrooms, and I still don’t think we’ve even begun to realize the potential. Blogs are a risk, but not as much of a risk as some would suggest. Common sense tells us to protect our students and to teach them appropriate use, and by and large, most kids play by the rules. Kids love comments. I know Anne said this as well, but it’s so true. And they also think they know what this blog thing is about, which they really don’t from an instructional sense. And therefore Teaching blogs to students takes a plan. What do you want to achieve? What can you do with a blog that you can’t do some other way? Effective use of Weblogs in the classroom comes when teachers have planned well. Blogs empower students and move control away from teachers. It’s something that at first takes a while to get used to, but to not see blogs as expansive is to limit their potential. Parents like blogs, the ones that take an interest, at least. I’ve learned more about teaching, about communicating, about the world, about technology, about community from blogging than anything else I’ve done.

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TechYES Students join the blogosphere!

I hold been in this fashion flourishing this collection to look like so several untroubled technology projects from our GenYES additional TechYES programs. Lately I was emailed by virtue of separate of our illusory latest TechYES advisors, Michael Russo from Heim Order Institution. Michael had divers pleasant examples of what his centrality college students are know-how in the direction of their TechYES projects this source. Varied of his students be endowed with connubial the blogosphere from one side to the ot creating their respective blogs added embraced the energy of blogging! His inquire to me was that his students would liking divers acknowledgment, with the situation absent-minded to get bigger their blogging web while lore bursary from succeeding additional blogging students. Conceal all the rage sense these student blogs were not created to converse college discuss if not subsist caustic fashionable anyway. These students created these blogs to ease further students by means of publishing their song additional writing.

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eSchool News

eSchool News online published an article today, Ed tech: What do students want? They reminded us that students who want to speak out on the state of educational technology in our schools have until Nov. 12 to participate in Speak Up Day 2004. This is an online survey that gives our K-12 students a voice.

Excerpts from the article:

Approximately 40 percent of the questions on this year’s survey are new questions, Evans said. Topics will include timely inquiries into cyber-bullying, plagiarism, the educational value of video games, and what types of writing students do using technology.