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Blog or thesis?

I attended our School’s Yr 12 Valedictory dinner last night. A wonderful celebration of the incredible young women who attend the school I teach at. The guest speaker was a former student who had left the school 10 years ago. She spoke of time at university and post graduate studies completing her Master’s degree. It got me thinking.

I’ve never pursued post graduate study, feeling for many years that effort was beyond me. And yet I look at the body of work that is this blog and I wonder. I wonder about the intrinsic motivation that drives me to share my thoughts with others, I wonder about the hours of effort that have gone into this, I wonder about the remarkable experiences I have been privy to as a result of this space on the web. I wonder all this because no amount of effort on my part in this space is going to give me the piece of paper or credentials at the end of my name that would allow me to pursue a career beyond a secondary school setting or accrue a higher income.

This blog is the place where I am developing my thinking and testing a few theories along the way. I suppose my assessors are the audience of readers. I suppose this could be seen as the evolution of education. Blogs are spaces where self directed learners are writing their own thesis and are allowing readership and interaction to determine success or failure. 

I received an email today about a post graduate course of study in ICT education. At the moment I can’t conceive of any going anywhere near it because I just can’t imagine how I’d be able to fit it in. Some might say that is foolish on my behalf. Why not invest some time in getting qualifications doing something that you are immersed in anyway? At this stage I just don’t want to go to a place where assessment will be driving what it is I am learning. I’m happy to create my own agendas and see where this will take me.

Who knows? Maybe a technorati ranking will hold some weight in years to come.

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Google things to do.

I have to admit to really liking the services Google offers. I love Google Docs and the flexibility they offer for working collaboratively and for storing documents online. I still find myself defaulting to Google as my search engine of choice even though I know there are other search engines doing a great job delivering results in interesting ways. Phil Bradley referred to this page on the Google site in a post recently and I found it pretty cool. It’s called Google things to do.

 

On the page are 52 things to do. They include ‘Watch your favourite YouTube clips in high resolution’, ‘Make your homepage YOUR homepage’, ‘Read a newspaper written in a language you don’t speak’, and there are 49 others for you to check out. What you do is click on the title of the thing to do and you will find a prompt redirecting you to YouTube video or one will appear in the text box on the page. Other options include a Google search box pop up that enables you to search for the answer to life, the universe and everything.

I think this would be fun to use with kids, provided you weren’t hampered by a firewall blocking YouTube!! Imagine setting the task to find a new thing to learn and present back to their peers after a set period of time to demonstrate what they’ve learnt. I think I’d find that a pretty interesting lesson. Just wish the firewall didn’t exist so that I could actually do it with the kids I teach.

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School’s out Friday

Yes, I know it is Saturday. Got a bit behind myself this week due to heaps of commitments. We had the Powerful Learning Practice launch on Monday and my school’s Speech Night last night. I organise all the prizes for that so I was quite literally run off my feet this week.

A funny accidents video this week. Thought I’d go with this because it reminds me of my effort on Monday at our Powerful Learning Practice launch. I sat down only to discover my seat had flipped up and I landed on the floor. Caused much mirth and Dean Groom saw fit on Twitter to nominate the day as ‘Jenny Luca funniest Librarian day’. I could only agree.  

Weather is gorgeous in Melbourne, friends are coming over for a barbie tonight, life is good. Hope the same goes for you. Enjoy your weekend.

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Web Search Strategies in Plain English from Commoncraft – cast your vote.

The latest from Lee and Sachi Leefever – Web Search Strategies in Plain English. In my opinion, another useful video for my students and yet another great tool for me to use. I’m indebted to them both for making my job so much easier over the last year.

 I noticed  a new button on my blog’s toolbar tonight and realised that I could insert a poll. All going well there should be a poll at the end of this post that you can use to cast your vote about the latest offering. All a bit of fun really- I’m just keen to see how it works.

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Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty

Blog Action Day 2008 - Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day. There are 10,300 Sites participating and these sites have 11,048,452 RSS Readers. That’s a pretty impressive readership. Hopefully these readers will take something away that they can share with others to spread the message even further. Here’s what it’s all about;

What is Blog Action Day?

Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue – poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web!

I thought I’d talk about poverty, but in a bit of a different light. I thought I’d talk about poverty of spirit.

Sometimes I think we get too caught up in thinking about what we want. We focus on the materialistic aspects of our lives and let our spirits starve. We build our wealth but let our moral compass go astray. Sometimes we just need to get a focus on what really matters and get perspective back in our lives.

Recently I wrote about Working together 2 make a difference, the ning site I set up with Angela and Laura Stockman, in the hope that we could get educators to join and share their experiences of trying to make a difference by doing something positive to support their local or wider communities. To date, there are 22 members. I’ve set up a page under my name to chronicle what the students at my school are doing this term to make a difference. Our Yr 7 students have decided to raise funds by doing good deeds in their own time. They are going to donate their earnings to the Menzies organisation, a local not for profit organisation that assists children who can no longer live with their families. The other organisation they are raising money for is Cheerful Givers, a not for profit organisation who,

“provide toy-filled birthday gift bags to food shelves and shelters so that parents living in poverty can give their child a birthday gift.”  

This is an organisation that Laura has been supporting and our students would like to support Laura’s efforts.  

We’re hoping the ning becomes a site where people do chronicle what they are doing to make a difference. It’s like what we say on our front page, we would like to see what the sum total of all of us can achieve. Angela has written about Laura’s feelings about this initiative and her words are worth quoting here;

“…Laura would rather invest herself in the work of this new online community, because she is realizing that it has the potential to accomplish what her blog cannot: it can bring people together who want to do good things simply because they can and simply because it offers them a connection to those who share their values, not because there are other rewards attached to it.

We’re hoping that other students and teachers will get involved there. Please consider doing so if you haven’t yet. We’re looking for more than mere readers, and Laura is looking forward to meeting others who are interested in giving HER less attention and the WORK OF THE PROJECT more.”

Hopefully the site will become a true reflection of the good intentions of the members who have chosen to participate. If we do see people chronicling their efforts to do something good we’ll be doing something to enrich the lives of others. 

We’ll all be the richer for it, but not in the materialistic sense.

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Powerful Learning Practice – our community forms

Today was the Australian face to face kick off at Toorak College for the International Powerful Learning Practice cohort. Sheryl Nussbaum Beach and Will Richardson flew into Australia yesterday to help us kick off what is going to be transformational for many involved. Helping to get this cohort together has occupied me for the last few months. There have been meetings and countless emails and skype calls and chats that have led to seven Australian schools participating. We join a New Zealand team from Core education and nine teams from the United States.

Yes, we were experiencing technical difficulties here. Can you tell??

It was inspiring to see the Australian arm of the cohort come together today. Sometimes it’s hard to visualise something that has been long in the planning. When it happens you are so busy trying to make sure things run smoothly that you miss part of the experience. It felt a little like that today. We had technical hitches that impeded the ustream going out and getting everyone connected was a bit of a chore. I was a little stressed I have to admit, but you know what, these hitches didn’t much matter. What mattered was the fact that we were all there as interested educators, working towards forging links that are going to drive our learning community forward.

The gathering gave me much hope. During our lunch in our school’s Dining Room I looked around and realised that all these people were here because they have a genuine desire to learn what they can do to implement change that will benefit the students they teach.  For some time I’ve been on a bit of a solo trip trying to move people with the thinking I have after a period of immersion. I realised early on that my solo wasn’t going to cut it to get serious change happening. A chorus was more in order. Today I saw a choir who may still be in rehearsal, but practice will make all the difference. Our practice will take place in our dedicated ning environment which is being supported by Sheryl, Will, 21st Century fellows and our community leader Darren Kuropatwa.  

Tania Sheko, who is part of our cohort, has summed up how I think many participants feel about the change we are facing and the learning ahead;

“…..when change freaks me out, I have to remind myself that I also like moving the furniture around. It gets boring sitting and looking at the same view. There are new configurations to be discovered.”

Time to move the furniture I think.

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School’s out Friday

End of the first week back at school for me this week and can’t believe how tired I am. This term looks set to be running at a fast pace from the get go with no likelihood of slowing down. Speech night next week, China for 18 days in two and a bit weeks, then return to correction and reports. Sounds busy just thinking about it!  

I am looking forward to next Monday. That’s when we host the Australian cohort face to face meeting of Powerful Learning Practice. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson are visiting our school to introduce us to the concept and help us form connections in the learning community we are to become. I’ve been active in the ning that supports the project and am really enjoying getting to know the US counterparts via activities set up by Darren Kuropawta who is a driving force in our learning community.

But the weekend beckons first! Start it by watching the Human Slinky. Someone sent out a tweet to a video featuring this guy this week and I was mesmorised.

Beautiful weather in Melbourne coming our way this weekend and I intend to make the most of it. Enjoy whatever comes your way.

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Working together 2 make a difference – inspired by Laura.

Recently I said that I wasn’t going to write a post unless I thought I had something to write about that I thought was useful.  Well, today I’m writing about something that I think is useful. Better than that, it’s helpful to others less fortunate than ourselves. And that, to me, is important.

Throughout the year I’ve been inspired by 11 yr old Laura Stockman, who has been writing a blog called 25 days to make a difference. Laura writes about how she goes about raising money for charity organisations she and her readers decide are worthy of support.  It’s not massive amounts of money we’re talking about here, it’s small but significant amounts from a young woman who engages in activities like bake sales and lemonade stands to raise funds that will make a difference for others. 

Small, but significant.

Laura skyped into my classroom a couple of months ago to talk to my students about what she does. She made an impact. They are still talking about Laura and want to know what they can do too. Talking with Laura has meant I’ve established a friendship across the waves with her Mum, Angela (Angela is a very responsible parent and makes sure she supervises Laura’s online connections – She’s in New York State and I’m in Melbourne, Australia ). Over the last couple of months Angela and I have been mulling over ideas about how we and other educators can make a difference in the same vein as Laura’s inspirational efforts. That leads me to the point of this post.

Angela and I, inspired by Laura, have created a ning site, Working together 2 make a difference, to support educators to make a difference for others less fortunate than themselves in the lead up to the festive season. The ning site will work as a collaborative space to allow educators to share the efforts of their classes. Here’s what we say on our main page;

As educators, we try to encourage our students to see past themselves and take a wider world view. Depending on many factors, that can be relatively easy, or relatively hard. As we approach the festive season for many cultures, an opportunity presents for us to have a means of working together in a collaborative fashion to have our students realise that their efforts can be far reaching and effect others.

11 Year old Laura Stockman has been a source of inspiration for many throughout 2008. Her blog, 25 days to make a difference has detailed her efforts to raise funds for various charity organisations throughout the year. She has had over 38,000 hits on her blog and has received media attention for her efforts. Now it’s time to let Laura know how her efforts have inspired others to do the same.

The aim of this space is to detail the efforts of educators and their students who are doing their bit to think outside of themselves and raise funds for worthy causes. We encourage you to join this space, create a new page for your school and start detailing what you and your students are aiming to do to help others less fortunate than yourselves. Chart your progress on your page and we’ll see what we can achieve by working together to make a difference.

DECEMBER 15TH 2008 is the date we are targeting for completion of the collaborative project. So, get to it. Rally your troops, start thinking about bake sales or car washes, identify a worthy cause and set your page up.

Laura has shown us that one person can make a difference. Let’s see what the sum total of all of us working together can achieve.

If you’ve been thinking about joining a global project but are daunted by the prospect, consider giving this a go. There is a definite timeline, you can work within the boundaries of your school but contribute to a greater cause, and you can connect with other schools who join this effort. We should be able to foster connective opportunities within this community that can get our kids understanding that the sum total of many working together can effect great change.  

Thanks Laura for providing the inspiration.  And thanks Angela  – all those emails and tweets have been worth it.

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geoGreeting – some fun with educational application.

Tom Barrett, a favourite of mine, has written yet another informative and highly useful post, this time about resources he uses to support the teaching of spelling. This is just what I need as I head into last term. I really hate the use of spelling lists and spelling tests. To me it just represents a waste of class time. I seem to struggle meeting the demands of curriculum and  I would much prefer my students engage with some interactive online resources that will help them to remember the correct spelling of words they use, or new words they have been introduced to.  Tom has listed five he uses regularly and I encourage you to visit his blog to gain insight. 

One of the resources he mentions is geoGreeting.

 

   I’ve been having a bit of a play with this and have been having quite a bit of fun. GeoGreeting was created by Jesse Vig.  He’s a software engineer and graduate student from the University of Minnesota studying computer science, who discovered over the Northern summer that he liked playing with Google Maps. Here’s what he says on the FAQ page about how the website came about;

While working on a different Google Maps project, I noticed that a number of buildings looked like letters of the alphabet when viewed from above. This is the point where I should have just said ‘hmmm, good observation’ and gone on with my life. But I didn’t and that’s why this website is here.

Don’t you just love that!

What you do is type a greeting or word into the ‘type your message here’ box and the word(s) will be represented with the pictures of buildings that look like letters of the alphabet. You can see this in the screenshot above. Tom has had his students using the site to write out their spelling words so that they can see the words in an alternative visual way. After reading parts of John Medina’s ‘Brain Rules’, that suggests our brain retains information more readily via the visual medium, then I think there could be educational application for our use of a site like this. I’m sure my kids will enjoy it anyway. It’s also a means of gaining some insight about the geographical location of the buildings that look like letters of the alphabet. Another opportunity to engage our students in discussion that can extend their knowledge base.  

Thanks Tom for the heads up to some great resources.