Tag: Lee Lefever

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Unexpected joy is hairy, black and eight years old.

My last post was about Lee and Sachi Lefever and the great work they do. One of the things I love about Lee’s blog is that he gives some insight into their lives. I feel like I know them even though they would have no inkling of who I am. I realise that this is something I do in my teaching all the time. I tell my students things about myself and my family and I think it helps to make connections that then help with the learning that needs to take place. Maybe I’m misguided about this but I don’t think so. For this reason, I’m letting anyone out there who may be reading this an insight into the unexpected joy that has entered my family’s life.

A friend of mine has gone to teach overseas. Her father was looking after her much loved dog, Bella. Three months or so into her appointment her father died unexpectedly and she had to return for the funeral. Knowing my friend, my first thought was ‘What is she going to do with Bella?’ I rang and offered to take her (without consulting any other members of my family). My friend was grateful but family had offered to look after Bella. (Much to the relief of my husband!) When she returned home for Christmas we went out and it was then that she tearfully revealed that the family arrangement had not worked out and would I mind if she took me up on my offer. Of course I had to say yes – who could leave an eight yr old black Labrador cross without a home? It was with much trepidation that I returned home that night to inform my husband that a new member would be joining our household. The news was met with much grumbling – a year ago we had to put down our very much loved 16 yr old Cocker Spaniel and I don’t think either of us was ready for the emotional investment that comes with having a dog.

Well, I’m very pleased to say that Bella arrived and the emotional investment we have made is making a good return. She is a sheer delight – incredibly well behaved and deliriously happy to be a member of our household. To see her run down at our local beach is to see happiness in its purest form. We are all smitten, even hubby who was all doom and gloom at the start.  She’s even doing wonders for my thighs as we trek the neighbourhood on our nightly walks and that’s got to be a good thing! Unexpected joy has crept into my life and I’m loving every moment of it.

(For the life I me I can’t figure out how to insert a photo of Bella. I’m wasting too much time trying to figure it out – once I’ve worked it out I’ll post a picture!)

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Explanation please – and keep it simple!

Lee Lefever at Commoncraft writes really interesting posts about the work he and his wife are doing in trying to make new ideas easy to understand. A recent post entitled, Discovering the RSS Explanation Problem is a great read and something I think we can all relate to. Lee talks about going to a conference where a participant asked ‘What is RSS?”The CEO’s answer was, “RSS is an XML-based content syndication format.” He describes having an ‘Aha’ moment which no doubt was the seeding ground for the highly useful ‘plain english’ videos he and Sachi create.

How many of us have had the experience of people in command of knowledge being unable (or unwilling, and that’s another story altogether!) to provide an easy to understand explanation. I think this is a major problem when it comes to technology adoption. Often those in the know are so familiar with how something works they don’t realise that many people have ‘blocks’ when it comes to learning about a new way of doing things and need simple explanations that they can apply to their own situations.  This post has made me think about my teaching and they way I explain concepts to students. I’ve come a long way from my early chalk and talk teaching days, and I’ve noticed in recent years how effective graphic organisers are for students and how my teaching has changed. Our students are such visual learners – I see it in my own kids – and our teaching needs to address this. At the moment I seem to be surrounded by talk of ‘essential questions’. Maybe we also need to address the concept of ‘essential explanations’ to help our students navigate this educational landscape.

Here’s Lee and Sachi’s RSS in Plain English, and you’ll see how they make ‘RSS is an XML-based content syndication format’ easy to understand. If anyone from my school happens to read this, I’m happy to walk you through the setup of a Google Reader, and I promise I’ll make it relevant to your needs and simple to understand!