Bringing ideas and people together.

The IT department is an interesting beast in any school distrct. It has so many good ideas for how to get things done and it has the technical knowhow for making forward thinking learning projects go off without a hitch. However, it can also be at odds with the community of learning that teachers and administrators are trying t create. Well, it is my hope that we can bring together some of the very different goals that I see from both sides of the devide.

I have been given the task of creating a presentation to bring our rogue online school, eDCSD, into the fold with what IT has been working on, and do it without losing much of the hard work that either IT or eDCSD has done. I don’t want to comment too much on it at this point, because I haven’t given the presentation yet. However, I thought I would share it with you just in case you found it useful for any reason in your own quest to tie things together.

At this drop.io account, you will find both the presentation and a screencast of the presentation with audio explaining my thinking. I will also embed the presentation for more easy viewing.

The Ripe Environment: Change cannot be Institutionalized

Well, when I first started blogging about The Ripe Environment, I didn’t know that I was being edupunk, but now that I have read the powerful thinking behind the theory (Students 2.0, Stephen Downes, Bavatuesdays, D’Arcy Norman) and I believe I was. I don’t know that I really want all of the baggage that goes along with labeling myself, but I truly believe in the idea that change is about people not processes.

It takes a person to create change because vision isn’t enough. It is great to create documents and blog posts and do research projects on creating change, but unless a teacher in the classroom does something differetly or a student asks for more in the classroom, there is no way that things will shift one iota.

I happen to love the nitty gritty.

I like talking about working through significant roadblocks to change. I like convincing others that change is worth their time, that it is important.

And not just any change, we need to be moving toward Authentic Learning with such passion and ferocity that it cannot be boiled down a powerpoint presentation. Passion doesn’t come from such things. Passion only comes from a place of specific experiences, not a generic goal of creating change.

The Ripe Environment should not be about creating a hope among people that there is a movement afoot, that technology is the silver bullet or that golden jargon will save us all. The Ripe Environment is about personally expressing a need to do things better and focusing on what better really is.

I have to constantly tell myself that learning is sacred. I do it for myself. I do not share because I know what is best. I share because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is only through this act of rebellion that change will occur within others.

(I may be abstract in talking about this concept from time to time, but I really do want to talk about the personal stories and experiences that create change. Share yours in any way you know how.)