Networks are cities.

I am on my way to educon 2.1 right now, looking out into the night (don’t worry, I am using my phone in airplane mode). For some reason there are no clouds out there tonight, and all I can see are the bright lights of cities, clustered together and beautiful. What I am thinking about as my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the conversation I will be leading on saturday, is that the lights of a city look like the networks that I dream about.
 
I want networks that are far reaching and bright. I want to be able envision the whole thing all at once or focus on a single connection. I want to hop from network to network. I want to see far off into the horizon and know that there are other networks thinking about the same things I am.
 
I want the network to be on every time I look, glowing more radiantly in the node that need my attention right now. I want knowledge to run around my network like the people push on out toward their well ordered lofts in the city and winding single-family house lined roads in the suburbs. I want my network to bring me in for a landing every once in a while, grounding me in what is really so important: taking the time to get to know an individual and seeing them as more valuable than any amount of community created or knowledge gained.
 
(I know this post is pretty flowery, but I am away from my family for the first time since my son was born. I may be a little wistful on the blog for the next few days.)
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Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Networks are cities.

I am on my way to educon 2.1 right now, looking out into the night (don’t worry, I am using my phone in airplane mode). For some reason there are no clouds out there tonight, and all I can see are the bright lights of cities, clustered together and beautiful. What I am thinking about as my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the conversation I will be leading on saturday, is that the lights of a city look like the networks that I dream about.
 
I want networks that are far reaching and bright. I want to be able envision the whole thing all at once or focus on a single connection. I want to hop from network to network. I want to see far off into the horizon and know that there are other networks thinking about the same things I am.
 
I want the network to be on every time I look, glowing more radiantly in the node that need my attention right now. I want knowledge to run around my network like the people push on out toward their well ordered lofts in the city and winding single-family house lined roads in the suburbs. I want my network to bring me in for a landing every once in a while, grounding me in what is really so important: taking the time to get to know an individual and seeing them as more valuable than any amount of community created or knowledge gained.
 
(I know this post is pretty flowery, but I am away from my family for the first time since my son was born. I may be a little wistful on the blog for the next few days.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Anything that can be archived, should be.

I was teaching yesterday using xtranormal (http://www.xtranormal.com/profile/horizon) and edmodo. I found myself trying to justify why I wanted to archive all of the learning going on in the room. As if somehow there were people watching and asking why I was doing what I was doing.
 
I waited, but no one asked the question.
 
In the end I want people to challenge my thinking. I want other teachers to ask what the virtue of chronicling all of the thoughts of students is. This is what I would have said, if anyone had put my pedagogy to the test:
 
Learning is not tangible. It isn’t something that all students just come to and recognize easily. It must be made visual and reflective. It must be made into an object to be manipulated. If we are not archiving everything for our students (or if they aren’t doing it themselves), how will they ever be able to say “I can use this.” If it we don’t save our students thinking, how can we ever know that it really happened? How can we know if they or we did a job woth doing?
 
Learning is not for a day or a class period. We need to stop treating it like it were.
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Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

A New Image for New Students

My students are different. Not from yours, but from the ones that came before them. They are desperate to connect everything together: disciplines, ideas, home and school. They need a way of bridging the gaps that many adults artificially create. We must help them to connect. I don’t have any five point plans in this podcast, but I do have a good example from a student about tormenting substitute teachers. Have a listen.

I am looking for a new image to help explain this phenomenon of connection as a reaction to the increasingly splintered world that they experience. If you have any grand ideas about this, please drop me a line at benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org.

• 00:00:00: Today’s Students vs. Yesterday’s Students
  The Horizon Report

• 00:03:28: Connected Learning?
  Nicholas Negroponte’s Necc 2006 Keynote

• 00:05:13: Seeing a Splintered World
  Moose’s Blog Post about Substitute Teachers

• 00:08:43: The Metaphor for Connection
• 00:11:32: Asking for Help and Wrap-Up
  My Blog