Response to Paul (on PD must be better)

This post is in response to a comment on my last post which went something like this:

As I read your list I went back and forth agreeing with you.

Do you ever question if it is not how we do PD but the audience that we have hired and put into the “seats?”

Do you think we could stop “doing PD” if we simply hired a different caliber of professionals?

Do you worry that we have to “give(!!!) context, meaning and perspective” to teachers?

Here is my response:

I do think that it has to do with who we are talking to and what messages they will accept. However, I really do believe that if given enough reason to change, everyone will. I believe in the power of people to see something great and to become a part of it.

I also think that we could stop “doing PD” once people start thinking about networks as PD, but I still think we need to give people time away from their classroom responsibilities to actually create that network and to do their learning. We are passionate about learning what is “new”, but not everyone is. Others have to be given the time to do so, even if they are able to be a networked learner. They need to have the space to network.

All learners need to be given a space that has context, meaning and perspective. While I may create a lot of the context for what I do, I live it every day. I cannot expect people who do not blog to understand the context of blogging. I cannot expect people who do not use twitter to understand the context and meaning of a twitter conversation. And, I cannot expect people who do not use wikis and revision history to create a perspective to gain that perspective by doing anything other than actually using wikis and looking at revision histories.

When I say give, I believe that I am giving an experience. The experience is what matters to me. It is what will allow them to start creating context, meaning and perspective. Nothing else will do this and expecting them to create that experience on their own is just a little to harsh for me.

Technorati Tags: learning, pd, response, online, elearning, professional development, paulbogush

LiC Podcast: Design with Forever in Mind Archive

Design with Forever in Mind [ 34:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (989)

Although I was thrown a whole bunch by not having wifi for the first 45 minutes, I think that the session was worthwhile. Here is the archive of all that we have done. I am also including my planning podcast from my drive up to copper mountain.

Presentation:

Drop Box:

Important Links:

Ben Wilkoff Links:

1. Learning is Change Blog and Podcast>
2. Twitter Page
3. Other Presentation on Thursday (The On Button: Instant and Always-on Collaboration)

Presentation Links:

1. Foreverism
2. Math Casts
3. Web 2.0 Game Over

Exit Plan for Vocaroo:

• Wav files backed up to a hard drive/server

Exit Plan for Drop.io:

• Everyone who downloads the podcast will have a copy.

Exit Plan for JamGlue:

• Mp3 files of mixes

Exit Plan for Screencastle:

• Download Direct Link to File and store on hard drive/server

Exit Plan for Screentoaster:

• Mov Downloads before uploading to screencastle site

Exit Plan for DimDim:

• Download and build own DimDim server and store recordings there.

Exit Plan for Twitter:

• Backup twitter with Tweettake

Exit Plan for Google Docs:

• Google Docs Download GreaseMonkey Script

Ustream Archive:




Twitter Archive:

CosmoCat: @bhwilkoff was great to learn about screencasting and audio recording! Hope you enjoy Audioboo! #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:46 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Thanks to everyone for adding value to my session #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:40 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: http://twitterforteachers.wetpaint.com/ #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:13 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: Learning needs real purpose and real audience. #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:08 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: How do you capture learning? Add to the spreadsheet: http://tr.im/pvz2 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:05 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: #forevertie09 http://screencastle.com/watch/b0c8a1b0ac6aa37d179f945721ee4400

Jun 23, 2009 08:40 PM GMT ·
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CosmoCat: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:19 PM GMT ·
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care507: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:13 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: I’m searching for forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/MVxM0 (expand)
#forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:13 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: #forevertie09 Devonee – Technology Integration Specialist from Mesa County

Jun 23, 2009 08:12 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:11 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: #forevertie09 to back channel: I’m Matthew Woolums, Integration Coordinator from DPS. My blog: http://villagegreen.edublogs.org

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: SpEd in middle school in NW Denver. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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jcope50: #forevertie09 Hi! Jill – Skyline HS Teacher Librarian- St. Vrain – just moved to CO on Saturday from CA!!!

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: #forevertie09 first year HS Computer Teacher from Manitou Springs High School

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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Sara24lynn: #forevertie09 Hello! I am a library media specialist in a K-5 school in Greeley, Colorado.

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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lbreed: #forevertie09 Hi! Lisa from Evergreen Middle School! I am looking forward to learning about authentic assessments.

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: Name is Matthew (obvi). Work in DPS. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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Sara24lynn: #forevertie09 Audioboo.fm is an audio tool for iPhone My audioboos http://audioboo.fm/profile

Jun 23, 2009 08:07 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: @forevertie09 mind being blown; didn’t realize so many tools out there that I didn’t know about. Not in the know at 25?? #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:03 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: How do you use audio to capture learning? Call 646-402-5701 x 25286 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:00 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:54 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: I’m getting real-time search results at TweetGrid http://tweetgrid.com/ #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:54 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @jenwagner Slide 10 on http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:51 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: #forevertie09 I like http://www.vocaroo.com/ recording website, easy to use.

Jun 23, 2009 07:50 PM GMT ·
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dlevesque: vocarro does not work on a eeepc #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:47 PM GMT ·
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erhubbell: @bhwilkoff Hi everyone! Looking forward to great conversations today. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:39 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: Will the iPhone be forever, Ben? #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:31 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: @bhwilkoff was giving it rave reviews! RT @courosa: @zemote I see Edmodo on the screen at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:29 PM GMT ·
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sroseman: #forevertie09 how do i get rid of the echo

Jun 23, 2009 07:29 PM GMT ·
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zemote: @courosa awesome!!!! thanks for letting me know #forevertie09 , if anyone has questions, forward them on

Jun 23, 2009 07:28 PM GMT ·
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courosa: @zemote I see Edmodo on the screen at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:27 PM GMT ·
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courosa: #forevertie09 re: learning that lasts 4ever,think about boyd’s media attributes” persistence,replicability,searchability,invisible audience

Jun 23, 2009 07:25 PM GMT ·
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dlevesque: #forevertie09 why last forever?

Jun 23, 2009 07:23 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @bhwilkoff Hello from an office in Colorado Springs #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:22 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: @bhwilkoff Hello from Sunny Northern California! #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:22 PM GMT ·
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ericolsen: Will the computers ever work?#forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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courosa: #forevertie09 Hey Ben, hi from the St. Louis airport, soon to get back to Canada.

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: Sitting in on design with forever in mind at tie #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Say hello to all of the folks at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:19 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @bhwilkoff 3 hour session! I’m going to kill some bandwidth bits for sure. #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:10 PM GMT ·
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mjmontagne: tuning in to a bit of @bhwilkoff ‘s workshop #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:09 PM GMT ·
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debh2u: RT @bhwilkoff: Session wiki page http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 10:53 AM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Session wiki page http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 05:55 AM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Creating a hashtag for my session tomorrow at #tie09. Come and Join in the session with #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 05:54 AM GMT ·
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Communal living

I never realized just how important community was to me until my wife
and I asked our best family friends to come and live with us while
they are saving up to buy a house.
 
For many years I have written about online communities as being an
essential part of authentic learning. Yet, I have never lived in such
close quarters to another family, and thus did not know how much is
learning by being a part of a close-knit real-life community.
 
Daily I learn what actions by my children and theirs “really mean”. I
now know why personal space has so much value. I know what to expect
from our community and what my community expects of me.
 
The reason for this post is that it has gotten me thinking about our
need for a nurtured real-life community that supports everything we
attempt to change in education. While I would like to think that the
twittersphere is all that I need for support and community, I need the
people that I can look straight in the eye and brainstorm the greatest
learning activity with.
 
I guess I will just state this idea as a challenge to myself: if I am
not cultivating my real community as hard as I am doing so for my
online community, I will never be able to accomplish all of the things
I would like.
 
Or, to put it another way:
 
The number of people you can touch with your work depends upon how you
work with the people you can literally touch. (Although, that sounds a
little creepier than I wanted.)

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

The cost of not doing anything…

I was in a great meeting this week where we were considering whether
or not to go ahead with a full scale implimentation of the Moodle LMS
for assessment purposes in our district. It was a great meeting not
because of the topic but the way it was being handled.
 
We were talking about the absolute costs of an open source LMS and of
staying with a custom-built assmessment solution. We were really
looking for a venn diagram moment when one of the curriculum and
instruction representatives said something really smart: “There is a
cost to not doing anything as well. It may not be a dollar cost, but
it will cost the teachers the ability to know more about their kids’
knowledge and it will cost the kids some learning opportunities.”
(Paraphrased by me.)
 
Too often we do not think about the cost of doing nothing or of doing
things too slowly. Does appathy in the face of huge choices cost our
kids the best learning years of their lives?
 
So, it got me thinking: What are the costs of doing nothing (or doing
very little) to change school?
 
Share an idea if this makes you think as much as it has made me.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Piloting you!

I had a lot of conversation today about pilot initiatives within a
larger institution. it seems as though in each project that I take
part in, there is reason enough to get a small group of (semi)
dedicated people together who will try something out and report back
on their success. Whether that is moodle, gmail, google sites, dimdim,
or ning; it seems as though there is never enough at stake to require
all users to jump on board initially. While this is good in a lot of
ways: less kicking and screaming, learning from mistakes with small
group is better, and less chance of falling flat on your face with
everyone watching. But, it is bad in many as well: no ensuring that
the pilot will go further, no urgency in rolling out to everyone, and
all pilots are basically representations of the person who creates
them.
 
This last point is what I would like to focus this post on. What I am
finding as I do more pilot initiatives is that I am trying to model
the pilot on my own practice and workflow. I am taking what I feel is
valuable and important and I am saying that others should feel the
same way. At the end of the day, I am piloting a larger and more
unwieldy version of me.
 
While it is flattering that others would want to help beta test me, I
am not totally sure how smart it is. I am not a typical user of almost
anything. I want to break things open and push them to do what I
envision, not what they were intended for. While I may have a good eye
for what others may need, I need people who aren’t using tools in such
ways to help design the pilots too.
 
I guess what I am trying to say is that I cannot pilot myself if I
want the pilot to actually do what it is supposed to: test whether or
not something will work for everyone. But, how do I ask those who are
less willing to try new things to become a part of a pilot. How do I
ensure that all voices are heard so that when things do go live, the
backlash from these users isn’t fierce enough to shut it down?
 
Easy question, right?

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

The On Button Archive

While I was doing some searching over at Tweetgrid (my absolute favorite way of looking at twitter in real-time), I came across these notes from my Educon 2.1 Session, The On Button: Instant and Always on Collaboration.

I figure that now is as good a time as any to put up the archive of that presentation and to highlight just how good Live Blogging can be. Sarah, a teacher in “midcoast Maine”, did a wonderful job of capturing the questions and ideas from the conversation that we had at Educon.

I love the idea of being able to archive not only the video of a conversation, but also the conversation that happened about the conversation. Here is a list of links that also were talking about this session. I can’t wait to hear where else this session goes:

1. List of Sessions
2. Twitter Feed for the session
3. The original Wiki page

What I am more interested in, though, is how are you aggregating the conversations that surround a learning event? How can we make sure that the supports for our sychcronous environments do not go by the wayside.

The power of opening your eyes.

When I look out onto the learning landscape, I see people who are heavily invested. In making sure that students know what they need to, invested in the future, invested in the past, invested in keeping kids in schools, invested in unschooling children. We are invested in so many things, and that is why the landscape is so beautiful.
 
I don’t ever want to live in a place where we only want one thing in education. It would be easier, but so much less fulfilling.
 
Let’s never try to kill the landscape of learning with saying it only has to happen one way. We are all invested. Let’s find a way to make a huge return on all of our investments.
 
(Although I would like to find a way to make it less cliche.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Until it becomes easy for everyone…

I keep on thinking that because I am learning more and more how to get the most out of my phone, my browser, my email, and my time that others must be doing the same.
 
I mean, how could you not always be on the lookout for ways to do things faster, better, or more efficiently? That is like saying (to me), how could you not be placing yourself on a trajectory of ambition and success?
 
Well, the more that I see those commercials for sprint with the CEO talking down to a majority of americans, insulting them into buying better cell phones, the more I begin to understand that many people are looking to get by on what they have. They may be hopeful that something better is going to come along, but don’t know how or where to get it.
 
I guess what I am saying is that until it is easy for people to find the kind of learning that I seek out every day, it will not become a part of many lives. I can already hear many folks saying that learning is messy or that it is hard, and that it should be both of those things. I think that both of those things remain true, but that accessing the hard and messy learning should not be difficult.
 
If the “House Search of 2009″ is any indication, it is incredibly difficult to find out information about neighborhoods or schools that isn’t biased or based upon arcane measures of success. This kind of learning should be at everyone’s fingertips. We should be able to made learning decisions by turning on a dime if we need to change direction.
 
But we can’t. We have to wait and see, on nearly all learning that isn’t fully connected and informed.
 
Well, I don’t want to wait and see. I want overwhelming support of a network that is informing my every decision. I want it for everyone else too.
 
Until that is the norm, I don’t think that we are going to find much change happening within a school, a community, or a cell phone plan.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

CAGT 2008: Technology and Community

Presentation (both live and PowerPoint):

Technology And Community

Audio Reflections:

Subscribe Free Add to my Page

Topics and Links from the presentation:

1. Make the Community Visible
2. Make the Community Inclusive
3. Make the Community Public
4. Make the Community Always-On
5. Make the Community Lasting
6. Tending your community

Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Secondary)