Question 177 of 365: What is plan b?

Preparation is something I had to learn. While I have always planned, true preparation has always eluded me. I mean to say that the ability some people have for seeing the way things will work out before they do has never been my gift. I have to play my way through everything and push the boundaries in order to get at what is possible. I have to see which questions get asked and which conversations are essential before it all makes sense.

That is why when streaming three concurrent sessions at a conference with two video feeds and one audio feed each, I new that everything would eventually work out. I knew that there would be a plan b that I could put in place. I just didn’t know what that plan b was until I saw it.

Originally we were going to use rented powerful laptops, but we didn’t have the right converters for our video feed. Then we were going to use our Boinx TV mixer to give the pictures nice overlays, but our own laptops weren’t capable of handling all of the multimedia. We were going to have the audio pumped directly to the mixer but the Ustream broadcaster wasn’t having any of it. Ultimately, we had a great stream being pumped out with both the powerpoints and the live video. This is super nerdy and all, but I think that the plan b we came up with was exactly what we wanted in the first place, but it took us a few revisions to get there.

It was the process of finding the plan b that was actually most engaging to me. Knowing that things would work the first time is not interesting to me. It is only through troubleshooting and creating a new solution that I feel valuable. It is about the workaround and the new workflow that everything comes together and I truly learn something.

Which is why I am much more inclined to give my children and the other people that I work with a tool that isn’t specificially meant for the task at hand. Perhaps I don’t have the right one, but more likely I know that it is the process of figuring out just what the tool can do that will bring about the greatest change.

People say that the iPad isn’t a creation device. By making it into one, I am learning more than if I just accept that limitation.

Some say that blogging is dead. By figuring out how to make my writing alive and valuable to me, I am able to find it’s relevance.

The conventional wisdom is that boomers aren’t interested in a networked workplace (Personal Learning Networks and the like). The plan b is in figuring out where we can go from a place of resistance.

I don’t believe that we are ever done planning for the future, and that includes creating a perpetual plan B. I want to make sure that all of my actions are in the creation of the best possible option for what comes next.

We are not creating the first version of the future. Everything is a revision, a second and third and fourth attempt at getting things right. So long as we keep at it, I know that it will be everything that we need. It may not be what we hoped for, envisioned or prepared for. It will be what we deserve and what we work for. It will be our best plan b. I promise.

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Learning Networks and PD, the movie

Learning Networks and PD [ 12:54 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1036)

Although I didn’t really want to string this piece out for two posts, I think that thinking things through is really important for me. I guess that I really needed to talk it through as well and put some links behind the theory.

A year or two ago I would have said that those who were talking about PLN’s were simply blowing smoke. For a long time, I  thought that twitter and other social networks were just something that I did. I thought that the process that I went through to create Ripe Environments was the only way to do it. But, networks are about the other individuals, not the group that I see as mine (the connections that we all make, not the connections that I have made). Networks are about asking the right questions. Networks are about aggregating and archiving what is truly important to each person.

We just have to make sure that creating them is a priority. Any thoughts on how?

Learning Networks and PD from Ben Wilkoff on Vimeo.

I learn with other learners.

For a long time, I have been kind of snobby about deciding where I can learn. I had made the decision that I could only learn when I am with people who have the same vision for education as I do, and after going to Educon 2.1, I think that this was both reinforced and destroyed. It was reinforced because I was in a room with a whole bunch of people who do share my vision for connected learning and it was wonderful to push the boundaries of my thinking. However, it was completely destroyed because I realized that in saying we have a monopoly on the future of education, we are shutting out nearly every voice that will actually make that future happen.

Today I am sitting in a training for Digital Educators in Douglas County. I started with this group when I was teaching 7th/8th grade and even then I was frustrated by the skill set of my cohort. Now though, with a lot of reflection and some understanding about how we all learn (connected, just-in-time, etc.), I realize that I have just as much to learn in this environment as I do at Educon 2.1. It is my job to hear all of the voices around me and to synthesize it into my own learning environment.

This is my learning network too.

I never understood that before. I always just made it about my online PLN. It is my job (not because it is in my job description, but because it is the way that I will be a better learner) to connect all of my learning network to one another. I need to share what I learn from Twitter with the people I see and the people that I see need to be able to reach my Twitter network. Why has it taken me this long to figure this out?

(I guess this isn’t the revelation that I am making it out to be. I have been tweeting about what I’m learning for a while now and I have been sharing links and resources with my district as well, but I don’t know that I ever made it a goal that I would try to create continuity between those two spheres. How have you connected your virtual networks and your real-life networks? How can I do it better?)