Learning is Change

What do you want to talk about in 2014?

What do you want to talk about in 2014?

I’m hosting 26 Hangout on Air roundtables (to better personalize professional learning) in the coming year, but I would like to collaboratively decide on the topics and to create a community of folks as we go.

Please, come and comment/edit what I am calling Project Roundtable.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZXQG8nPEk_a0nlbRSZe3XBQS7cQcteObaCv8JgzgIY/edit?usp=docslist_api

So, I am going to send out an email to the most prolific of our vloggers, but I wanted to send out a note about how…

So, I am going to send out an email to the most prolific of our vloggers, but I wanted to send out a note about how I think we might be able to keep our topics and ideas fresh throughout 2014. I will be hosting 26 Hangouts throughout 2014 (one every other week) on important Educational topics (related to personalized professional learning). I would like to collaboratively decide on the topics and then have those topics and the hangouts provide fodder for our reflective practice vlogs. Go to the Google Doc and collaborate if you would like to come play.

I’m calling it: Project Roundtable.

How are you planning 2014? The Project Roundtable Launch

I have been thinking for quite some time that I need to plan out a series of hangouts on various topics, but my process thus far is every few weeks a new idea would come to me and I would set up the event. The problem with this process is that it doesn’t ensure that the most important topics get discussed and the online communities of practice I participate within feel any ownership for these sessions. Essentially, this doesn’t allow us to build anything together or create any momentum, whether within my district or within these much more loosely connected communities.

So, after thinking it through for the last week, I have decided to launch Project Roundtable, a 26 hangout session series throughout 2014 on the most important topics (collaboratively chosen and planned). Every other week, a group of educators will get together and try to answer essential questions or propose solutions to burning problems of practice.

So, while I am a firm believer in building structures and seeding communities, I am not in over-defining outcomes or prescribing what it is that each person might get out of the experience. With that in mind here is the Master Google Doc with all of the plans and ideas. I have seeded the process and each week with a tentative topic. This document will serve as the central organizing place for the entire project:

http://bit.ly/projectroundtable

 

You can go there to make comments and start planning, but here is a quick overview of what I’m thinking thus far:

Project Purpose: This document is meant to outline all 26 sessions of Project Roundtable, representing a commitment to create an engaging facilitated session on a given topic every other week throughout 2014 utilizing the Google+ hangouts platform. These sessions are to be a model for personalized professional learning according to the needs of those within the communities of practice most relevant within Denver Public Schools, Colorado, and the wider world. These sessions are likely to change over time as the communities grow and shift throughout the year, however, so long as they are collaborative and based upon the needs, strengths and interests of their participants, they will still fulfill the promise of personalized professional learning.

Non-Purpose: This document is not meant to be a single person, school district or state’s idea of the important themes/topics of 2014, but rather as a starting point for collaboration. Please use the process outlined below to make contributions, comments, and ask questions.

Background:

Process:

  • Each session has a tentative topic set, but you may propose other topics by writing other options as numbered alternatives (each tentative item is #1).

    • If you propose a new topic, please also highlight and comment on the option so all owners of this document are notified.

  • Every two weeks, a new Planning Document will be created from this template: http://goo.gl/FO9NSH

    • You can create your own planning documents from this template if one needs to be created for a hangout you are helping to facilitate

  • You may comment on any topic (in the past, present or future) in order to propose a change or make a suggestion for a follow up.

    • You may spin-off any of these roundtables into your own sessions simply by placing them on this document in the following format:

      • Session 1a (choose the session number you are spinning off of and then add a letter that hasn’t been used yet)

      • Week for chosen session

      • Proposed Topic

      • Proposed Roundtable Members and Facilitators

      • Proposed Audience:

      • Event Link:

      • Planning Doc Link:


Project Roundtable (Google Doc Links)

Session 1: Week of 01/06/2014

Session 2: Week of 01/20/2014

Session 3: Week of 02/3/2014

Session 4: Week of 2/17/2014

Session 5: Week of 3/3/2014

Session 6: Week of 3/17/2014

Session 7: Week of 3/31/2014

Session 8: Week of 4/14/2014

Session 9: Week of 4/28/2014

Session 10: Week of 5/12/2014

Session 11: Week of 5/26/2014

Session 12: Week of 6/9/2014

Session 13: Week of 6/23/2014

Session 14: Week of 7/7/2014

Session 15: Week of 7/21/2014

Session 16: Week of 8/4/2014

Session 17: Week of 8/18/2014

Session 18: Week of 9/1/2014

Session 19: Week of 9/15/2014

Session 20: Week of 9/29/2014

Session 21: Week of 10/13/2014

Session 22: Week of 10/27/2014

Session 23: Week of 11/10/2014

Session 24: Week of 11/24/2014

Session 25: Week of 12/8/2014

Session 26: Week of 12/22/2014

 

My Homework

Jeremy Inscho tagged me in this blog meme, and seeing as how my kiddos woke up at 4:00 to see if Santa came, I’m up anyway (Spoiler alert: he did). So, thank you Jeremy, and here goes.

11 facts:

  1. I am a sucker for Beta products. (Just slap a beta sticker on something, and I will gravitate toward it like a moth to the flame.)
  2. I keep over 30 tabs open on my browser at all times (the most I ever had open at one time was 197. No, my computer wasn’t functioning very well at that point).
  3. I have killed both our front and back lawns (they are really small, but still) multiple times.
  4. I haven’t read a novel in over a year (I used to teach English to 7th and 8th graders, so I find this one super surprising).
  5. I met my wife because I heard her asking about vegetarian options in the cafeteria in college. After a while, I went up to her table and said, “I notice you aren’t partaking in the meat consumption. I think that’s really cool.”
  6. Neither of us are vegetarians anymore.
  7. I have 54 days worth of music in iTunes.
  8. I knew I wanted to teach from the time I was in 8th grade.
  9. I wrote my name in the Autoexec.bat file on our home computer when I was 6. Our computer didn’t work for a week before my father could figure out what I did. (If you don’t know what an autoexec.bat file is, click here.)
  10. I will be a father of three in February. I give it a 22% chance that the baby will listen to the doctors and come on his/her valentine’s day due date.
  11. I got a 4.7 percent in Spanish in middle school. (Yes, I did try to get a score that low.)

11 Questions from Jeremy:

  1. What was your favorite class in university? Any English course. I majored in it, and I could have taken English courses forever if they would have let me.
  2. If you could only read one blogger next year, who would it be? It would be a vlogger instead of a blogger (you know, because… YouTube), and it would be The Vlog Brothers. They consistently make me happy with their thinking and learning together through massive collaboration.
  3. If you could have your choice of career changes tomorrow, what would you choose? Engineer.
  4. What is your favorite way to relax? iPhone related reading.
  5. How do you burn off energy when needed? Walking.
  6. Who is your favorite author and book/series? Favorite author is John Green. Favorite Book is Perks of Being a Wallflower. Favorite series is Harry Potter.
  7. Introvert or extrovert? Both.
  8. Mac, PC, or other? Mac, but only because it is objectively better.
  9. Which is your favorite social media? At the moment, Google+.
  10. Who is the most influential member of your PLN? Kevin Croghan. We see each other in real life, but he has pushed my thinking more recently than anyone else.
  11. Do you have any quirky habits? Yes.

11 Bloggers to Tag:

Seeing as how I just got together a list of 38 Colorado Edubloggers for another project I’m working on, I think I’ll probably choose from there:

  1. http://mrsmullerlearninglogedtech.blogspot.com/ – Rebecca Muller
  2. http://edtechlove.wordpress.com/ – Pamela Lewis
  3. http://avenue4learning.com/ – Michelle Baldwin
  4. http://jayveanccsd.blogspot.com/ – Jay Vean
  5. http://toniobarton.wordpress.com/ – Toni Olivieri-Barton
  6. http://teachertechness.blogspot.com/ – Deanna Duray
  7. http://teachtechpsd.wordpress.com/ – Monique Flickinger
  8. http://www.eastdragonden.blogspot.com/ – Chris Moore
  9. http://msmslearningcommunity.blogspot.com/ – Lisette Casey
  10. http://d20innovation.d20blogs.org/ – Nancy White
  11. http://mwacker.blogspot.com/ – Michael Wacker

11 Questions for these Bloggers:

  1. Where do you go when you want to think?
  2. What is your writing ritual?
  3. What is the best thing that you can cook?
  4. When did you know you wanted to be an educator?
  5. How do you learn best?
  6. What is the most amazing thing you ever saw a kid do (your child or someone else’s)?
  7. What is the one thing you want to do most before you shuffle off this mortal coil?
  8. What do you think of Google Glass?
  9. What is the best piece of art you ever purchased?
  10. What would the tagline for a movie about your life be?
  11. What do you do when there is a jar that you just can’t open?