Learning is Change

Helping myself out… by asking for help.

So I haven’t blogged for a little while because of all of the work I have been doing for our district’s online school, eDCSD. I intend to blog that out more fully in a separate post, but now I am at the TIE 2008 conference and I have some time to think about how everything (seriously everything) is fitting together.

Teachers are sitting around me trying to figure out Photo Story. They are listening to a man who knows something about building learning communities through new media and web 2.0 resources. This is right up my alley. Or, at least it used to be. I used to love listening to hear people talk about what to use in the classroom in order to create a more collaborative environment. I talk about it when I present. I demo visual tools (although mostly of them are web-based) for creating environments. Why doesn’t this mean something to me?

I feel different than I did last year when I talked to Bud Hunt, Will Richardson, and Karl Fisch. I don’t feel like I am a part of this conversation right now. I feel a part of a different conversation, but I don’t know exactly where it is happening.

I want to be a part of the conversation that is about massive creation. I want to be a part of creating something that lasts, not a singular experience. I want to feel connected to all of the people I talk to, forever. I don’t want to meet anyone new who doesn’t want to share and create with me. Why can’t it be easy enough to simply add people and create with them. Why is it not possible to look across the edubloggosphere and say, “you and me, let’s go.”

I want to be a part of that conversation. I want a creation station for all of us. Where is it, though? Where is the learning playground? I want to play.

So, I guess I will throw it out to you. Where is your playground right now? Where are you going to simply create learning with others (please don’t tell me that the most learning is happening simply through twitter… I don’t think I am alone in my for need something more robust to actually create conversations that last and that I can keep coming back to). Anyway, any suggestions for where my learning community is?

The 2-year Reflection

Cores 2+3:

  1. Discuss-on:
  2. Begin Discovery Digital Portfolios
    • Don’t forget about the little things that we have done (Write-on questions, ELT projects, Science and Social Studies blogging, etc.)
    • Make it visual.
    • Organize it.
    • Reflect, Reflect, Reflect. (Why was this piece important or interesting?)
  3. Extensions:
    • Finish your Digital Portfolio before you forget the great things we have done on Discovery.

05.19.08

Cores 1+4:

  1. Discuss-on:
  2. Watch Animal Farm and look for your own reasoning.
  3. Extensions:
    • Mentally prepare yourself for summer.

Core 2:

  1. Quiz-it-Up
  2. Discuss-on:
  3. Watch Animal Farm and look for your own reasoning.
  4. Extensions:
    • Mentally prepare yourself for summer.

Core 3:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Talk about writing arguments, support, and two-sided debate.
  3. Collect support for both sides of this debate: “Resolved: Alcohol should be a banned substance in our society.
  4. Extensions:
    • Prepare for Debate tomorrow.

05.15.08

Core 4:

  1. Write-on:

  2. Read Chapter 9 and 10 of Animal Farm

  3. Work on Digital Portfolios

    • Don’t forget about the little things that we have done (Write-on questions, ELT projects, etc.)

    • Make it visual.

    • Organize it.

    • Reflect, Reflect, Reflect. (Why was this piece important or interesting?)

  4. Extensions:

    • Finish your Portfolio by the end of the week.

05.14.08

Core 1:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Read Chapter 9 and 10 of Animal Farm
    • What does the new generation of pigs mean for the farm?
    • Do you think that anyone will get to retire?
    • How does Boxer’s health lead to the final straw of inequality?
    • What is going to happen to Animal Farm with Boxer’s leadership in question?
    • Look at all of the amazing images from Core 1’s reading.
  3. Work on Digital Portfolios
    • Don’t forget about the little things that we have done (Write-on questions, ELT projects, etc.)
    • Make it visual.
    • Organize it.
    • Reflect, Reflect, Reflect. (Why was this piece important or interesting?)
  4. Extensions:
    • Finish your Portfolio by the end of the week.

Core 2:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Finish Animal Farm.
    • What is resolved?
    • What is left unresolved?
    • Why did George Orwell write the book?
  3. Practice and prepare for acting out the two battle scenes.
  4. Act out battle scenes on the field.
    • Record with two cameras.
    • Create a chorus of extras.
    • Block out actions and words (no scripts).
  5. Extensions:
    • Finish your Utopia this weekend.

Animal Farm Images from Chapter 8

http://arungoodboy.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/animal_farm_2.jpg
http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/content/binary/animal%20farm.jpg
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-stories-animal-farm-330×220
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/images/animalfarm2.jpg
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/wda0443l.jpg

http://www.thewindmillfarm.com/images/WindmillFarmColor.jpg
http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/explosion.png
http://storage1.morguefile.com/images/storage/x/xpistwv/lowrez/Rubble2.jpg

http://www.edu.pe.ca/threeoaks/grassroots/animal/graphics%5Cwindmill.jpg

http://www.annexed.net/freedom/AnimalFarmCommandments.jpg

http://www.abc.edu.sv/seniors/English/IB%20Texts/IB%20Prose%20Fiction/Book%20Cover%20Images/Animal%20Farm.jpg

http://www.jamestownri.com/library/hist-photos/12-1%20Windmill.jpg

http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/81195/81195,1175989354,3.jpg

05.13.08

Cores 1+4:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Read Chapter 8 of Animal Farm
    • Why are the pigs new rules so far reaching?
    • Why are they not satisfied with equality?
    • Did the animal truly succeed in the second battle? What did they win?
  3. Write from the viewpoint of a pig and of another animal in describing the battle of the Windmill.
    • What is different about the way that they view the battle, and the world.

Core 2:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Rev-It-Up
  3. Finish Chapter 9 and Start Chapter 10
    • What is going to happen to Animal Farm with Boxer’s leadership?
  4. Discuss the script, bringing in supplies, etc.
    • Practice scenes
  5. Extensions:
    • Finish your Utopia for this weekend.

Core 3:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Read the Temperance Reform Introduction
    • Why was it that people drank so much in the 19th century?
    • How did the temperance movement garner so much support from different groups of people?
  3. Answer the two questions at the end of the article according to your own -Ism:
    • How should individual human beings
      behave?
    • How does that behavior influence others?
  4. Extensions:
    • Finish your -Ism this weekend.

05.12.08

Cores 1+4:

  1. Write-on/Blog-on:
  2. Honor the work you did on Utopias.
  3. Talk about Digital Portfolios
  4. Extensions:
    • Finish that last book that you have been working on before summer.

Core 2:

  1. Rev-It-Up
  2. Talk about Script and Planning.
  3. Work on your utopia for our three purposes:
    • Creating Community
    • Telling the story of Utopia
    • Enhancing our ideas
  4. Extensions:
    • Be finished with your Utopia by Sunday Night.

Core 3:

  1. Discuss-on:
  2. Take a look at some great -Ism creation:
    • Ania and Carrie’s Discussion
    • Inside the head of an -Ism: It’s pretty quiet in here, with everyone outside working on their
      isms. I look around the room. There’s the green monkey and the octopus
      from the magazine sale. There on the walls are the different quotes. My
      personal favorite…”The universe is made of stories, not of
      atoms.”-Muriel Rukeyser. Call me weird, but I like it. I can hear some
      of the other girls talking and socializing. Talking about next week
      what is going to happen at school. The smart board is still on,
      although it isn’t doing anything right now. It’s nice in here when it’s
      quiet. I can think and wonder and not feel…isolated. Maybe I’m weird,
      but I always feel so alone, even when I’m surrounded by people. I’ve
      always been a loner, and I like to be alone, or with just a few people,
      at one time. I’m reading a different kind of book now, called “      The Kayla Chronicles”
      which is different from what I normally read. Normally I like fantasy
      and dragons and spaceships (yeah, a strange combonation I know) but I
      thought I’d try something new here. I daydream abut summer. Swimming
      and hanging out with friends and spending time with family. We went on
      a field trip today, we played frisbee golf, and it was so much fun to
      run around and be outside and feel the sunshine.
  3. Work on your ism, creative voice for your beliefs.
  4. Extensions:
    • Be finished with your -Ism by Sunday night.

05.09.08

Cores 1, 2, 4:

  1. Write-on or Blog-on:
  2. Check out the final workings of our Utopias:
  3. Work on your utopia for our three purposes:
    • Creating Community
    • Telling the story of Utopia
    • Enhancing our ideas
  4. Finish your Utopia for Sunday (Cores 1+4), or Finish Five Sections for Sunday (Core 2)

Core 3:

  1. Write-on or Blog-on:
  2. Check out great -Ism work:
  3. Work on your ism, creative voice for your beliefs.
  4. Extensions:
    • Be finished with four sections and four multimedia elements by the end of the weekend.