Fuzzy Thinking

INTRO

What was lost, found, I looked up and there it was in the distance, about 30 meters away. Not my missing phone case, it was in my car the whole time. This..

WHEN SETTLING ISN'T MAKING DO

I was out flying out flying my Parrot Bebop 2 drone yesterday. I used to think it was one hot drone. Then I flew a DJI Phantom 4. Then I saw a demo of the new DJI Mavic Pro drone and took the Phantom back and pre-ordered a Mavic. Which is why I was out flying. I fly drones, not for the flying so much. That's scary. Drones are expensive. I've lost one and crashed several. I fly drones for the photos. The DJI camera gimbal and cameras are much better than what my Bebop 2 has.

But the Mavic Pro isn't likely to arrive for a while. So Bebop and me were out in the Arizona desert west of Phoenix flying and taking pictures. At the very end, packed up and about to drive off, I looked to the right and there it was: a frowning cactus. A few days from Halloween sighting it was timely. It made me think of a Jack-o-Lantern, this Jack-o-Cactus.

Photos other drone pilots post on social media show wondrous things: cathedrals and estates, lush green or craggy snow covered mountains, cruise ships and barges on the sea or rivers, basically a whole lot of amazing places. Around these parts, in the slice of Arizona I call home, all there is is scrub and cactus.

But finding and photographing Jack-o-Cactus made me think that since I got it I should use it.

OUTRO

I wish my Mavic Pro would get here already. It's 4K camera would have taken a much sharper Jack photo. Oh well. Soon. Soon.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Be, Still

PROLOGUE

I almost corrected Austin Kleon yesterday.

iPADPALOOZA

I'm at iPadPalooza in Austin. Yesterday I got to listen to Austin's keynote (recorded 6/23/16 at ~ 3:30 pm). Afterwards I got him to autograph my iPad. He drew over a screen capture of something I found poignant in "Show Your Work", one of his books.

I was shocked, okay, maybe that's too strong. But I was definitely surprised when he picked the Fill tool in Paper by 53 to do the autographing. Almost every bit of it he drew using the tool, except for the orange parts. As he was drawing the fingers I wanted to point out how the Pen tool was more appropriate for autographing.

BEING STILL

Luckily I stopped myself before blurting out, "For the love of God man, the Pen tool is much more appropriate for autographing." My next thought, once I steeled myself to silence, was that this is what he meant by taking something from others (stealing) and making it yours.

So here's the very first thing I drew using only the Fill tool. It reminds me of someone, just out of the bath, checking their nails. Behind them is their significant other watching them check their nails.

EPILOGUE

I need to make this change in my life. I've been dreaming about it for a while, wondering just how to do it, to get started. Thank you Austin for making it obvious how.

 

5 a.m.

INTRO

It's 5 a.m. on a Saturday. I'm on a path that I'm not sure where it goes.

FADED PHOTOGRAPHS OF VIVID MEMORIES THAT MAY NOT HAVE HAPPENED, YET

I'm on my way to #LSCon, the Learning Solutions Conference, produced by the eLearning Guild. But that's not what this post is about. I'm on my way to Orlando, Florida where the conference is held. To get there I have to travel along a path from my distant past.

The end of 1977 found me at Corry Station learning the finer points of being a technical sailor in the US Navy. Corry Station, in ancient times, was a naval air station. I have a vivid memory walking across the old runway apron and tripping over an old aircraft tie-down cleat. It was set, recessed, into the concrete, a small loop of rusted iron. At least that's how I remember it. I think I took a photo of it. If I did I lost it. It isn't in my Flickr, one of the apps I use to record photos.

At this very moment I'm in El Paso readying myself for today's travel. I'm connected to the Internet via a 3G Verizon mobile device. In its day it was fast. Today it's like molasses. A few minutes ago I was in Flickr looking for old photos. After about two years of pictures the screen turned gray. The photos are there, on a server somewhere, but not here in front of me to verify my memory.

I hope to travel 600 miles today just like I did yesterday. Except that yesterday I barely made it 400 miles. I kept stopping, for reasons of health and curiosity, to pass some time among memories. I flew my BeBop drone to give me a perspective I didn't have back then. If you follow me on social media expect lots of fisheye views of the ground from 30 metres up the next few days.

OUTRO

In 1977 parts of Interstate 10 hadn't been completed. Today, I hope to find a detour I took around one such unfinished section. Only I'm not 100% sure where it was. One end was at Fort Stockton, Texas. I recall a cattle watering tank and an ancient Ford Aeromotor (a windmill). If I find them, expect a flyover. If I can't find it maybe I'll do a sketch of the vivid memory of something I think I saw 39 years ago for a moment.

 

 

Hey Aviator

PROLOGUE

I'm an aviator. Ok, not really. But I do wear glasses and own a drone quadcopter. The point is I drive something that flies.

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to _______. But I have a short attention span. It doesn't help I'm attracted to shiny objects. So along the way of my life I've half started a lot of things. But now that I'm an OldPa (a term I remember from an old Lionel Barrymore as grandfather movie) I have a little more disposable income.

So the other day I used some to buy a Parrot Bebop 2 drone. I needed one to respond to an RFP (Request For Proposal). Now that I've responded I have a cool red toy to play with.

Speaking of play, I like to have fun while learning. One way I have tons-o-fun learning is by participating in EdCamps. In a nutshell they're gatherings of teachers where everyone is a genius. I've lost count of how many I've participated in. Anyway, at one of them I noticed how learning can be influenced by environment. I was in a first grade classroom. Not only was everything small, like models I glued together as a boy, most things in the room were scaled down, maybe 3:1. I had expected that.

What I hadn't expected was how low things on the wall were. I'm 6 feet and 5 inches tall. I had to look down at learning aids placed on the walls. Something a six year old looked straight into I had to peer down at. This has AHA! moment kick-started my thinking on learning environments.

THE TOPS OF THINGS

When I spun up the props on my Bebop and got it about three metres in the air I saw a whole new world. Tall as I am I mostly look down at things. Of course I look up at stuff too. But being a creature of habit I tend to not really notice the usual stuff around me. Taking a look at my surroundings from higher up than usual really opened my eyes. Cliche though it may be to say I saw a whole new world it's true.

RETRACING OLD STEPS

Cactus tops, tree tops, house tops, my bald head are all things the drone and me have captured. I don't expect the novelty to wear off for a while.

In 1977 I entered active duty with the US Navy. I did a lot of traveling over the next six years. One of my more memorable trips was driving my then new Toyota Celica from Corry Station near Pensacola, Florida to my boyhood home in California. The 2209 mile trip took me around 44 hours. I remember bits and pieces of sights along the way. What I remember most though was how big and diverse the southern United States is.

In seven days I start driving from my home in Arizona to a conference in Orlando, Florida. I'll be in my new Honda CR-V. I expect to make a lot of stops along the way. I'm looking forward at what the drone's view reveals.

EPILOGUE

What the drone really does is expand my view just a little bit. My eyes are almost 40 years older than they were in '77. It occurred to me just now how Google Earth lets me look down. The drone makes it more personal, so much more up close. I think that's what an aviator might feel flying through the air. I'm not a passenger peering out a window at the world going by. I'm choosing the path and experience what's coming up.

 

Conf it up

INTRO

What do you do when the concurrent conference session you were really interested in falls flat?

THE LEARNER IN THE MIRROR

I've done it. I'm in a conference session whose title and description really resonated with me. But then a little into it I catch myself browsing the web on my mobile device because the actual presentation isn't all that interesting.

Over the past 12 months I've gone to a dozen or so conferences. Most were EdCamps; the others were sponsored by professional development organizations.

As a presenter it stings when I don't connect with the people in the room. Heads go down and it's plain they're doing something else. Mea culpa. Reflecting on this on the long drive home from EdCampVentura Sunday I wondered how a presentation might play out if it was more conversational. That's where the root of conference comes from: conversations among people brought together by similar interests.

OUTRO

When a presenter asks their audience to put their mobile devices away are they doing it to avoid disruption? Or might they be saying, "What I have to share isn't all that interesting." Maybe an appropriate response is following that basic tenet of EdCamp: Vote with your feet.

 

 

An Old Dude Gets Whyze

INTRO

In my personal life rarely do I have a plan.

GIVING UP CONTROL MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE UNTIL IT DIDN'T

A basic tenet of EdCamp is to vote with your feet. Not getting what you came for? Vote with your feet: Let them take you where you might.

Almost 40 years ago I gave up control of my life for six years. At 20 I enlisted in the US military. In the Navy to be precise. I made choices, sure. But for the most part others made the decisions. Except they were really my choices. Confused? So was I. At least until I read a blog post by @davidtedu on a writing technique known as The Three Whys. The way I figure it asking why three times takes one deeper into a subject. This allows one to glean insights that might have been missed during a more conventional process of analysis.

Why did I join the Navy? To have an adventure. To have a chance at living a life beyond the commute here and there existence I'd known for far too long. Why did I want adventure? Because I felt my life to that point resembled a connect-the-dots puzzle where predefined forms reveal themselves after a period of focused effort. The point is the forms were there all the time. It was live by the numbers 28-29-30 and there you are hello Mr. Easter Bunny. Why do I have a problem with numbers? Because life isn't about counting. Life is more about formulating. And there I got brought up short. Because I don't like to plan. If I really believe in formulating, in thinking deep thoughts and applying, them isn't that planning, which I have mentioned I'm not a big fan of?

AN IDYLLIC YEAR LIVING IN A JUNGLE

Diego Garcia. I spent one of the best years of my life there. Located a little off the equator in the Indian Ocean it's a coral atoll and jungle. The thing about jungles is they smell. Jungles smell bad. It's because jungles are in continual renewal. Old stuff falls to the jungle floor where decomposes. It feeds new life. I had to travel something like 11,000 miles from home to learn that lesson.

I got there after a week riding a C-141 transport plane all the way from Norton AFB (Air Force Base), to Travis AFB, to Hickam AFB, to Anderson AFB, to Clark AFB, to.. Trust me on this point: It took a whole lot of tos to get me where I wanted to be.

Which brings me back to choices. Diego Garcia in 1978 was isolated duty. I volunteered to go there so the Navy obliged and sent me. I learned that I could usually get what I wanted by asking for stuff few wanted. It wasn't a plan. It was a formula.

UP UP AND HEY

I've voted with my feet twice in the last couple weeks. At Design Camp San Diego and EdCampPerris I listened for a time then got up and moved on. What got me moving was a static message, a conversation where one person was doing most of the talking. I know this as teaching. What I'm much more into these days is learning. It's like traveling by air. You can get there slowly by balloon. To go the distance, to make the big leaps, takes oomph, the sort of thing a rocket is good for. The great thing about EdCamp are conversations, where everyone speaks up and shares. It's a kind of design thinking. Everyone speaks up. Different things resonate with different people. Bonds of empathy bring people together for deeper collaboration.

OUTRO

So I asked why a few times and I got whyze. With this whyzdom came the realization that I don't much like being told how something works. I'd much rather listen to a multitude of others share how they think something works and then try it on for size so I can figure out how it works. Thank you David for why assist.

 

Learning is motion

INTRO

Initial meetings with clients can be illuminating.

LEARNING ENABLES HEARTS AND MINDS TO GET MOVING

The other day I met with a new client. Their team and I are in the "getting to know you" stage. They showed me a number of slides with data on how many courses were in production, how many were live on their LMS and how many courses were taken by their employees.

When I asked about results, what we refer to in the business as return on investment, they drew a blank. Sadly, this is typical. Their data tell a story about butts-in-seats: developing and completing training. But learning is so much more than that.

Don Wettrick teaches a course on innovation at his high school in Indiana. In a Periscope video this morning he talked about how he's considering moving away from traditional grading to PASS/FAIL.

Reflecting on his thoughts I got to thinking that the methods my client and Don use to assess learning misses on efficacy. How well did they achieve their planned result?

One (among many) things I've learned after two years of professional development (PD) alongside K-12 teachers is that mistakes matter. They're a significant part of the learning process. My client, tracking the data they do, don't have visibility on the number of mistakes their organization is making. They don't know if the training they've developed has moved the organization towards its planned result.

OUTRO

I would suggest to Don that grades are important. PASS/FAIL doesn't capture the mistakes learners make along the way. I don't believe grades are a carrot to entice learners to do better for the sake of a higher grade. In Don's Pure Genius he writes how learners say what they're going to do, how much their ultimate work will be worth and then assess along the way and at the end. I believe learning is much more than butts-in-seats. It's about enabling learners to get their hearts and minds in motion doing stuff. Honor the mistakes learners make along the way. Keep the grades.

 

Wanted Moster

INTRO

I used to be a Hagar the Horrible fanboy. The Dik Browne strip was a hoot and helped me get my day started right. One of my fav strips was where a bartender asks Hagar what he wants. His reply is something I cherish to this day.

WHAT DO I WANT? WHAT DOES ANY VIKING WANT?

Today's #ds106 daily create challenge was to produce a wanted poster.

To get some ideas I googled "wanted poster". An animated poster of Have You Seen This Wizard caught my eye right away. So that's what I decided to make.

OUTRO

I love using my iPad to ideate and prototype. The daily create challenge helps me open up my creative mindset.

 

Prototyping Guild Chat

INTRO

I have an unscheduled trip later today. Two of my kids, Carly my grand daughter, and I are going to California. There's been a death in the family and we need to visit my sister. I don't want to miss tomorrow's Guild Chat so I prototyped what I'd share. In case I can't make it the prototype can be my input. If it turns out I can make the chat then the prototype was good reflection.

PLOTAGON: MY FAV PROTOTYPING TOOL

Plotagon is this 3D animation app available for iOS, Mac, and Windows. If you can type you can make cool 3D animation.

As shown in the screen captures above Plotagon's interface has two areas: scripts and scenes. I first chose the scene and characters I wanted in my plot. Next I typed what I wanted the characters to say and do.

When it's all done I click Share (button not shown) and add some hashtags to make finding it easier.

OUTRO

Plotagon is an amazing app. It makes storytelling with animation easy and engaging. Here's the Guild Chat prototype.

 

 

Shiny Object Guy

PROLOGUE

I’m a “Shiny Object” guy.

SHINY OBJECT #1

I’m a Navy veteran. I served in the late seventies and early eighties for six years. Some memories from my experience have faded so much that I think they’re fantasy; others remain so vivid in my mind that they seem to have happened only yesterday.

One of the latter vivid variety memories happened on September 13, 1978. On that day I boarded an Air Force C-141 Starlifter. It would take me one half the way around the world to my first overseas duty station: NavComSta Diego Garcia. But that isn’t what this post is about.

What it is about is something that took place many months earlier. A standard Navy activity is reading the Plan-of-the-Day (POTD). During one such reading my instructor, I was then taking Electronics Technician 1 at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, read about a new program wherein students could dream-sheet a sixth choice of what advanced training they wanted to receive and where they would like to be stationed. A dream-sheet gave sailors the opportunity to provide their detailer (the Chief in D.C. who cut orders) input on where and what; usually we could submit up to five choices. He said if we asked to be stationed on Diego Garcia we wouldn’t have to bump one of the other choices to make room for it. So I did. I had no idea what Diego Garcia was.

Diego Garcia was, and remains, a shiny object for me. It’s difficult for me to tell this story because of all the tangentential stories about my time there that scream out to be told, too. Anyway, the gist of it is that as the Starlifter, after leaving Travis Air Force Base, flew over the Golden Gate Bridge (man how I wish I knew where that photo was) I was filled with a sense of wonder and joy for what was to come. It’s a rare feeling.

SHINY OBJECT #2

I have to work today. I’m worried it’s going to be a long one. At the end of my work day I’m going to be getting underway for Las Vegas. I’ll finally be on my way to CUEROCKSTAR. I signed up for it back in March after a CUE conference with Jon Corippo.

I was so motivated by the CUE experience. That CUE ball cap I’m wearing in the selfie with Jon is the first hat of any kind to be on my head since I left the Navy in ’83.

I do and I don’t know what to expect. I know it’ll be three days of learning with K-12 teachers from all over. Not being a K-12 teacher I have a fuzzy idea of what I’ll be learning. The past two years I’ve participated in something like 24 EdCamps. I’ve learned a lot about how our children learn during their K-12 experience. Some of what I’ve picked up has made it into the learning experiences I design. But the thing is EdCamps are brief experiences; several 50 minute sessions over the course of a few hours. I make connections with some teachers and encounter others during educational chats on Twitter afterwards. But CUEROCKSTAR will be different. It’s THREE DAYS!

I like to say that I design transformational learning experiences. That means learners will be butts-out-of-seats moving around doing stuff. They’ll be making their learning visible: to themselves, to their instructor/facilitator, and to their team back home. CUE ROCKSTAR will be transformational.

EPILOGUE

In my mind’s eye I can see the jewel that is San Francisco Bay through the Starlifter’s port-side porthole. A few minutes after leaving Travis I undid my jump seat belt and ambled over to the porthole (this wasn’t a smart move as the heavily laden transport plane, unlike a passenger jet, bounces and heaves like nobody’s business as it claws for altitude. I made my way past pallets piled with who-knows-what and gazed back in wonder at the bay, the bridge, and all that I had known before.

I’m going to be different after CUEROCKSTAR. It’s going to be different. How? I have no idea. That’s how it is with shiny objects.

 

 

Sit n Get

INTRO

My K-12 experience spanned from 1961 through 1974. My butt polished a lot of chairs in that time.

SIT

I can't recall many times, outside of PE class, where I wasn't sitting down in school. Sure, there were those terrifying moments working problems on the blackboard. But this activity wasn't something a kid looked forward to.

The classrooms I knew had rows of chairs. Desktop collaboration was difficult. Aside from the floor flat surfaces to spread out and collaborate on were few. I cannot recall a time when we used the floor.

@ErikWahl and @KidsDeserveIt if you want to move education forward then your delivery needs to get students' bodies moving.

GET

I design learning experiences for adults. In the almost two years that I've been participating in EdCamp I have learned many ways to teach kids. I have been able to use some of these techniques and strategies and tools with the learners I support. The best of them involve movement.

Devices and technology give students reach: to information and each other. The information stores, libraries, that I encountered in the 1960s were places to borrow books. The Internet of the day, card catalogues, were slow and cumbersome and in the end useful only insofar as the library was able to keep the resource: book, periodical, or map. Accessing the resource required that I go to the library. Today the information comes to students through browsers and apps.

Students need to be set in motion. In a Twitter chat some time ago I heard about Heutagogy. In a nutshell I think its about going after learning. Students, whether adults or children know what they need. It's arguable that maybe adults have a more definite idea of their needs than children. I'm not so sure.

OUTRO

If we're serious about growing flexible, curious, and creative people we have to set them free to go after what interests them. It's our job as educators to design learning experiences that facilitate that chase. Set our students free. My granddaughter Carly is counting on you.

 

 

Focus Operandi

PROLOGUE

There are lots of things vying for our attention. Maintaining the laser-like focus many of our jobs demand can actually distract us from innovative insights.

FOCUS OPERANDI

Erik Wahl, guest writing in the Kids Deserve It blog notes that innovative insights often occur during times when people are intent on doing their jobs. The problem is, given how busy we are, it’s easy to miss ideas that flit in and out of our consciousness during while we’re busy doing our thing.

Wahl suggests setting aside moments to let our minds wander. Hopefully we’ll notice and be able to cajole some of the insights to stick around long enough for us to get our minds around them.

EPILOGUE

Storytelling and sketching are what I do to open and rest my mind. It helps me focus on something quite different from what I’m usually doing. If only for a few minutes I listen to my little voice of wonder and curiosity hoping to hear something cool.

Training Has a Problem

INTRO

I read the other day where the Classroom Desk has become passé.

It’s finally bit the bullet.

TRAINING

The best training experience I ever in my life had was in 1993 when Intel hired me as a manufacturing technician (MT). Hundreds of people were hired to work in Fab 11 in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. It was the stuff of myth. You see, the state of the art Pentium factory existed mainly as a dream on blueprint. It was over a year away from going online.

In my experience before Intel, training happened piece meal. It seemed an after thought. It was all about skills for jobs that existed now.

To gain the skills I needed Intel sent me to work at an existing fab in New Mexico for a couple of weeks. Then I went to a fab in Santa Clara for three months. It wasn’t just me. The many hundreds of other new hires were sent to Intel factories throughout the world. Yes, the world. It was as much about learning Intel’s culture as well as process, operations, and problem solving skills. Like I said, the stuff of myth: developing critical thinking workers.

Some of the training happened at desks. Most of the training involved movement, collaboration with others, and making things like reports and job-aids.

SADZ

I started writing this post in response to reading “Is This a Training Problem?” by Dr. Patti Shank. She was sharing her thoughts about a process for improving human performance. The hook in her post that grabbed me was whe she said “Training is expensive."

After I read her post I skimmed the Six Boxes document she referenced. I think it’s missing something. In the Analysis section the Six Boxes author describes a process for gathering information about environment and individual as they relate to a performance problem or opportunity. It’s similar to the process I’d learned for developing training. That is, up until I learned about Design Thinking at an EdCamp in 2013.

The bit I added to my workflow is Design Thinking. I do the same things the Six Boxes describe. But I do it with the learners I’m supporting instead of to. I think it’s an important distinction. It’s like being at a carnival and watching the action from the perspective of a parent. I like to get on the ride with the learners.

OUTRO

Is training expensive? In the grand scheme of things the cost of training pales compared to the cost of not training. It’s more than the cost to the organization though. What about the cost to individual learners? Are they a piece of a workflow leading towards a solution to a training problem? Or are they a contributing member of the learning and development team?

(Not) Being There

PROLOGUE

Time was that to get something out of something one had to be somewhere. No more. A bit vague? Read on.

ISTE

ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) had it’s annual conference in Philadelphia last week.

The conference brought thousands of K-12 educators and others together for several days of professional development and networking opportunities. I wasn’t able to attend. Except that I did. Sort of.

Through the magic of streaming media technology like Periscope and the efforts of caring teachers like Jen Wagner, Cori Coburn-Shiflett, and many others I was able to observe bits and pieces, some large and some small, of keynotes, presentations, and conversations.

BEING THERE

My being able to connect with the ISTE15 experience as much as I did started with the NotAtISTE15 Google+ group created by Wagner. The group brought together lots of people interested in learning as much as possible from ISTE15 participants. The other half of the equation was people like Coburn-Shiflett using Periscope to live-stream keynotes, presentations, and other events. I hadn’t experienced this level of connectivity and collaboration before.

Most of the time when I connect with others attending an event its through Twitter; its 140 character limit constrains the conversation. While tweets are useful as pointers to deeper and richer content or to arouse curiosity it’s a bit harder for deep (content) diving.

That’s about all I have to say about NotAtISTE. For a little more you can check out my PuzzlingMix blog.

NOTAT CHANNELING

Reflecting on my not being there learning experience started me wondering. How might we leverage Google+, Twitter, Periscope, Pinterest and other collaborative social media tools for other events? What might a framework for NOTAT___ look like?

EPILOGUE

And that’s as far as I got. Jen Wagner read my mind (or a tweet/blog) and provided an amazing How To #NotHere step-by-step guide.

I love my PLN. Thank you so much Jen!

EdCampUSA Reflections

PROLOGUE

"When the student is ready the teacher will appear." -- Buddhist Proverb?

EdCampUSA

Friday May 29, 2015 saw me keeping company with educators at EdCampUSA in Washington, DC. It was quite a the learning experience. My PLN (Personal Learning Network) grew a few sizes whilst I listened and shared.

REFLECTIONS

I'm going to be thinking about the stuff I learned today. Chief among these includes wearables in education, student voice, and caring enough to figure it out. Not for the first time something occurred to me along the way. Some of what I heard wasn't new. Maybe it was deja vu? Or perhaps I was rehearing something I had heard before and set aside. I can't say for sure. But engaging with peers in conversation and chiming up when I had a mind to made for an exciting time.

EPILOGUE

Brad Pitt, in World War Z, said something to the effect of, "Movement is survival." I think he said it. Any, I think of learning in a similar way. I have to put myself out there where others are. Deja vu or new doesn't really make much difference. When the student is ready learning happens and stuff begins to make sense.

 

 

 

Tech Yes

PROLOGUE

AprilBlogaDay Day 19.. Teach tech? Tech yes.

TECH

I've seen technology evolve over the last 50 years. One thing that hasn't evolved with it is teaching how to use and respect it.

My first calculator was a slide rule. It was quite the experience learning how to use the C and D scales. Keeping track of powers of 10 was no fun either. Then there were the physical and environmental consideration. It was made of bamboo and was highly intolerant of moisture. Until I could afford my first HP the slide rule was IT.

YES

Each of my three kids had to buy a TI graphing calculator. No wait. I had to buy it for them. This was crazy given that they were expensive AND we already own iPhone apps that did what the TIs did and more.

Schools and teachers need to say YES to technology in their classrooms. If the don't learn how to use and apply technology in their lives where will they?

There's a disconnect when students and teachers could be connected to a degree never before seen in history. All it takes is to say yes, let's give it a chance.

Teaching how to use technology should be grounded in practicality. It should be anchored to what students do. Students can, I am sure, come up with novel ways to run with it once they get the basics.

EPILOGUE

Say Tech Yes.

 

 

TGIF

What am I thankful for? Carly's moving in.

 

 

Be Long

PROLOGUE

AprilBlogaDay Day 16.. PLC & PLN and why they matter.

BE

Old news if you know me but worth saying again: The know-how and skills I learned during three months of EdCamp in 2013 got me home. Home, Mrs and me agree, is where I need to be.

LONG

From 2010 through early 2014 my job kept me far from home. I'm talking thousands of miles over that-a-way. Eager for new ideas to inform my instructional design craft I researched educational technology from my cubby in New Mexico. Up to that time, this was August 2013, I'd been active in my PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter.

I participated on chats. I heard about stuff. Only it was mostly tried and true stuff. Don't get me wrong. The instructional strategies I heard about were practical, effective, and easy to put into practice with the learners I supported. But I could feel myself sliding slowly into a rut.

That was when I found my first PLC (Personal Learning Community). I'm talking about EdCampWestTexas.

Subtle: the difference between a PLC and a PLN I mean. It's subtle. As I get it a PLN is a gathering of like-minded people located some distance from each other. Social media apps like Facebook and Twitter enable them to come together virtually periodically. Occasionally individual PLN members might meet at an event. But for the most part their interests bring them together online for brief periods of time to share. A PLC is a group of people rooted in a place. It's easy for them to gather and share.

Because PLC members are mostly local to each other it's much easier for members to support collaborative learning, sharing, and making.

Most of the PLCs I consider myself a member of are a long distance away. Still, I am motivated to go the distance for the deeper learning I know I'll find with them. PLCs are communities of practice. I suppose one could argue distance is relative. If it's worth it you'll belong.

EPILOGUE

EdCampNavadota (Texas) is this Saturday. I had planned to go the distance and participate. As it happens my work requires me to be elsewhere. I'll still get to learn from members of my PLN that do attend. It's going to be amazing.

 

Social Earning

PROLOGUE

Good news bad news: learning in collaboration with others via social media can be amazing when learners(and their organizations) engage.

SOCIAL

Learning in the company of others offers learners a significant benefit. Individually they learn from gaining and applying their own knowledge. In groups learners benefit from insights triggered by others sharing their perspectives.

A traditional classroom's capacity may constrain group learning. Environmental issues might hinder social learning as well.

EARNING

Learning via social media removes some of the constraints. One, with walls gone you can share knowledge with as many others as you can network with. You can leverage technology to share perspectives across a variety of media: writing, videos, podcasts to name a few.

To benefit from social media learners have to invest themselves in it. Thinking about learning as earnings they have to work at it.

Social media can be a thorny issue for some organizations. Some I have produced learning experiences for have strict policies in place on how social media can be used. Others may prohibit it completely. There are cultural constraints as well. Things people share online via social media is visible. It takes a lot of trust for this exchange to happen.

EPILOGUE

Trust is the currency of learning with social media. When the trust is there learners are motivated to share. My job is designing training that leverages story, what some might call case studies, to hook learners interests and empathy. I keep advocating for it, designing it in where I can. We're getting there.

 

Expeditionary Mettle

PROLOGUE

"There's an old man sitting next to me.." -- Billy Joel -- Piano Man

EXPEDITIONARY

Why I teach.. My response to AprilBlogaDay Day 14.

Once upon a time, "When I wore a younger man's clothes," a US Navy uniform actually, I went on an expedition. I travelled far from home and all I knew. It's why I teach.

METTLE

I'm a little older now. I'm still expeditioning. These days my voyages are mostly over the American Southwest. At the helm of my Honda Pilot I travel far and wide to unconferences and conferences. I meet and learn from some amazing educators. Mettle. It's why I teach.

EPILOGUE

Why do I teach? I teach to learn. Those years I taught multimedia production, animation, and programming I learned from my students. I benefitted greatly from their questions and perspectives.

Today, as I design transformational learning experiences, I continue to learn. It's why I teach.