Category Archives: community

Finding the Flow

community, learning, thinking out loud, work, writing,

Inspired by Donna Donner’s post 12 Month Human at Four O’Clock Faculty which I found on Twitter via Tamara Letter:

I write a fair amount about living a life outside the traditional workforce. One lesson I continue to learn about living this life is that it flows and living in rather than fighting the flow is the way to move smoothly and calmly even through the rapids.

I was the road warrior in June: just take a look at my reading log. I hit a high of 13 books because I discovered The 39 Clues series on Audible. Each book takes about 4-1/2 hours of listening, which just happened to be the average length of each of my car trips. Every day was planned to the minute as each task had to be completed on time if events and trips were going to be successful. There was no time for procrastination. Within that strict regimen there was “work” and “life” as even my garden was part of the to do list. Weeding had to be done before I was gone for ten days. That meant a daylong marathon with shovel and cart. My husband shepherded me inside at dusk, handing me two ibuprofen as I walked up the steps.

And now…it’s July, and for the first time in many years, I am home. No traveling, no training, even very little “work.” My mother was worried that I was going to be bored and suggested I could use the free time to house clean. I’m thinking more Scratch programming and Raspberry Pi exploration along with early morning hours in the garden and long afternoons floating in the pool with a book.

Donna Donna got to the heart of my life when she wrote that her teaching life is “entwined with all the other cycles of my life.” She goes on:

As my summer rolls on I will honor my love of learning, my love for my family, my love for my profession and my curiosity of the world. My life cycle flows with this balance all year long. You see, I am a 12-month mother. I am a 12-month wife. I am a 12-month friend.  I am a 12-month teacher. I am a 12-month human. I never take a vacation from any of those parts of me. Some parts just come out a little stronger at times but all contribute to balancing me as a whole.

I think the struggle is figuring out which part is stronger at any time as I tend to want to always focus on the work I do for others first. I resonated with Donna sitting on the porch with her hummingbirds–mine are at their height right now, buzzing me as I head out to fill the feeders–reviewing her notes from a summer workshop. For me, it would be planning ahead for my fall courses and events.

Then, I sat down at the laptop this morning prepared to put in a full morning of work and realized I didn’t have to…I could browse Twitter and that led to Tamara’s tweet and Donna’s post and some writing. It’s a different kind of work this personal reflection and community connection, and who knows where it might lead. The emails will wait; the preparation for an October workshop will wait; it’s time for the focus to be on my own learning and growing and flowing.

 

 

What Do You Value Over Community?

community, thinking out loud

This probably qualifies as a rant but I think there is a larger theme that is important for all of us who interact with others on the Internet.

I have belonged to one particular Internet community for more than a decade, a pleasant place where we talk about books. And, it continues to be a pleasant place, but today I am annoyed by a member who felt the need to publicly correct my use of the passive voice in a post, claiming it confused her and reassuring me that she only pointed it out because she was very interested in what I was trying to say. I apologized for the grammatical oversight and clarified the point I was making, only to be reminded in her follow up how much she “loathed” passive voice and that my sentence was a perfect example of how confusing it can be. (Honestly, I’ve reread the sentence several times, and I don’t think it was all that confusing in the first place.)

I’ve toyed with what to do: I edited out the passive voice from the post and drafted a witty, slightly sarcastic response. But, I don’t want to continue this silliness in a public forum so skipped the sarcasm. I could message the member privately to let her know that I was embarrassed, but I’m not sure I want to get that personal.

Ridiculously minor in the larger scheme of things, and I know I should let it go (or, as some of you are thinking, grow a thicker skin), but this post is something of an anomaly for this particular community. Plus,  I’m wondering how this might feel to a new member of the community. What if that had been my first post ever? And rather than getting some positive support, I am publicly taken to task for my grammar by a long time member? Not very welcoming and I certainly would not be encouraged to continue with active participation.

To her credit, the poster did call herself a “nitpicky pedant,” but it didn’t make me feel any better. I’m not convinced she was all that interested in my point. Instead, it was an opportunity not once but twice to demonstrate her superiority, putting us all on notice that, for today at least, grammar was more important than community.

 

Scratching Away

community, programming, Uncategorized

After a very full June with lots of events and a trip to the ISTE conference in Denver, I am basically home for the rest of the summer with just one vacation week planned. There is plenty to do: gardening, bike riding, pool floating top the list of R&R activities.

But, I also want to be able to spend time on my own areas of interest and that includes coding. I’ve been dabbling in Python on the Pi and for the last two days, getting into Scratch using a couple books I found on Amazon, both from DK publishers. The Coding With Scratch Workbook is short and features four games that use what I would consider advanced features. I made them and in several cases did some remixing of the code provided. I’m now working through Coding Games in Scratch. It takes a similar visual approach and includes a “hacks and tweaks” section in each chapter with ideas for going further. I’m also thinking that I might try to write the code from the description of the game and then dive into the chapter when I get stuck.

There is also a whole community of Scratch educators out there at the ScratchED site from Harvard. Twitter led me to the Creative Computing Guide that Dylan Ryder has remixed. I’m looking forward to spending some time with the old and new guide.

If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s my Scratch studio.

Not “Just” Attending

community, learning

I am looking forward to participating in EdCampNova tomorrow. The organizing team has done a nice job a getting the party started early with some daily twitter suggestions and I’ve already been learning and participating. It’s a great idea that I may borrow for future events. (Plus, I’m a little excited about picking up my t-shirt.)

Besides bringing some swag, I am “just” an attendee at this event. As someone who is normally in charge, that feels good. But, as I thought about that attitude, I decided being an attendee may be an even important role than that of organizer especially with an edcamp event where attendee participation is what makes the whole system work. Passion and inquiry are the foundations, and if you show up expecting to let others do all that work, I think you’re going to be disappointed. The questions this week mirrored the philosophy: what do you have to share? what do you want to learn?

But, that philosophy of attendee participation should extend to all events, even more traditional face to face conferences. It’s like most things in life: you get out what you put in. So, if you want to sit and absorb, that’s fine, and you’ll certainly learn lots. But, if you want to fully experience the power of a face to face experience, you need to step beyond that comfort zone and interact. Share ideas, ask questions, brainstorm solutions. There is no “just” before attendee: the organizers have taken a lot of time and energy to create a learning environment; now, go explore that environment and see what comes from it.

And, as EdCampNova has demonstrated: there is opportunity for community and learning to continue around the face to face event. If you haven’t checked out the hashtag #edcampnova lately, take a look. Even if you can’t get to the event, there’s plenty of learning and sharing going on.

Finding Community

community, learning

One of the roles I play in almost every project I work on is community builder. My goal is to help educators grab onto the power of the network for their own learning and sharing. It can be a hard sell sometimes: time is short and social networks can be messy. Creating, maintaining and getting the most out of a Twitter feed requires ongoing attention but if you are willing to make time, you will be rewarded.

It’s important to make sure our students know how to find and use community whether it’s Twitter or a discussion forum or a Facebook page. They aren’t going to learn everything in school. They are most certainly going to develop passions as they get older and need to know how to learn about those passions.

I’m a perfect example: I am developing a passion for baking. I always enjoyed baking but it wasn’t an essential part of my life. Recently, I have begun baking on a regular basis and learning more about the science and practice of baking, especially with whole grains. I spent more time deciding what was going into my bread basket and what cake I was baking for Thanksgiving than anything else. Turkey? You’re supposed to serve turkey? Have you tried the cornbread?

Much of the community I have revolves around King Arthur Flour. This is, in my mind, a business that gets community just right. Recipes, blogs, and forums are free and open to all. Certainly, the recipes mention KAF products but almost none of it is required and you can easily find substitutes in your grocery store. And they would like you to follow them and subscribe and all that.

But, the community is offered for free. It is a warm, welcoming place. Not everyone is always happy: they complain about  recipes that didn’t work or meet their expectations. Complaints are always addressed by a KAF moderator sometimes with suggestions but other times just to let them know they’ve been heard.

The true meaning of a professional learning community was defined in this very enthusiastic and heart warming comment left on the recipe for Light Spice Cookies.

I am new to baking. I have been cooking since college, but only started baking about a month ago – so far only cookies, though this weekend I am going to branch out and bake a cake for my husband’s birthday. If it doesn’t turn out, well, there is always ice cream…. 🙂 Anyway, the first batch of cookies I made was a disaster and the 2nd batch only so-so. Then I found your website, and since then… every time I make cookies, people rave and want the recipe and request a few to take home and then their husbands email me asking for some and… I only make the recipes that have 4 or 5 stars and I read all the comments and your tips so I can learn from others and so far that has worked really well for me. As someone who is new to this, access to a community is a huge blessing. Anyway, these particular cookies (light spice) are my Mom’s FAVORITES. She told her best friend she never realized what a great baker her daughter was! My Mom loves these cookies, and so now I make sure she always has enough so she can have one with her afternoon tea. The one modification I made to the recipe – I added a small amount (1/4 teaspoon) of ground cardamom and I add an extra 1/2 teaspoon of both the ginger and the cinnamon.

There are three threads woven together her: She recognizes that the community has helped her grow. She demonstrates her ability to use the community to full advantage by being sure to read all the comments of the four- and five-starred recipes. And, she feels confident in her abilities to share her knowledge with the community by describing how she changed the spices.

Next time someone asks you why they need a professional learning community, point them to this comment.