Category Archives: community

Supporting Informal Learning and Practice

adult learning, community

Dear world…I emptied my aggregator yesterday and started from scratch. I’m not sure why. I think it’s partially because I was tired of seeing that I had 1500 unread posts and partially because I just wasn’t using it in any meaningful way. I would browse, read a few articles, but it never led to anything. My goal for the year is to be more engaged through commenting and writing and my flabby aggregator wasn’t helping.

This morning, I began the world anew and spent time browsing through Tim Owens’ blog. There is lots of great writing there so if he isn’t in your agrregator, he probably should be. He struck a cord with me when he suggested that everything isn’t completely new just because technology has advanced:

There’s no denying that things have changed. But it’s important to keep in mind the context of these changes. A student who is looking on Facebook and texting while writing a paper isn’t actually that much different than one 15 years ago that was studying for an exam while watching TV and talking on the home phone.

The more things change, they say, the more they stay the same. But things have changed, Tim suggests, particularly in terms of being able to reach out to a larger community of learners to support our own informal learning.  He gives the example of a co-worker who fixed her own washing machine and his own success at fixing his own car, both accessing help on the Internet. My husband has kept our tractor running with the help of several online communities. When I was ready to attempt making sauerkraut from our overabundance of cabbage, I found the wild fermenter.

But, I am still learning from face to face communities as well although none of them are associated with what we traditionally think of as formal education (ie, taking a course). Sometimes, they are organized learning opportunities. Last weekend, we attended a conference sponsored by the Virginia Association of Biological Farming. We got to hear from experts in everything from cows to mushrooms to berries to bees. But often they are informal: my husband gets help with the tractor from a local farmer who is something of an expert in keeping things running with rubber bands and duct tape. I brainstorm with a friend about baking and crafting and compare notes on setting up our hives for the season and how I might get the colony of bees out of my house and into a hive.

I appreciate both my online and face to face learning communities. Sometimes, I find myself longing for face to face interaction with some of my online friends. For instance, I am disappointed when a blogger I follow talks about a special face to face event in her community and I know I can’t attend. The secret, I suppose, is to find strong connections in both the virtual and analog worlds and I am blessed to have some of both.

Create, Connect, Commit in 2013

blogging, community, creativity, ds106, learning, reading, writing

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach described her New Year’s commitments and challenged the rest of us to do the same. As always, she makes a powerful statement and I found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read. Dealing productively with digital and emotional distractions, finding a work/life balance, and pursuing excellent in everything…these are all worthy goals. She sums it up beautifully: “I am determined to influence the world this year rather than be  influenced by it.”

I have three goals for the new year: create, connect and commit.

Make Art Dammit!

This is the mantra from The Daily Create, an offshoot of ds106, a MOOC that originated at the University of Mary Washington. Each day, they post an assignment designed to inspire “spontaneous creativity.” Today’s assignment is to illustrate a decision. Mine is a screenshot of my Kindle app and wondering what to read next…

First Read of 2013?

As part of ds106 GIFfest, I had fun making my first animated gif in a very long time. It reminded me that I enjoy creating:  from crocheted doilies to homemade bread to flower gardens to digital media. And, I have lots of opportunities to be creative, as long as I make the time. Along with Sheryl, I’m going to stop thinking there isn’t enough time…I value creativity so making it part of my daily life is important. In a larger sense, by creating these things, I am creating a life.

Create Connections

One of the great things about doing The Daily Create is that you do so as part of a community. It was a real kick to get positive comments on my animated gif along with suggestions for how to extend the creativity. Creating is fun but being part of a creative community is even more fun. Writing this blog post is part of this goal: a way to connect with others at the start of the new year, a year in which I want to do more connecting. More blog writing, more twitter sharing, more community creating. I have recently started exploring Google+ as well. I do a lot of connecting as part of my work, bringing people together in courses and webinars and conferences, but I want to do it more personally, including getting more involved in the crochet group I joined last year.

Increasingly, our farm is becoming a place to make connections. We have gotten to know many members of our local community when they come by to get vegetables. We have also made connections with other local farmers, and the first thing I did this morning was sign up for beekeeping classes so I can get my hives up and running this year. This past summer, we donated our excess harvest to the food bank in town. I want to strengthen those local community ties, perhaps as part of a local anti-poverty or literacy initiative. Moving to the country has opened my eyes to rural issues. I’m not sure of the details yet but am committed to finding my niche in our new place.

Forge Commitment

When I look back at my reading list for 2012, it is filled with great books. But most of them are fiction. Meanwhile, there is a whole host of writing calling for my attention: get back to Kozol, dig further into the banned book list, spend time with contemporary writers about education and change, and work on the shelf of Wendell Berry’s books. I feel a deep connection to Berry as both a writer and a farmer.

This reading will help fuel my writing. I committed to a daily blogging practice this fall and then life and work got in the way. I am re-committing to that practice as I move into the new year. Writing is a way to both create and connect so offers a foundation for my other goals.

So, a public declaration of my goals for the new year…what about you? Want to join me in any of these endeavors?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technology Enhanced Gardening

community, Education, social networking, technology

I learned about the Window Farms project today and as I watched the segment on Growing a Greener World, I was excited by this powerful example of how the Web can support collaborative community, beginning with one person sharing a passion.

It demonstrates the local/global relationship that can be supported by the Web.  Home gardening is an intensive local activity, requiring lots of analog attention.  But, Windowfarms shows how individual gardeners, often solitary folks who spend much time among plants, can be part of a community where they are encouraged to make a positive contribution of their own ideas and experiences.  The assumption was that the first window farm, created by Britta Riley in a Brooklyn apartment, could be improved and modified, and through an open source community, the world is doing just that.  It is global problem solving to help solve local problems and is a model for collaborative research and development in the 21st century.

They are dabbling in a different business model as well.  Windowfarms is a business with a social mission, according to the website, a for-profit social enterprise. They have investors and sell some products.  But they take certain social and environmental factors into consideration as they do their business.  They used Kickstarter for fund raising, taking advantage of a more grass roots way to gather small investors.

So, here’s the question once asked by Ben & Jerry in the pre-Internet days: Is it possible to do good and make some money?  And with the advent of the Web can you afford to provide a free platform for collaboration as part of that mission?

And, for educators, the question remains: are we preparing our kids to live and thrive in this kind of world?

 

 

 

Why Not Be Great?

community, learning, teaching, technology

That’s the question Seth Godin asks in his blog post today.  His whole post is a celebration of innovation and revolution.

Before you finish this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that’s to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the one question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?

The first step is to define what it means to be “great” in whatever you do.  For my purposes, I’m going to start small: with the course I teach for pre-service undergraduates.  I think a great course would help students see how technology can support student learning in powerful ways by modeling that belief.  I think a great course would introduce students to a professional learning network that would live beyond the course.  Bring them into my world and hope they find it welcoming enough to want to stay even after May.

Each semester, the course gets more and more student-centered as I try to model the kind of pedagogy I would like them to adopt.  I haven’t created the course for the spring but am considering a complete project-based approach in which small groups become experts in the use of technology to support instruction in a content area.  For each area of focus (writing & publishing, data visualization, gaming & interaction, collaboration), they will research and share the resources and information they find with their classmates and create a guidebook for their particular area.  My role will be to guide them in their exploration, providing foundations in educational theory and practice such as TPACK.

In addition, I want them to see how social media including Diigo and Twitter can provide them access to a larger network of teachers.  Lani Ritter-Hall highlights research showing that Professionally Engaged teachers are more likely to adopt the kinds of pedagogy that I support and technology is one way to support that engagement.

I have a few weeks before the semester begins to organize my ideas a bit better and put together a course site. I think I’ll start from scratch rather than trying to build on past courses as a way to challenge my own thinking about topics and activities.  I invite your ideas as well…I have a chance to mold the minds of impressionable new teachers, what should I be doing that will help make them great?

Learners Vs Completers

community, Education, learning, teaching

Dear Fall 2011 Students:

We will be spending the next four months together. I have a simple goal: I want this to be an engaging, thought provoking class that helps you find your own path through the educational technology maze. We’re going to tackle some big questions together; I have ideas but no answers and I want you to have a chance to formulate and share your own answers knowing they will evolve throughout your program and into your first placement.

This class is much more about the learning than the producing although there are some products for you to create, several of them requiring collaboration with your classmates. You’ll also have the chance to go in depth into a topic of your own choosing and figure out how to use the web to support your research and your sharing of that research. Since it is not possible to “cover” every technology that might be available to you, I think it makes more sense to take an in depth look at some typical technologies that have educational potential. Plus, you’ll plug into a professional learning network who can offer support when you are looking for new ideas, technologies and resources for your classroom.

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