Category Archives: blogging

What Was I Thinking?

blogging, Twitter, writing

Yesterday was Sunday…a quiet Sunday and I was perusing Twitter. I discovered that Tom Barrett had started the #28daysofwriting challenge. Since I had had a blog post lingering in my brain for several days, it seemed like a good way to make posting it a priority. So, I posted and then tweeted that I was in on the challenge. I even signed the form.

Then, Monday rolled around and with it the usual Monday chores: a newsletter, online course checkins and feedback, a few extra issues that had come up and, did I mention, I was still sick with the hacking cough I have had since last week. It wasn’t until about 2 PM that I even thought about the challenge. And, I’ll admit, pretty quickly dismissed it with the thought that maybe before bed I could manage a couple minutes.

But then, there were the emails from Tom reminding me of my commitment. And, my tweet had been retweeted so lots more people had seen the commitment. I felt a little more committed with a community behind me. Now what?

I folded up the laptop and walked away for a bit. Took a cold pill to help silence the hack. Changed the sheets on the bed. Solved one of the extra issues that had come up. And then set the timer on my phone, opened up a new post, and started writing.

One of Tom’s suggestions for the challenge was to create a list of possible topics so that seemed like a good post idea. It will help you understand the kinds of things going on in my life and work that might make it onto the page in the next month:

Teaching: I am teaching A LOT this semester, from full blown college courses to shorter workshops. Most are online but I have taken on a face to face course for the first time in nearly three years and I am loving it! The course is a ftf version of an online course I teach for a different university and there are lots of possibilities for reflecting on the affordances and constraints of both formats. In addition, I incorporate a fair amount of social media in these courses in, I hope, meaningful ways. I’m working on a presentation for an online conference next week about how I do this and a blog entry or two will help flesh out that presentation.

Building Community: I retweeted Sylvia Duckworth’s graphic version of George Couros’s blog post about 8 things to look for in today’s class with the comment that I try to incorporate all 8 in the courses I teach for adults:

There are lots of opportunities for blog posts here in terms of reflecting on how I do this.

Stuff I Read: Yesterday’s post was a reading roundup of sorts, with short reflections on a couple articles that had caught my attention on Feedly. I’m making my students use Feedly this semester and they have had some good suggestions for new feeds. I’ve suggested they can use Feedly for their own writing fodder so I should be doing the same. In his challenge post, Tom writes about “not posting perfection,” a topic I addressed in the recent past myself. Twenty-eight minutes is enough time to get something in place but certainly not the epic post. Just enough time to think out loud, make a point, or share a sentiment. Reading and writing go hand in hand and I think I read more critically if I think I’m going to write about what I’ve read.

Finally, with just five minutes to go today, I’m wondering on the nature of writing blog posts. I have not been typing non stop for 28 minutes. I had to look up a couple links and copy the embed code for the tweet. Tom isn’t making a whole lot of restrictions so I’m including that bit of research and code into the writing process. Perhaps, as I dive deeper into the commitment, I shall have those links ready to go prior to setting the timer and “write” for the full time. But linking and embedding are indeed what make blog posts a bit different from journal entries as they tie the posts to the greater world, one of the original goals of the blogging platform. Linking and commenting were a way of making a community of writers who were also linking and commenting.

The last topic that has been floating around in my brain is about errant pigs as an analogy for those things we wish we could control but we can’t. I have a few real world errant pigs wandering around my farm right now. According to my husband, unlike the other pigs, they have no respect for the fence. That seems to me to be a pretty powerful idea for thinking about our students and ourselves. Where are the fences in our lives? And should we respect them? If we don’t, who is there with the stick to prod us back in?

A minute to go…I’m feeling good. A great thanks to Tom not just for the idea but the willingness to follow through and send those emails today. They helped, Tom. I’ve written and I’m pressing publish now. See you tomorrow!

What I’ve Been Reading

blogging, Education, programming, testing

Tim Stahmer’s blog post, It’s Not Pearson’s Fault, led me to the Forbes profile of the education giant. As Tim noted, it was worth the read. Two statements from Pearson executives stood out for me. In the very first paragraph, we see how difficult it is to pin down educational concepts. Jennifer Rheinfold writes of Pearson’s goals: “The goal is not merely to build a more successful and sustainable business—an imperative as Pearson’s traditional print operations shrivel—but also to improve the lives of millions of people throughout the world.” But the quote that follows from CEO John Fallon shows an interesting take on improving lives when he comments, ““What we’re trying to do is the same thing—to help improve learning outcomes.” Which translates to test scores. 

Sir Michael Barber, Pearson’s chief education advisor, wrote a report on Pakistan in which he refers to his education philosophy–standards and accountability–as “deliverology.” The image of education invoked by this word is a traditional, teacher- and curriculum-centered practice where students are the recipients rather than the participants.

The Man With 26 Million Students refers to Zach Sims, the founder of Codeacademy. Coding is the foreign language of our era. Fluency allows you greater creativity as you have more control over the development environment. But programming is more than that: it has a logic and syntax that requires critical thinking and deeper learning is often experienced through failure rather than success as Tom Woodward suggests in his post, Rookie Javascript Mistakes.  I’ve been playing around with the Kano I bought and going through the challenges for students that help them grasp programming concepts. I “learned” to program the way Tom did, by thinking about what I wanted to accomplish and finding bits of code that allowed me to do that.  Working through tutorials are helping solidify my understanding. After I finish this post, I’m going to try out this weekend’s pizza challenge.

#28daysofwriting from Oliver Quinlan describes Tom Barrett’s project to blog 28 minutes for the next 28 days. I’m in and hoping that the commitment, one I’ve tried before, will indeed kickstart this blog. I’ve signed on officially and this is my first post.

 

 

Making Change

blogging, reading

Fall has arrived. Mike Thayer welcomes it in this lovely, provocative piece.  I am welcoming it by making changes in my routines, at least one of which has been with me since 2000. And after just a day or two, not surprisingly, I am struggling a bit. The ultimate goal of the change is to become more active in my professional learning network by reading and writing publicly. There are some secondary personal goals as well but, for now, this is the one on which I am focusing.

The routine I am giving up was called Morning Pages and was an idea I borrowed from Julia Cameron. Three hand written pages first thing every morning. For nearly 14 years. I have piles of spiral bound notebooks tucked into boxes and bookshelves. These pages got me through some tough times, saw me through the transition from public school teacher to ed tech professional developer and, more recently, to part-time farmer. But I’ve had a sense for some time that they have run their course, served their purpose and now were often nothing more than an extended to do list, less about hopes and dreams and more about finances and dirty dishes.

Meanwhile, smart people were having even smarter conversations on the web, and I was missing them because once I finished the pages each morning, the world was waiting: dog walks, pig feeding, email, meetings, course checkins, reports, and so forth. The stuff of life that left me tired at the end of the day with little energy for sorting through social media for gems, reading longer articles and then facing the blank blog page to analyze and synthesize. Lately, I have ended up in Minecraft, building a house, exploring the terrain and learning to build things. It was fun but not getting me any closer to professional learning. I talk the talk of PLN to the educators I work with but I wasn’t walking the walk.

So, the plan is to do these things first the way I used to do the pages. Of any habit I have ever adopted, the pages stuck. I love writing by hand, I love journaling, and the pages were a way to come into the world slowly, pushing back the work and the stresses for just a little while. I am a fan of routines as they help us organize our lives but I also understand how they can become crutches. My pages helped me believe that I was writing even though they never saw public scrutiny.

I’m still not sure about this new habit. Honestly, yesterday I plunged right into work after only a few minutes of browsing Hootsuite and Feedly. I never even considered writing a blog entry. This morning obviously went a bit better. It is a chilly morning here at the farm, and Mike’s ode to Autumn inspired me to do my own reflection on change and the difficulties it can present. I am putting first things first, making sure my personal priorities don’t get lost in the daily fray.

It isn’t going to be easy…despite my ultimate success this morning, I somehow blanked on my user name for the blog and retrieving it meant ending up in email. I’ll admit to answering one or two. I am wondering about doing this work on a different device reserved strictly for reading and writing rather than working. Break the habits associated with the MacBook Air.

Plus, Tim Stahmer includes me on his blog roll and I want to live up to his expectations 😉

 

Coursera Drop Out

adult learning, blogging, books

My summer reading led me to enroll in Thinking Mathematically, a Coursera course offered by Stanford professor Dr. Keith Devlin. This was my first formal MOOC and I was looking forward to taking the course. Then, reality set in. The course demanded 8 to 10 hours a week and in order to get a grade, you had to view all the videos and complete the problem sets. I managed to do so for the first two weeks despite travel and vacation. This week, it looked like I would be spending most of Sunday completing the work. When an event this afternoon got cancelled, I was relieved because I could spend the time viewing the video and getting started on the assignment for the week. As I watched and worked out the problems, it occurred to me that this wasn’t the way I wanted to spend those suddenly free moments! The content is interesting and I like being challenged, but I found myself asking the age old question, “When am I going to use this?”

What did I really want to do with that free time today? Read! Paula White has been writing about the Virginia Readers’ Choice Awards and how she and her students are reading the books. Today, the National Book Award nominees were named and I would love to read a few of those. And somehow I also found Library Reads, a website that crowdsources librarians to identify the top ten books published in a month. Here’s October.  Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Lowland”  is on both lists. And there’s an interesting nonfiction book about a food program in Toronto.

I also want to write! I am inspired by Paula…she has been blogging every day, providing rich descriptions of her classroom, engaging book reviews and intriguing questions. From doing online coaching to teaching online courses about elearning design and online communications and working as an instructional designer for a project developing online courses to, until a few hours ago, taking an online course myself, I am immersed in online learning. There is much to think about with online learning but I seem to be living it and not making time to reflect on my work.

And, this was the first week of my community computer/tutoring program. What started as a summer conversation has resulted in a small outreach program to underserved kids in my town. The first meeting was a little chaotic as we really had no idea how many kids were coming. We ended up with a group of early elementary and middle school. I’m wondering how to engage each group: I’d like to get the first graders involved in a make project. Maybe making their own shoes? Provide materials like magazines, cardboard and foam. I’m going to dive into gaming with the middle schoolers…play a few as a basis for our conversation and then explore various tools for creating online games, starting with Scratch. Edubuntu comes with a couple programming tools like laby and kturtle.

To his credit, the professor warned us that the course would take 8 to 10 hours a week. I’m not sure why I thought I had that kind of time to devote to the course. I think I’ll just read the book.

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?