Archive for the 'blogging4educators' Category

One week, or maybe more, considering the Pre-session part. The online session for Brazilian Educators I started to moderate this week is in full steam. Those common words pop up here and there, overwhelming,scared, no time, busy. All part of any educator’s life even when they are not talking about technology. I’m in awe to see the willingness to succeed, this hunger for understanding that these educators have shown. The best part is to connect to educators in different parts of Brazil in diverse educational settings plus my dear friends at Casa Thomas Jefferson, the binational center I work for in Brazil.
I can’t think of the many times I tried to inspire my fellow workmates, to let them see what was out there in the online sphere that they and their learners would benefit from…Well, I guess it’s a matter of being ready, mature to face this totally new space for them.
Of course, the beginning is daunting, but I’ve been trying to soothe more agitated souls who feel uncomfortable, insecure to get started. Even before reading the tutorials, “listening to me”, some feel that “this” is not for them. Yet, most of them realize it is! They are grasping what the Web is about, they’re adding information to our wiki, they’re already blogging, they are doing the weekly tasks, interacting in forums, making new human and neural connections, going on Web2.0 Safaris, talking at edmodo. I, as a moderator, am there to give my helping hand, but letting them get their feet wet. Some of my friends have finally that I’m not extraterrestrial, and this is world is closer to them and to their learners in a way that they could never imagined if it weren’t for their own experiential learning.
This to prove that workshops can trigger interest, but living, feeling what it is like as a learner, can truly make the difference.
Below is just a sample of our collaborative effort. I showed them an image of Web2.0 tool logos before they read or say anything related to it. They said what that represented to them. I added my comments today after letting them interact to each other.
Note: I just loved using docstoc for the first time!
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Webtools4educators_week1 – Get more Business Documents
Dear all,
Here’s what everybody has written so far in this forum as for Friday morning. I compiled the main points so that you have a better view of the thoughts of the group as a whole.
Very interesting points of view. What I wanted to know here was really how much you knew about the Web2.0. From what I realized, nobody mentioned it. Just Lueli after doing her homework, the Web2.0 Safari! That’s great, because everyone here has the chance of a fresh start. Of course, we might have seen some, or very few, of the web2.0 tools shown in the image. Do you think I know them all? OF COURSE NOT! Do we need to know them all?
Well, we would need a lifetime and maybe some more reincarnated lives to be able to handle all that is out there. All that without sleeping! So, no, you won’t get to know most of them here. You’ll bump into some as we go along and after the course is over. Yes! The main idea was to make you realize that there’s a whole new world out there to be explored, conquered with persistence and confidence. And, I guess, this session is the place for it, mainly giving you confidence to get out there! The tools, you’ll always be able to find. The purpose here is to start the connections that enable interactions as many of you mentioned in your reflections, leading you to social learning, mentorship, partnership. You’re not alone on the web. As soon as you start your online networking, you build up your online presence, you’ll take larger steps with a confident attitude, for you’ll learn where to ask for help, how you can organize yourselves in the midst of this sea of information, how you can aggregate dispersed resource into a meaningful one. You’ll learn to be a learner again. You’ll learn that what you preach to your students about the importance of making mistakes, also holds true for you in this brave new online world.That’s the idea!
No, Pat Fleury and Lueli, you’ll not be illegal digital immigrants looking for a green card. Your green card has been officially issued this week! And you’ve already started this enriching trip to whatever destination you set for yourselves and your learners. Soon, you will all get your digital citizenship as netizens!
Overwhelming, Gabi, Telma, and all, sure! My question is: how to turn overwhelming web2.0 tools into effective, pedagogically sound resources for your 21st century classrooms?
A big yes to you, Kelly! The new online endeavor is everybody’s chance to find out you can do unimaginable things with your never ending creativity. Right, Pat Faustino?
I agree with you, Daniele, that we need to put our classroom walls down and truly connect to our digital natives and immigrants in ways that truly make sense. Just like Cecília mentioned, we need to see what is going on around us. We need to be part of it.
True, Cleverson, it’s a complex system, but let us embrace it because, as Vini points out, being digital is not an alternative any more, it’s the way to go.
Don’t get me wrong. No! We won’t neglect what we’ve done for our students and for us so far. We won’t feel small facing this huge online space. No! We’ll make it part of what we are as teachers and what we believe education is all about. Adaptation to this process will take a while, we might change our views, take other directions, but we’re already there!
After all we’ve been exploring this week, what do you feel is the biggest difference between what was once the Net and what is has become? They call it Web2.0, but names are just names…I want to know how do you feel what’s out there nowadays differs from the past online world?
Uff! Guess I got excited with all that you’ve been writing!

I’ve been mulling over for some days now what I read @Injenuity. Jennifer Jones wrote a compelling post about “Being Trapped in a Ning”
She mentions:

I have found that my most rewarding online connections are with people I know where to find when I need them. The tool doesn’t even matter. I’ve learned their habits and can locate them in a space where they are most comfortable interacting. There are people I’m connected with through gmail chat, skype, twitter, blogs, email and other networks, but I’ve learned which arena works best for communicating with each of them. For my Twitter contacts, I can quickly check their status on Twitter, and if they’re around, I’ll contact them through the method that works best. My colleagues all have preferred contact methods. I have some instructors who only use the phone, others email.

At the end of the year, I created the Ning group for my online students and blogged about it saying that Ning was the place where learning happened. http://explorations.bloxi.jp/a/ning-wher…
However, I must agree with Jennifer. Learning is not in Ning. It’s everywhere. When people already have their own spaces of self-expression, if they started blogging somewhere else, it’s like as if they’re dispersing their thoughts instead of aggregating them. For example, I love the fact that in the blogging4educators Ning, whenever we want we can start a forum discussion, or share something there. However, people already have their preferred way of sharing and collaborating. So, aren’t we forcing them into a relationship that existed before? Do we need to be in the “same room” to be tied and dialogging? Of course not. That’s why I feel now that I was pushing the members there, but, in fact, our bonds were already strong in other online spaces. I still like the idea of having everybody there and knowing that whenever needed we can just send a message to the network with something interesting. But, yes, Jen, what really matters is aggregating conversations and building up knowledge using each one’s favorite means and not forcing people into a digital trap. I do hope that the members in the blogging4educators don’t feel this way. I do hope that if they decided to join the group is because they saw value in it. However, it is worth speaking up our minds and questioning our practices. As for my students, it’s a different case in the sense that most of them don’t have an online presence in their learning process. They have their favorite social networks, but they consider it a different domain of socialization, not for learning, though they might be learning valuable skills. So, Ning, can focus their attention to the learning process. But, again, I have had such amazing interactions through emails, skype chats, Orkut messages with them that we might be trapped in some way. They might feel I don’t want to communicate in another digital medium, which is certainly not true. They are mostly busy adults who prefer to receive an email. Some will give me feedback and keep conversations. Others read my personal blog.
Ning is still an appealing place for learning and sharing, and I’ve had invaluable interactions there. For example, Celso, a former student, has been reporting his learning journey abroad in a forum, Marcelo talks about his news professional challenges in a blog.However, it only works if it’s the group willingness to interact there, and not us trapping a group of brilliant minds in a space that they don’t feel as theirs. It shouldn’t be unilateral where one person is trying to feed the group with information, resources, ideas, but an interactive space. If it’s not, maybe we’re using the wrong tool for the right purpose. Then, we’re missing the wonderful input each one can contribute in a network.
In the case of my online students, I know that some of them have fully profited from it and I have, as well. But, now, I think, couldn’t we keep having enriching connectivity where we started, on our class blog? A lot of food for thought there. I still believe in the power of Ning, but with more critical eyes, pondering its true value for networking. I’ll keep exploring it to have a clearer view how it’s useful in my professional development and in my students’ learning path.
Michele Martin discusses the issue in the Bamboo Project Blog. She sees the value of Ning for new users of social media, the ones who still don’t have their own blogs, or don’t use RSS to keep connected to others in their network. As I mentioned above, this is exactly the case when some of my students profit from Ning. Their shared space become a sandbox for their self-expression. It can be the spark they need to speak up their minds and find the tone of their potent voices. .

We all wish we had more time to explore, comment, post. Not perfect worlds, but this month was filled of ideas on how we can keep the flow of conversations into a deeper, more meaningful level in our blogs. My participation was imperfect, but this doesn’t mean I haven’t gone far. The comment challenge girls, Sue Waters, Kim Cofino, Michele Martin, and Silvia Tosano were just everywhere showing by skillful commenting strategies how to keep distributed conversations aggregated in clusters of meaning. Participants had a variety of levels of engagement, but each learned what he/she needed to apprehend at the time of the challenge.
For me, the challenge was just the spark for further explorations. No, it’s not over! Finding ways and time to connect is a multi-faceted process. You go far, there’s even more to discover. Ideally, it’s time now for us to keep using the skills, strategies, ideas we’ve been exploring in the blogosphere. However, I feel we should go on exploring possibilities as a group as we’ve done so far. I don’t know how, but maybe still using the tag and the cocomment sharing system to highlight new blogs, interesting posts, comments worth reading? Well, I’m speaking up my mind…
My top 5 lessons from this wonderful commenting experience?

• Connections keep coming in different ways
• A simple idea can take a bunch of very busy educators to go beyond, always beyond
• Keep commenting. New nodes of learning are formed by the connections generated in the comment area.
• There are people interested in what you have to say. Keep blogging.
• I’m thinking of a totally new approach to next year’s blogging4educators Electronic Village workshop due to the input I’ve gotten from the challenge.

I’d like to thank everybody who enriched my professional development, my days, my life with such meaningful comment connections!
The challenge has just begun.