Here it goes. It’s certainly an oversimplification of reality, but the essence is there.
Archive for the 'comment08' Category
Hard to explain something so complex in seconds, but the Web2.0Wednesday activity pushed me to try, to see what came up, how I saw the Web2.0.
Here it goes. It’s certainly an oversimplification of reality, but the essence is there.
Here it goes. It’s certainly an oversimplification of reality, but the essence is there.
My mind is spinning. I wish I could have more hands, time to blog about so many projects, ideas, insights and encounters I’ve had in just one day. As I cannot change reality, I’ll just jot down snippets of what I’ve seen around.
Here they come again with a wonderful idea. Michele Martin, one of our fantastic mentors in the Comment Challenge, has listened to the group and will start tomorrow a Web 2.0 Wednesdays. This is the idea:
______________
http://learningwithcomputers07.pbwiki.com/online_bookmarking
It’s already in full swing. Members are joining our Diigo group, interacting and actively participating in the forum. This opportunity pushes me to further explore collectively the limitless possibilities of creating meaning in a group thro
ugh the connections between links, tags and brilliant minds. A challenge!
Anyone is more than welcome to join us there.
___________
s I read his article in Innovate, Community as Curriculum. What he talks about is exactly what I see happening in the two amazing Communities of and for Practice I’m part of, the Webheads and the LearningwithComputers groups.
However, I still feel it’s so distant from my physical reality…In my school, most of educators have no clue of the potential the virtual world holds in sharing, building, re-shaping, mixing and remixing concepts, ideas, meaning. I feel part of an utopia totally disconnected from what I see happening to education in general. This question was asked to Dave, but I think there’s no simple answer:
How would learners and educators be engaged in the rhizomatic model of learning?
My head is spinning!
Cormier, D. 2008. Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate 4 (5). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=550 (accessed June 17, 2008)
Web 2.0 Wednesdays
Here they come again with a wonderful idea. Michele Martin, one of our fantastic mentors in the Comment Challenge, has listened to the group and will start tomorrow a Web 2.0 Wednesdays. This is the idea:
Each Wednesday I’m going to post a Web 2.0 activity for you to try. If you have the time and inclination to do so, then please join in. If you don’t–the activity just doesn’t do it for you or you’re too busy with other thing or whatever–then don’t worry about it. Wait until the next time. This is not, repeat NOT, something to put on your “to do” list and feel badly if you don’t get to. I don’t want to read any posts that say “I’m behind on the Web 2.0 Wednesday activity,” because it’s not meant to be that kind of thing. Seriously. This is low pressure learning.This sounds just a perfect follow up to the interactions, connections that were started during the Comment Challenge month. However, what’s best is that anyone can join with no pressure at all, just the fun of being learning and sharing discoveries with others. So, why don’t you join us?
______________
Digging Diigo – Exploring Online Social Bookmarking
It’s a wonderful learning opportunity and a great pleasure to have been invited by Gladys Baya, the creator of the learningwithcomputers group, to moderate a month on a topic that might interest the group. I chose bookmarking. In fact, I was going to talk about delicious, which I was familiar with, but Diigo allured me in a good, social sense. So, Susana Canelo and I took the plunge and started yesterday to dig Diigo with the learningwithcomputers members.http://learningwithcomputers07.pbwiki.com/online_bookmarking
It’s already in full swing. Members are joining our Diigo group, interacting and actively participating in the forum. This opportunity pushes me to further explore collectively the limitless possibilities of creating meaning in a group thro
ugh the connections between links, tags and brilliant minds. A challenge!
Anyone is more than welcome to join us there.
Diigo LearningwithComputers Group___________
The Rhizomatic Model of Learning
Today I attended to a crowded online presentation by Dave Cormier. I was really interested in listening to what he had to say as I read his article in Innovate, Community as Curriculum. What he talks about is exactly what I see happening in the two amazing Communities of and for Practice I’m part of, the Webheads and the LearningwithComputers groups.
A rhizomatic plant has no center and no defined boundary; rather, it is made up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading on its own, bounded only by the limits of its habitat (Cormier 2008). In the rhizomatic view, knowledge can only be negotiated, and the contextual, collaborative learning experience shared by constructivist and connectivist pedagogies is a social as well as a personal knowledge-creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises.He goes on with his views on the nature of online learning.
In the rhizomaticI see this happening all the time with the webheads and learningwithcomputers circles. The group, the connections, and interactions shape the construction of meaning. Members suggest, test, explore, discover, make sense, create meaning, build knowledge. There’s no expert. There’s a collective willingness to learn and explore and from this point everyone is prompted to contribute. What the group wants to learn shapes the kind of knowledge the group will get. I guess this is exactly Dave’s point of contextual knowledge.
model of learning, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process. This community acts as the curriculum, spontaneously shaping, constructing, and reconstructing itself and the subject of its learning in the same way that the rhizome responds to changing environmental conditions.
How would learners and educators be engaged in the rhizomatic model of learning?
My head is spinning!
Cormier, D. 2008. Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate 4 (5). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=550 (accessed June 17, 2008)
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:
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.
earning 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. .
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. .
Dear Colin, Inês, Sue and Kevin,
Here’s my reply to you all about the Comment Challenge. Thanks for inspiring me to go even further now!
Here’s my reply to you all about the Comment Challenge. Thanks for inspiring me to go even further now!
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?
The challenge has just begun.
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.
The challenge has just begun.
Yesterday I tried hard to follow the Comment Challenge guidelines and write 5 comments in 5 minutes as suggested by Toni Tallent.
It certainly gave me the dimension of how long we spend to comment! I tried to keep my comments shorter than usual, though I also didn’t want to leave something totally shallow like “great post”, or “excellent idea”…It doesn’t add much to the blogger’s idea. I have the principle of commenting only if I have something to add to the blogger’s post.
I tried hard, but then realized the issues involved in commenting:
Ken pointed out to commenting on Michele’s blog. I had the same problem and lost a lot of time there because my comment just wouldn’t go through, I rewrote the comment, and I guess she never got it… Without even knowing, Michele might be losing some of her readers due to technical glitches with her blog host(?).
It’s missing one blog here! Easy to retrieve it through tracking “my conversations” in my cocoment space. So, the last blog I visited for the challenge was Kevin’s Meandering Mind with his inspiring post about his online tutoring experience.
Maybe 5 in 5 is not for me, but definitely was an eye opener!
It certainly gave me the dimension of how long we spend to comment! I tried to keep my comments shorter than usual, though I also didn’t want to leave something totally shallow like “great post”, or “excellent idea”…It doesn’t add much to the blogger’s idea. I have the principle of commenting only if I have something to add to the blogger’s post.
I tried hard, but then realized the issues involved in commenting:
- On most of the blogs, there are different commenting patterns. Some are moderated, some are not, some have verification word, some don’t.
- Bandwidth is an issue. How long does the page take to load? Is it too heavy on videos?
- Technical glitches mainly when you post a comment and I don’t know why it’s not submitted…
- The kind of reasoning you’re going through to react to a blog post may lead you to take much longer you intended to.
- The size of a blog post matters! Keyboarding skills, as well.
- If I became more straightforward in my comments, I could reply to more blogs.
- It led me to comment on blogs that I don’t comment and just love the people writing there, like in Julie Lindsay’s e-Learning blog
- It’s interesting to just sit, write and speak up your mind.
- I’m terrible managing my time!
Ken pointed out to commenting on Michele’s blog. I had the same problem and lost a lot of time there because my comment just wouldn’t go through, I rewrote the comment, and I guess she never got it… Without even knowing, Michele might be losing some of her readers due to technical glitches with her blog host(?).
It’s missing one blog here! Easy to retrieve it through tracking “my conversations” in my cocoment space. So, the last blog I visited for the challenge was Kevin’s Meandering Mind with his inspiring post about his online tutoring experience.
Maybe 5 in 5 is not for me, but definitely was an eye opener!
I don’t know how this happens, but it’s more than just commenting. It’s a deeper connection which is not limited by geographical distance or the fact that we’ve never met f2f. The fact is that because of blogging and the conversations going on more intensely for the past months, Cris Costa and I have been sharing and blogging more than ever. I care for all who’s out there, my readers, but sometimes I feel I HAVE to blog because of Cris, and she always mentions something I’ve shared with her. Deeper conversations, stronger connections.
Well, in one of our conversations I mentioned we should have a selective “share button” in our minds for everything we felt like blogging, be it personal or professional. It’s not an ideal world, but Cris compelled me to share here after her wonderful post about teaching, teaching practices and memories. I guess this is also part of our comment challenge challenge! I’ve been making new connections, strengthening old ones as a group of highly excited, passionate bloggers are willing to take their time to keep hitting the share button every single second and it’s been a huge collective knowledge builder. I’ve been learning in every possible way from this journey.
Well, going back to Cris and teaching and me. Cris talked about her own experience, how she’s changed as an educator, how she understood that the human touch and connecting to students was what really mattered. I, too, learned that books don’t teach or enhance learning. We, educators, together with learners, do! I remember how I’d rely in tons of papers, activities, games to have the feeling that I was teaching, that I was being approved by my students. Then, I realized that what really made a difference was the human touch, the personalization, the intimacy a classroom with so many brilliant souls provides.
I realized that what really made a difference was harnessing individual talents, encouraging students to be and do their best, tapping into their interests, passions. I learned that we didn’t need tons of papers, resources, activities…We needed to connect, to be good listeners, guiders and followers.
My teaching changed and I changed along the way.
I’ll never forget, for example, a conversation class on teens we had.
I showed my teens this video. Then, we talked about it, they taught me some teen slangs in Portuguese and they produced cooperatively wonderful poems on our class wiki. These are the connections I look for and I miss now that I’m not currently teaching f2f, though I’m having a wonderful time with my online students and connecting in unexpected ways, but this is another story, blog post…
Their poems:
Teenagers want to discover things,
Passing through unbelievable experiences
With their body and their spirit
Meet every kind of people, culture.
And more than this. They want to enjoy their lifetime To know themselves, To know what they like And expect about them and the world.
by Andréa and Joanna
_____________________________________
Teenagers
Some teenagers are okay And others are wicked insane Even if some people say they are always the same They can´t understand that this is part of their games! Yo, man.. fo sho..
Some like soccer Others prefer the Net They can be rockers and bum a cigarette
Probably lives with passion Maybe in need of an exercise set Or don´t live without fashion They are different, I bet.
by Joseane, Felipe and Leonardo
____________________________________________ Teenagers want to be more informed Know about what the world can offer, New cultures and different people Teens want to enjoy their lives They want to have as much as possible Teens are always under pressure But they were made to be freeThey are always trying to find the real liberty Without getting out of reality They want to find new feelings New love and new experiences
Matheus and Breno
_______________________________ Living in a Dream
Every teenager has a dream It can be like Martin Luther King. They want to make the difference Also looking for love and peace.
If you do have a dream, Make it real. It can be just like having an ice cream or as hard as living in Rio.
Never give up. Keep on going. So start cheering up ‘Cause the world is rolling.
Patrícia, André and Gabriela
_____________________________
What do Teenagers want?
They want parties They want to go out They want to enjoy their life They want to know about everything They don´t have feelings In reality, they have nothing That´s what they say about who is never working…
Is that a real conclusion we can take about them?! I will tell you what A teenager is more than a friend…
Teenagers dream Teenagers sleep Teenagers cry Teenagers think Teenagers die Teenagers drink Teenagers dance Teenagers decide
They come to the conclusion By heart or outside They are just younger But they are people, anyway
People that are always learning And that can teach too.. You should dream as a teenager And think about what is true…
Roberto
_______________________________________
No. I’ll never forget those teens and many students who changed me, who taught me, who are my inspiration and my optimistic view of education.
Well, in one of our conversations I mentioned we should have a selective “share button” in our minds for everything we felt like blogging, be it personal or professional. It’s not an ideal world, but Cris compelled me to share here after her wonderful post about teaching, teaching practices and memories. I guess this is also part of our comment challenge challenge! I’ve been making new connections, strengthening old ones as a group of highly excited, passionate bloggers are willing to take their time to keep hitting the share button every single second and it’s been a huge collective knowledge builder. I’ve been learning in every possible way from this journey.
Well, going back to Cris and teaching and me. Cris talked about her own experience, how she’s changed as an educator, how she understood that the human touch and connecting to students was what really mattered. I, too, learned that books don’t teach or enhance learning. We, educators, together with learners, do! I remember how I’d rely in tons of papers, activities, games to have the feeling that I was teaching, that I was being approved by my students. Then, I realized that what really made a difference was the human touch, the personalization, the intimacy a classroom with so many brilliant souls provides.
I realized that what really made a difference was harnessing individual talents, encouraging students to be and do their best, tapping into their interests, passions. I learned that we didn’t need tons of papers, resources, activities…We needed to connect, to be good listeners, guiders and followers.
My teaching changed and I changed along the way.
I’ll never forget, for example, a conversation class on teens we had.
I showed my teens this video. Then, we talked about it, they taught me some teen slangs in Portuguese and they produced cooperatively wonderful poems on our class wiki. These are the connections I look for and I miss now that I’m not currently teaching f2f, though I’m having a wonderful time with my online students and connecting in unexpected ways, but this is another story, blog post…
Their poems:
And more than this. They want to enjoy their lifetime To know themselves, To know what they like And expect about them and the world.
by Andréa and Joanna
_____________________________________
Teenagers
Some teenagers are okay And others are wicked insane Even if some people say they are always the same They can´t understand that this is part of their games! Yo, man.. fo sho..
Some like soccer Others prefer the Net They can be rockers and bum a cigarette
Probably lives with passion Maybe in need of an exercise set Or don´t live without fashion They are different, I bet.
by Joseane, Felipe and Leonardo
____________________________________________ Teenagers want to be more informed Know about what the world can offer, New cultures and different people Teens want to enjoy their lives They want to have as much as possible Teens are always under pressure But they were made to be freeThey are always trying to find the real liberty Without getting out of reality They want to find new feelings New love and new experiences
Matheus and Breno
_______________________________ Living in a Dream
Every teenager has a dream It can be like Martin Luther King. They want to make the difference Also looking for love and peace.
If you do have a dream, Make it real. It can be just like having an ice cream or as hard as living in Rio.
Never give up. Keep on going. So start cheering up ‘Cause the world is rolling.
Patrícia, André and Gabriela
_____________________________
What do Teenagers want?
They want parties They want to go out They want to enjoy their life They want to know about everything They don´t have feelings In reality, they have nothing That´s what they say about who is never working…
Is that a real conclusion we can take about them?! I will tell you what A teenager is more than a friend…
Teenagers dream Teenagers sleep Teenagers cry Teenagers think Teenagers die Teenagers drink Teenagers dance Teenagers decide
They come to the conclusion By heart or outside They are just younger But they are people, anyway
People that are always learning And that can teach too.. You should dream as a teenager And think about what is true…
Roberto
_______________________________________
No. I’ll never forget those teens and many students who changed me, who taught me, who are my inspiration and my optimistic view of education.
I couldn’t resist this one!
I’ve been an admirer and reader of Chris Sessums for a while. But this post has really touched in what I’ve been trying to share for some time now with educators all over when we have the Electronic Village blogging4educators sessions.
It’s all about a purpose.
So, how’s my blogging related to my business?
As an educator, my blog reflects who I am, my interests, my passions, my drives, so then it’s an open space for sharing and learning. By blogging and reflecting, I can improve who I am, try to think outside the box, get other’s input, establish new connections. It makes me move forward and it directly influences my teaching and my approaches to learning and teaching. Since I started blogging, I have certainly become an educator who truly believes in the power of collective learning and building of knowledge.
Blogging is transformative and makes me change every day, and I hope it reflects on the new learning opportunities I’m providing my learners with.
Thanks, Chris, for starting this!
I’d love to hear from my friends Cris Costa, Mary Hillis, Gladys Baya, Vance Stevens , Ronaldo Jr., Bee Dieu .
So, guys, how does your blogging relate to your business?
As Chris suggested, pass this question on to people around you…An interesting, basic question that should guide us in our blogging world.
Here’s a video Chris shared with some fresh perspective of some educators about why they’re blogging and how:
I’ve been an admirer and reader of Chris Sessums for a while. But this post has really touched in what I’ve been trying to share for some time now with educators all over when we have the Electronic Village blogging4educators sessions.
It’s all about a purpose.
So, how’s my blogging related to my business?
As an educator, my blog reflects who I am, my interests, my passions, my drives, so then it’s an open space for sharing and learning. By blogging and reflecting, I can improve who I am, try to think outside the box, get other’s input, establish new connections. It makes me move forward and it directly influences my teaching and my approaches to learning and teaching. Since I started blogging, I have certainly become an educator who truly believes in the power of collective learning and building of knowledge.
Blogging is transformative and makes me change every day, and I hope it reflects on the new learning opportunities I’m providing my learners with.
Thanks, Chris, for starting this!
I’d love to hear from my friends Cris Costa, Mary Hillis, Gladys Baya, Vance Stevens , Ronaldo Jr., Bee Dieu .
So, guys, how does your blogging relate to your business?
As Chris suggested, pass this question on to people around you…An interesting, basic question that should guide us in our blogging world.
Here’s a video Chris shared with some fresh perspective of some educators about why they’re blogging and how:
I’ve been shyly following the Comment Challenge 08, but certainly learning a lot from others as my main blogging point has been the connections. When I mean connections, it entails so many different nodes…First, you’re connecting to yourself, to your principles, beliefs, than you connect to others through blogging. And others might get connected to you, as well.
Certainly, we long for feedback, and I love to interact with my readers. However, I don’t write to get traffic, I was never worried about statistics. Blogging has just been a way I found to report, reflect, to keep memories, resources stored, to keep in touch with my own ideas, to not let some inspiration fade away in my mind. It’s a chance to share with others, and that’s where the connectivity part of it chimes in.
As I started to blog more frequently, I started getting more replies, but let us not forget that comments in the comment box are not the only feedback you have. You have pingbacks, trackbacks. Sometimes people mention that they read your blog, loved your post, but they never wrote a comment. I see so many educators frustrated when they start to blog because they say they don’t get a reply. Again and again I’ve mentioned the idea of blogging as a habit, and now I’m forcing myself to this other essential blogging habit of commenting. I read many blogs, comment in very few. So, the challenge has forced me to reconsider that to make my connections to the world and to people who really matter to me and had impacted on me I should be more visible, my ideas should reach unknown paths. My blogging connections have been changing since I have consistently applied the writingmatrix concept of using tags and technorati search, and now I want to refine them with this challenge.
I was glad to learn from Jeff Utech that
First, blogging is about us, then us connecting to others.
As I started to blog more frequently, I started getting more replies, but let us not forget that comments in the comment box are not the only feedback you have. You have pingbacks, trackbacks. Sometimes people mention that they read your blog, loved your post, but they never wrote a comment. I see so many educators frustrated when they start to blog because they say they don’t get a reply. Again and again I’ve mentioned the idea of blogging as a habit, and now I’m forcing myself to this other essential blogging habit of commenting. I read many blogs, comment in very few. So, the challenge has forced me to reconsider that to make my connections to the world and to people who really matter to me and had impacted on me I should be more visible, my ideas should reach unknown paths. My blogging connections have been changing since I have consistently applied the writingmatrix concept of using tags and technorati search, and now I want to refine them with this challenge.
I was glad to learn from Jeff Utech that
I got my first comment on my 10th post. I didn’t get two comments on the same post until around the 100 post mark. So it takes time, write because you want to, write for you, don’t worry about the comments. What I have found lately is how much I end up searching my own site looking for something that I wrote, a website I know I mentioned, or just to reflect on what I was thinking. I write as a way to store my thoughts, as a way to reflect on my practice and share with the larger community. If you decide to leave a comment great….if not I have my thoughts down to share with others if they ask.So, let us keep blogging and commenting, for comments are everywhere and as we mentioned so often in our blogging4educators session, each one of us needs to find his own tone, style and voice online.
Find your niche, find your purpose, and then just blog!
First, blogging is about us, then us connecting to others.
This video about student’s projects is what I believe in. It can tell much more about the power of learning than any educator’s discourse…
I believe in
- the power of students’ creations
- learning by doing
- creating connections among students
- monitoring their work rather than pouring information
- the value of each one’s discoveries
- the sense of being able to produce something of value to one and to others
- personalizing information
- letting learners find hidden worlds and exploring their own worlds
- helping learners develop their multiliteracies skills that will enable you to solve life-long issues in their personal and professional lives
One day things changed. I was doing this project with the class in which they had to plan and present and advertisement to the group raising awareness to a certain social issue. It could be a Turn TV off day, whatever. Well, we didn’t finish the project in one class, and I told them that they could think over during the week and if they wanted to present something in any kind of media, I’d bring my laptop the following class. Surprise. The cool, couldn’t-care-less dude left his classmates in awe with his topic and presentation.
Lesson: learners are paying attention to you. Just let them do something that taps into their interest, that drives them that they will surface and surprise you!