community – Page 4

January 21, 2015

How disruptive is silence?

Just returned from a course on Cognitive Coaching with Bill and Ochan Powell where we talked about the power of listening, and being uncomfortable can be to our learning.

One of the things I started last year (and Bill and Ochan mentioned at the workshop) was the idea that as teachers, we don’t really teach listening. Well maybe some teachers do, but things like looking at a person, focusing, and keeping eye contact doesn’t really mean listening to me. I think listening means being able to summarize the thoughts of another, and make connections (without the purpose of summarizing or making connections). I don’t know, I find it hard to fully describe (probably because I was never really taught). Listening can be powerful, in this course we spent a lot of time listening, to each other, our instructors and ourselves, and honestly, I learned a lot. Mostly because I was quiet. This was incredibly difficult for me, I’m almost always trying to make connections to what people are thinking, and stopping myself from talking was something I had to learn.

The point is, I think anyway, that making myself uncomfortable, really improved my learning. Putting myself in a new situation, really trying to figure out someone else’s point of view, helped me learn more about them and myself.

Since my main wondering are with technology and the environment, I wonder how we can incorporate silence into our learning with technology. So often we use our tech to distract us from the silence and those uncomfortable moments. This, I feel, takes us away from those deeper learning opportunities.

As teachers who use technology how do we initiate and establish those silence moments with a device, first in ourselves and then in our students? How can we make listening (active listening, or reading) a habit online rather than just consuming?

January 12, 2015

Repurposing media

Some rights reserved by Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

Just got back from a vacation and have been wondering a lot about what we need to do to fully redefine what we think of media literacy.

I’ve been reading a number of articles and papers, this is one of my favourites, talking about what digital literacy and media literacy might be.

What my main wonderings are, right now anyway, surrounds the idea of socialisation of media and literacy. This could easily involve role plays, or something more “real”, but we also can dig deep into how we can redefine what we are reading, how we are reading and how we show what we’ve read.

Blogs seem pretty obvious for some of our students, but even though we put our learning out there, that doesn’t actual socialise what we are doing, people might not respond, or might never read. We can get students in the classroom filling the role of responder, but that doesn’t redefine what we could already do in a traditional classroom setting. So, I’m working on connecting our students to places around the world. Not for just taking content.

As I was writing this I found +Jeff Utecht ‘s post on community trumps content.

So how do we do this with reading?

August 27, 2014

Thinking about coaching

Some rights reserved by jenhegna1

I’ve been thinking a lot about coaching (what it means to be an Edtech coach, a learning coach, a sports coach, are they different?) this week. Mostly in relating to professional development for teachers. I think a lot of us know where we want to be, or what we want to do, we just need someone there to help us get there, and make sure we’re doing it while following our school’s vision.

One of the best things about life is change, and my job is constantly evolving. In order to keep up with this, I need heaps of PD, and I’m reading as much as I can. Currently I’m reading this book.

amazon.com

I’m trying not to think of myself as “just” an Edtech Coach, but as a learning coach. While I don’t have the whole skill set yet, it’s something I’m working on.

One of the most important concepts that this book made me reflect on, and I use in my EdTech job is the importance of trust. Moving to a new school means the first thing I have to do is build those relationships with teachers. I’m going to a lot of meetings, listening and supporting, and finding out what they think should be happening. By listening and then acting, I’m hoping that the teachers will know that I have their backs when they want to try something, so that when I want to encourage them to go somewhere new in their learning journey, they’ll know I support them.

Some rights reserved by torbakhopper

I think it all goes back to the sense of community and connection. If we all feel like we are connected, and we are trying to do the best for learning (students’ and ours) then we need to be open to some direction. Any kind of peer coaching can be helpful.

Getting into classes this week was amazing. So good to see happy kids, and inspired teachers doing their best. We’re starting individual student blogs in the next couple of weeks, working on class blogs and storytelling apps this week. All in all an exciting time to be working with teachers.