injenuity

I love mine, but I’m trying to make wacky headings so people scanning their readers will hop on over. Is that cheating? I just wanted to share something fun I discovered today, that you can use as a quick way to evaluate your career contentedness. I stopped by a Barnes and Noble, as I’ve been urged to purchase GTD, because I have a slight email issue.

I made a quick run through the business books and nothing caught my eye. I went back to the beginning and started to look more closely and made an interesting discovery. The types of books that attracted me (or repelled me) were different than I’ve experienced in the past. I was not interested in anything that had to do with starting your own business, working from home or changing careers. I had no desire to read about how to get a promotion, or interview well. I didn’t feel like I needed to read anything motivational. I felt “settled.”

So my theory, if you can even call it that, is that you can go to a book store, or library, glance at the titles, and judge your current level of career satisfaction. If you feel the urge to read about resume building, you may be unhappy with your job. If you are interested in entrepreneurial titles, maybe your job isn’t challenging enough. If you look at books and instantly think of a colleague who needs to read it, maybe you are judging too harshly and need to consider your own flaws. If you are attracted to the books about wealth and finance, maybe you need to take a look at your life and put a value on the activities you do each day.

Next time you are in a book store, take a quick glance and tell me what you think. I would love to hear about your book barometer and what it tells you about your career happiness right now. Have fun!

Thank you to everyone who attended our session today, and especially to Cable for such an insightful look into the opportunities and challenges of Open Educational Resources.  Here are some useful links for those who wish to review or didn’t have a chance to attend the session. I have received some great responses on the evaluation and will share them on the wiki after everyone has had a chance to respond.

Session Recording

Continue the Conversation Wiki

Session Evaluation

Here’s my big bad, down and dirty post. If you were involved in educational technology in the 1990’s and have not dramatically changed your strategies for training and professional development, it is time to start. We focus much attention on how the technology has changed, but we’re (most of us) not doing anything to change the way we train, implement and infuse it into our classrooms. We have to stop doing the same old thing.

If you are still mired in the muck of Digital Natives and Immigrants, it is time to move on and find a new metaphor. Believing in this image only leads to impractical, inefficient and unsustainable professional development and training. Do you honestly believe people can be divided into those two categories? Do you truly think it is more difficult for someone my age (36) to learn to use a wiki, than it is for a 12 year old? Really? Then maybe it has something to do with the way you are teaching them.

The tools and applications of the 1990’s were clunky, full of unused features, and steep learning curves. The technology didn’t naturally fit with educational goals, so we made work-arounds. We squeezed it here and there, taught what we could in the amount of time available for workshops, and paid stipends to get faculty to attend. We made countless examples of the same lessons and reinvented the wheel over and over again. We forced file after file into electronic portfolios that never really told the whole story. We were excited and visionary! We knew something huge was coming and we didn’t want to miss out. The “something huge” is here, and it isn’t that scary after all.

One of the biggest fears I hear these days is not the difficulty of the applications available, but the enormous amount of choices. Why are we trying to teach every tool to every instructor? Do we all need to know all of it? I don’t think so. I think people need to know the basics:

• The web is social
• Participating in the social wen means you do not have to know everything, because someone out there has the info you are seeking
• These tools have the same basic features: profiles, private and public messaging, file sharing, reading/writing

I think we could put all the web tools in a hat and the instructional objectives in another, draw and item out of each, and find a creative way for them to work together, without the clunky work-arounds of the 1990’s. It isn’t as important which of the hundreds of tools you use, but how you achieve your objectives with a tool that works for you. With the ease of use found in most social media tools, anyone who can read (English) can jump in fairly quickly.

Students should be working on establishing their digital identity, creating content and organizing their presence stream. Why shouldn’t an electronic portfolio look like this? Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but it delivers my message. Students can aggregate their own content for delivery to instructors, employers and friends. Why not tag each piece of the puzzle? You can set up multiple presence streams, access the feed for that stream, and then tag it for your instructor in del.icio.us. Then instructors can go to a single location to access all student submissions. Then all we need is a desktop grading widget and we are in business!

Let’s take the mystery out of the read/write web. Can we please stop calling it Web 2.0? This is just the nature of the web. When we treat it like a revolution, we scare people. Let’s just get down and dirty and tell it like it is. This is the web. If you can read, you can be a part of it. When someone comes to you asking for technology assistance, ask their instructional objectives, offer a few options, demonstrate and then put them to work! Give them a chance to try it on their own, without assuming their age or lack of experience will get in the way.

Don’t run large workshops teaching tools to people who may never need them. To me, that is akin to the Boy Who Cried Wolf. If you force them to sit through something that doesn’t interest them, what will they think of you? Do you think they will seek you out when they have an instructional challenge that can be mediated with technology? Do you respect and admire people who waste your time?

• Don’t waste your chance to accomplish something magical.
• Be open to new learning models and new methods of engaging learners.
• When you make discoveries, share them, don’t horde them or save them for a conference proposal.
• Move your ideas on to others and let them create their own masterpiece.

If you were involved in educational technology in the 1990’s and have not dramatically changed your strategies for training and professional development, it is time to start!

As I journey deeper into this blogging adventure, I discover more and more that I have barely scratched the surface of what it means to be a blogger.  When blogging is described to people for the first time, it is often compared to journaling, or simply keeping a log.  I am guilty of giving this description to instructors all the time to try and simplify it.  I am now questioning this approach, but searching for a better metaphor.

Last week I learned some new things while reading Alan Levine’s post about his week of blog abstinence.  A large part of the blogging experience is responding to and supporting other bloggers.  While I do respond to posts on many blogs, when I have time, I don’t do it with intention, nor do I have a system for determining where I respond.  I usually just skim the headlines in my reader and open the interesting ones, responding if I have input.

Another realization is that I don’t feel worthy to post on some blogs!  I guess I have reservations about responding to experts when I feel like such a novice.  I have been concerned my content wouldn’t add to the conversation.  I also have not taken advantage of the community-building side of blogging. I only recently discovered the meaning of linkbacks.  I had no clue what those links were for on my dashboard.  I never really understood how people list blogging in their toolbox of community-building applications.

Now that I am learning more about the true spirit of blogging, I am even more excited to attend Northern Voice.  I learned of the conference last year when I posted a question on Twitter asking about the best conferences for Higher Ed.  The content wasn’t really something I felt an urgent need to absorb, but the attendee list quickly grabbed my attention.  I registered with a goal of meeting my network heroes and learning a little about blogging so I could bring the information back to my faculty.  Now I feel my own desire to become a “real” blogger and my enthusiasm for the event is growing.  I hope to meet you there!

Footnote: To find the link to Alan’s blog, I decided to go through http://profilactic.com, which we both signed up for in the last few days.  I’m trying to determine how useful it will be.   For this example, it probably wasn’t the best way to look up his blog post. However, I did enjoy being able to quickly see what he’s been up to in the time since he posted that message.  I think the service is useful for following people who publish a great deal of web content, but don’t have time to publicize it all.  I will keep an eye on it.  Feel free to add me as a friend if you sign up.

Anyone who knows me in RL (real life), knows I am not the type to enjoy social gatherings, parties, or even conferences. I am so used to working online, zipping through my day, and I just feel uncomfortable in crowds of people. I am shy and self conscious. However, I am fine giving presentations, probably because I am not in close proximity to the crowd.

The last few days I attended an Assessment,Teaching and Learning retreat sponsored by our state board. I was out of my comfort zone, but quickly became quite comfortable! I found it refreshing to be in a group of people with common goals, but completely different approaches and challenges. It was exhilarating to witness connections happening in live, real time proximity, rather than the network connections I have been celebrating the last several months.

I think I am ready to admit that there is a benefit to having face to face (f2f) connections. I do, however, feel that both media offer advantages over the other and neither is superior. I also don’t believe your f2f connections need to be with the same network as your online connections. Humans just need to interact, collaborate, communicate and express in proximity in order to stimulate different areas of the brain.

While I can be creative existing only in my online network, the f2f connections add dimension and validation to my creative expression. I am certain many people at the meeting felt I spoke too much, shared too much and took up too much time. I was just excited to see physical evidence of connections being made, along with the occasional, “Aha!” moment.

Rob Wall cleverly writes about his growing friendship with members of his online networks. Part of his experience is solidified by f2f contact. I witnessed that this week when I met someone who is a colleague of several of my online network contacts. I could almost see my relationship with those folks changing as I cemented them as trustworthy, by meeting someone who knows and respects them in real life. I hope I can continue to make f2f connections to augment my online network and spark more creativity and enthusiasm.

When I was in second grade, we lived in the Azores, Portugal. My father was transferred back to the United States and we had a short time to prepare for our departure. I attended a small elementary school on the base and we were scheduled to leave in March. I was an avid reader and had gone through all the SRA’s for my grade level. I was borrowing chapter books from another class room. The teacher there encouraged me to take them as long as I needed, but I always brought them back the next day so I could get a new, exciting adventure!

When this teacher discovered I was leaving, he did something that would impact my learning far into the future. On my last day of school, he got down to my eye level and gave me two gifts. They looked similar; simple booklets bound with rainbow colored construction paper, stapled multiple times at the ends, because the staples were a little too small for the thick stack of papers between the covers. He opened each book and explained them to me. One was filled with lined paper for me to write my own adventures. The other was filled with plain paper for me to draw my own adventures.

I carried those books with me on each of the connecting flights to get back to the US. He had no idea what was in store for me or whether or not I would be successful. He gave because he cared and took time to make a difference. He recognized my love of words and gave me the tools to express myself and create my own world. He didn’t know that I would end up being the only white girl in a shamble of a school in Montgomery, Alabama. There were five classes being taught in an auditorium without air conditioning. The space was divided by rolling chalk boards and you could hear what was going on in all the other “rooms.” My teacher, who did not speak standard English, carried a paddle that read “Bee careful! I sting!” with a painting of a cartoon bee with an innocent smile. Tornadoes were common and we were frequently jammed into the dark hallway, huddled down waiting for them to pass. I was terrified!

But at the end of each day, I would come home and write. I filled my books and moved on. I finished second grade and we moved to Colorado. I continued to be passionate about reading and writing and have now passed on this love to my own children. I believe the simple act of this one teacher made a difference in my life. I am certain he did not have a lot of extra time to put those books together, but I am certainly grateful he took the time to do it.

BTC eLearning is delighted to host Dr. Cable Green presenting on
Developing a Culture of Sharing and Receiving: Open Educational
Resources.

When: February 11, 2008 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM PST
Where: Online via Elluminate

Instructions for setting up your computer.

Several organizations will be projecting the session for multiple viewers. We encourage all participants to Continue the Conversation after the event on our wiki.

Cable Green will lead a discussion on how the Washington Community and
Technical Colleges can actively participate in and contribute to the
Open Educational Resources (OER) movement.

He doesn’t have the answers but brings a host of questions that higher
education needs to wrestle with to increase learning opportunities,
lower costs, and form a more perfect global learning space.

* How do we educate all stakeholders about open educational resources
(software, content, standards, publishing) and why they are an important
part of our system’s future?
* How do we make it easy to share learning materials, courses and
degrees?
* What are the policy implications of sharing content? Are we all so
unique that we can’t use one another’s courses? How many different
Algebra 101 courses do we need?
* Under what circumstances will faculty “receive” what has been built by
others? How do we collectively get past the issue of “I need to build it
myself?”
* Is content is a strategic advantage? Or do walled gardens wither and
die without the winds of collective input and continuous iteration?
* How much longer can our students afford traditional textbooks? Why
can’t we develop open textbooks?
* How much longer can our libraries afford buying access to articles our
faculty published? What is stopping us from an open publishing movement
for academic journal articles?

——————————————-

Bio:

Dr. Cable Green is the Director of eLearning for the Washington State
Board for Community and Technical Colleges. The eLearning director
provides visionary leadership for the college system on issues related
to improving online education and implementing pioneering learning
technologies and practices.

Returning to the Northwest, Green earned his BS in international affairs
from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He holds a MPC from Westminster
College in Salt Lake City, a MA in communication from Ohio State, and a
PhD in educational technology from Ohio State University.

Dr. Green is a nationally recognized speaker on technology and education
issues and has more than eight years of online teaching experience. He
has a targeted interest in how educational technologies and connectivist
pedagogies can be successfully combined to help learners create, manage,
and contribute their work through open knowledge initiatives.

What if we established global peer partnerships for conducting and evaluating pre-service teacher observations? We use peer coaching. We use technology to enhance the observation process. Why not extend the reach and partner with pre-service teachers in other programs?

Yesterday I observed a class here at our technical college, with the intent to evaluate the structure, content, teaching style and student engagement to propose solutions to re-developing the course for online delivery. I brought a laptop and inexpensive web-cam and ustreamed the class.  The instructor notified the class in advance and provided release forms, although they were never handed out.  I posted a few times on Twitter inviting people to come join the chat.

Though the chat backchannel was an afterthought, if provided a valuable experience for the participants and gave me insight I would not have recognized on my own.  The chat participants arrived from all over the globe and from a range of perspectives, including students, administrators, professors and those simply curious about our activity.

I began to reflect on my experiences in a pre-service teacher training program, several years ago.  Our grant funded a professor to video tape the pre-service practicum experiences.  The students would then convert the tape to digital format and edit in iMovie.  This took forever and I just could not see the value.  They ended up spending very little time on their observations, as most of the time was spent figuring out the technology.

Times have changed and it is now common to digitally record and observe remotely.  What I began to see yesterday, was the value of including others outside the teaching college.  The conversation flowed and I learned much.  Some participants shared links and researched solutions live while the session was streaming.  We made observations on the students, instructor and technology and debated our proposed solutions.  I wondered how much more valuable it could have been if I had been prepared to guide the discussion, and spent more time promoting the activity.  What if we were able to stream student observations and create a global peer backchannel  to instantly provide feedback to the pre-service teacher?  I’ve attached the chat transcript and here is a link to a portion of the recording.  I may take these down soon, if I don’t receive permission to publish them, so look while you can!

Chat Transcript

There’s something a little different about the network on the weekends and I can’t quite put my finger on it. What I do know, is that by Saturday afternoon, I’m usually ready to go into hiding until I’m back to work on Monday. I think some of it has to do with the fact that we are all doing such diverse activities that we are out of synch.

To me, it seems like the people working on the weekend are desperately trying to catch up. It makes me sad to see all the k-12 educators missing family time and fun because there aren’t enough hours in the work week to complete their tasks. Then there are the people who are still working just for fun, those who carry on just as they do during the week, sharing links and stories.

I am usually doing housework and checking in as a treat between chores. I don’t go very deeply into checking links and trying new tools and I’m probably pretty useless when it comes to helping those who are still working. I often get on someone’s nerves or get irritated by someone else. I want to play and it isn’t as fun when you can sense the frustration of so many.

I don’t have a solution to offer, and I’m certain I am part of the problem. The best thing I can do is just to avoid the network on the weekends and find another way to “treat” myself. Maybe that’s when I will start hitting Google Reader and responding to blogs.

I am an incubator.  I like to take a thought, mine or someone else’s, tumble it around in my head until it’s an idea, and then release it on the world.  When people question why I work in a city so far from my home, I often tell them how great it is to have several hours a day alone with my thoughts.  During a 90 minute drive, I can envision several possible outcomes of one original thought.

Every organization could use an incubator, someone who is given the time to creatively analyze situations and move thoughts toward ideas.  However, there are potential pitfalls.  An incubator in a non-creative role, without opportunity for expression, is an unhappy employee.  You can help by involving them in the creative process. They don’t have to have any decision making authority.  Next time you have to come up with a project, concept, idea, or solution, ask the incubator for their thoughts.  Give them a little bit of time and you may be surprised at the quality of the results.

The second pitfall for the incubator is the tendency to hold onto ideas beyond their “freshness date.” As an incubator, you must learn to release the ideas in the infancy stage.  Share them before they are fully conceptualized.  Seek feedback and then incubate the idea again if necessary.  Many of us are looking for that one original idea that leads to fame and recognition.  If you are a true incubator, you are not using your talent to it’s full potential by keeping your ideas to yourself.  You have got to become comfortable with releasing them to others to expand and enhance.  Blogging has helped me tremendously in this area. You will probably notice that most of my blog posts end before the idea truly grows wings.  I release the idea on others and hope they can make something great from it.  Are you an incubator?

This post has been incubating for 24 hours.