Author: ColinJagoe

Dichotomies

Posted on by ColinJagoe

It’s lunch time as I type away at my keyboard to write this. I just finished a very enjoyable 45 minutes listening to 105theHive as they streamed music and critical commentary through the web from their classroom using their home-built internet radio station. Kudos go to @hdurnin and @glassbeed for their efforts to lead this project with their students.

While this was happening live, I was keeping on eye on The Twitter as well. The students were tweeting from @105theHive and responding to a number of people, adults and students around the world as they played their music.  I was particularly struck as @gill_ville had her students tweeting along with the students at 105theHive and asking questions and interacting through their class Twitter account @gill_villeans.

At the same time, @Grade1 had her primary students tweeting out retelling and doing character analysis from the story The 3 Little Pigs.

Three different classes, three different project foci, and all interacting with the world in new and exciting ways.

In the meantime, I have just read an email from a friend who has been told to essentially ‘cease and desist’ from all social media efforts. The administration doesn’t support it, and in my view, doesn’t understand it, and quite likely is scared of it.

So. Which group of students will likely remember what they did in school today, and transfer that learning to a lifetime of learning?

Just wondering…

Edupunk Podcast 6

Posted on by ColinJagoe

Apparently you can’t use iFrame type embed codes on a WordPress.com hosted blog, which is where we have EdupunkPodcast hosted. I’m able to put up the links and stuff, but not embed the video, and now that Spreecast has added embed codes, it’s something I want to do. So I’ll post the videos from the show here. You can still visit the Edupunk site to find the iTunes subscribe links, and get the edited, with intro music etc.. version of the show, but I’ll post the uncut video feeds here as well.

Here’s Episode 6, where Danika and I are joined by the Kings to talk about eLearning.

http://www.spreecast.com/events/edupunk-podcast-episode-6/embed-medium-520

TWiSE #64 – Earth Science @ Waterloo

Posted on by ColinJagoe

VROC just posted episode 64 of This Week in Science and Education, where Kevin and I visit the Earth Science Museum at the University of Waterloo.  It’s a very cool place with lots of things to see when you visit there. If you live in the London area, you should check it out. If you teach in the area, it would make a great spot for a class visit to learn about geology.

It’s worth watching the whole episode to see the whole thing, but I want to link a specific part here. I had the opportunity to talk to Kathy Feick, who is a 3rd year student at Waterloo.  We had a short conversation about what she does at the Museum and also about the kinds of things that she has learned about being a university student and what high school students and teachers can consider in order to help with that transition. Click here to jump to the specific part of the episode where we discuss this, or watch the whole thing embedded below. (Jump to 16:09 if you want to just see the discussion I’m talking about)

#ABELSummit

Posted on by ColinJagoe

I had the great fortune to spend this past Friday with a room full of educators at the 2012 Abel Leadership Summit. The day was led by the dynamic trio of Alec Couros, George Couros and Dean Shareski.  They did a great job of facilitating and leading discussions.  There were a few lasting things that stuck with me, and as I went back over my tweets from the day I thought I’d jot a few other things down. I used Twitter as a backchannel as we often do, but I found myself also thinking about how I would access the things I was posting later on, and in my mind it became my note taking for the day as well. 

Digital Literacy VS Digital Fluency
This was an intriguing idea that I hadn’t heard expressed in this way before, and that’s the idea that there is a difference between literacy and fluency in a digital way. And that a person can have a certain amount of competence with digital tools or media, and be ‘literate’ but that to truly be fluent is another level of understanding altogether. The analogy of a carpenter having the basic skills to make a basic structure, but not the indepth skills to make a truly nice house really struck me as effective.

Play
One of the themes that came up several times was the idea of play. And that for educators, it’s a tough one to get our brains around sometimes. But it became clear that all learners, regardless of age, could benefit from some unstructured, and more importantly, un-tested time to play and learn in whatever way suited their learning.

Urgency
One of the ideas was that planning to do things in cycles of several years is a huge disservice to the students in our clases now. If you have a 5 year plan to make things happen, then the students in Grade 8 will be out the door of Grade 12 before you finish your plan. Kids deserve more than that. Makes for tough decisions, but its something that we must consider.

Stories
George spent a bit of time telling stories about how important stories were. And it struck me that we don’t spend enough time doing that. We often hear talk about how important reflection is to us as learners and educators, but it seems to me that doing it as a story telling time might be more valuable. There is an honesty and a simplicity in the telling of a story that doesn’t seem to have much of the same baggage associated with it as the concept of reflection. Imagine if we had 20 minutes at the end of the day to sit in the staff room and just ask each other to tell the stories from the day.

Do They Know They’re Awesome?
Dean talked about the idea of positive deviants, and that there are many of them out in the schools across the country. The teachers who are doing wonderful things with kids, and are unaware that they are, in fact, awesome. It’s important to start to point that out to people in a true rich way. Not with the intent of kissing butt, but to simply point out the amazing and awesome things that teachers are doing everyday. Sharing the stories.

All in all it was a great day of learning and thinking and sharing.  There was much more in the day as well. If you search the hashtag #ABELSummit on Twitter, you’ll find all this and more!

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Would you like to be in your class?

Posted on by ColinJagoe

I started reading Inside Apple this evening, which is a book that lays out some of the inner workings of Apple as a company.  I was struck by one part where it talked about how Apple and Steve Jobs never worried about things like focus groups or  costumer surveys when deciding what product lines to pursue.

[Jobs] found Apple’s prototype customer in the mirror, and the company came to develop computers that Jobs, at one time or another, decided he would like to own.

It got me thinking about decision making and how we structure our eduction systems. Then I hit upon a really interesting question. If you’re an educator, have you ever asked yourself if you’d like to buy what you’re selling? As you do everything you need to get ready for teaching a class, do you ever stop to ask if you’d like to be in it?

Just some end of weekend random thoughts.

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OTF Connects – Student Inquiry

Posted on by ColinJagoe

I just had the pleasure of faciliating a webinar session through OTF Connects. The Ontario Teachers Federation has started this venture to bring free, online and easily accessible PD to Ontario Teachers.  There was about a dozen enthusiastic educators in this webinar tonight, and some great ideas where shared around how to use web tools as tools to support student inquiry.

I recommend checking out the schedule and signing up for one or more of these free PD sessions.  By teachers, for teachers. Great folks doing great things.

I’ve embedded my presentation below for use if wanted. It is slightly different than that one used in the webinar as I had to remove a few things to get it below the free level allowed by Slideshare.

Using Web 2.0 Tools for Student Inquiryhttp://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=inquirypresentationotfjan2012posted-120125201345-phpapp02&stripped_title=using-web-20-tools-for-student-inquiry&userName=colinjagoe

View more presentations from Colin Jagoe.

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Stay Curious!

Posted on by ColinJagoe

Ran across this video today. I liked it so much I thought I’d post it on my blog. 🙂

Skillshare appears to be a website where you can take classes from a variety of people in a variety of areas. It looks quite interesting.

There’s a lot of good one liners in the video. I like “It doesn’t matter what you ask, just that you ask.. Because the questions you find are more important than the answers”

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=34853044&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=f36c21&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.

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What do you remember?

Posted on by ColinJagoe

Last week, when I was at the annual conference of the Science Teachers Association of Ontario, I attended a luncheon sponsored by Smarter Science. I was joined at the table by a few pre-service teachers. STAO does a nice job of getting pre-service teachers out to their conference, by providing reasonable rates for them to attend.  We had a few speakers give short talks about the importance of science education, and how it’s changing in profound ways. The move from memorizing content, content, content to a more balanced approach that also emphasizes skills, critical thinking and the processes of science.

During our conversation, one of the young teachers asked me how we could balance that load of content v.s. process in a working classroom.  Being one to never miss an opportunity, I turned to her and asked her a question.

Me: "Let me ask you something. Tell me what you remember from your high school science classes."

Her: "I remember memorizing lots of things, and having tests on them."

Me: "Tell me one thing you memorized."

Her: "I can’t, I don’t remember them now."

Me: "Ok, then tell me what you do remember doing in science class."

Her: "I remember this field trip we took to a local forest. I remember doing this project with my friend. I remember some of the labs and things we did in class."

Me: "You’ve just answered your own question. Do that. Teach that way. Do what your students will remember, and don’t get hung up on the things that are forgettable."

I think she understood what I was getting at, but the hard part is yet to come. She has to learn to make that leap and let go of the fear of ‘not covering something’ in her class.  I hope she succeeds, and I wish her the best of luck.

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