Teacher, teach thyself

[goteachthyself]

Start from scratch webpage.

Used a couple of html cheatsheets as suggest by the webmaker team, and here we are.

[goteachthyself]

http://robertdrummond.makes.org/goggles/robertdrummonds-remix-of-a-little-about-me

An introduction. Made using x-ray goggles.

[goteachthyself]

Day 2: Tuesday Resources: 1. Wikipedia: 'Open Education' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_education 2. Wikipedia: 'Open Web' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Web (including three links at end of article) Questions: What do you see as the link between Open Education and the Open Web? Does the former depend on the latter?

[goteachthyself]

Open Education.

I work in Primary Education. Open Education to me means having access to the learning you want, when you want it and in a not-for-profit pricing structure. What might that look like for primary children? They learn loads of things from their peers; how to build something in minecraft, how to do a trick on a scooter, how to make a video for youtube. They might follow up some learning from the classroom using web based research tools and resources. They might then learn some new skills and present their learning in an new way. It might also mean that 'closed education' models need to think about how they can harness this enthusiasm.

[goteachthyself]

Why might sharing and publishing in the open be advantageous?

The creator controls what of their work is seen or heard, by whom, where and when.

In my opinion sharing and publishing have never been easier, nor more accessible for all of us. We share photos through Instagram, Facebook and Flickr, we can share ideas through blog writing, tweeting and facebook, we can share pretty much all aspects of our daily life and it’s only going to get easier.

Who do we share with? Close friends, less close friends, colleagues from work or education, people from around the world. Pretty much anyone we want who has some level of open and available internet access.

We can also produce more formal pieces of publishing such as e-books and ‘real’ books through tools such as Lulu.

In my early lifetime, sharing meant meeting up with someone, sending something via the post, photocopying pieces of paper and the thought of publishing your own writing was a pipe dream - it was in the hands of newspaper editors or book publishers. They decided what was to be seen, not the user and certainly not the ‘receiver’ of the information.

The user can access more content than before, and more easily.

If I wish to find some writing about a subject it is easy. I use the web and search engines and find lots of information in a variety of forms. This is a brilliant, as work which previously I would have been excluded from accessing due to cost and geographical restrictions is know available and most often for no or minimal cost. Secondly, it’s easily searchable (whilst acknowledging google organises things in a google search initially) I can use some advanced search techniques to precisely access the materials I would like.

The user can choose how to acknowledge the creator.

If I buy a book, I have acknowledged the creator(s) up front by paying. If the work is not of a standard I desire, or if it is an incredible life changing book the acknowledgement is the same - £15.

I’ve also paid an amount which is set by some 3rd parties - publishers, shops as well as the creator. It’s probably fair to say that if I pay £15 for a book, the creator will not recieve £15.

If I am accessing something via the open web, I can choose how I acknowledge the work - I can tweet the link to the work, I can access the creator directly via a comments section, I can pay some money via paypal in some cases (I choose if and how much of course), or I can write a response myself citing the original work on my own spaces.

The collaboration possibilities are endless.

It’s a reasonable assumption that if you are spending your non work time writing/creating and sharing works for free, it is something you are passionate about. By sharing these things in the ‘open’ format, you are likely to connect to people with similar passions. The greatest working groups I have worked in are the ones where the members have shared goals or passions. The work created in these groups has been of a high quality

The effect of your passion being shared with liked minded individuals is a massive gain. It allows you to work together (virtually or real) to create more pieces and connect with a wider audience, it lets you see how other people with similar passions are creating and can give you hope that you’re not alone.

And yet...

There are examples of work practices being used which stop or limit openness and sharing. Some planning programs in school only allow printed copies and copies within the format of their (paid) software, meaning the work created in them cannot be shared easily. Some education intranet sites allow access only to members of their community, excluding a huge range of educators from contributing and making the process of sharing work on those intranet more laborious than it should/needs to be. It would be interesting to know what the thinking is behind these decisions being imposed as I feel the benefits of openness and sharing are huge.

[goteachthyself]

How do my online connections influence your offline life?

How do my online connections influence your offline life?

Ok, I admit it. I picked this one because it seemed very easy to write about.

I consider my online connections to be a large influence on my online and offline life. I tried to show this a little last week in my popcorn introduction. (My offline interests gave me a reason to go ‘online’ and I subsequently made connections online which extended and introduced me to new interests.)

So how? Well think of the definition of the word influence. Dictionary.com suggests that influence is ‘the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions,etc. of others:’

Like most, I guess I am influenced by the people I meet, the things I’ve seen, the sounds I’ve heard and then more abstract things such as the places I’ve lived. All of these factors will have some bearing on the way I live and the way I work, but many of these interactions are random, or are picked for me. As a child, the people I met were often determined by schools I attended (in turn selected by areas I lived in and selected by social circumstance to a degree). As an adult there are similar patterns - my work colleagues are selected by others, I’m lucky enough to choose where to live but am in some ways bound to that decision (e.g. I can’t move to a new location every month or so).

Online connections are a bit different. You can choose from the whole range of location, interests, gender, age, occupation etc who your online colleagues and friends are. And you have the luxury of viewing them from a distance before click the ‘follow’ button.

I got started using twitter (which is probably the place I find and interact most with online connections) by reading about someone and their education work in the Guardian. For me that was important in the setting up of initial online connections - The Guardian is an offline source that I trust, respect and which influences my thinking around sports, politics and food, the article I read was about education, something that was already a massive interest in life and the idea was about how to use online resources to create amazing maths lessons (not use maths resources to kind of fit into your lesson, but using non maths resources and making them the centre piece of a lesson - a bit different, but brilliant). The article in the Guardian mentioned that this teacher shared his ideas through twitter and that he found twitter to be an incredible resource for teachers everywhere. The name of the teacher - Tom Barratt  

I started following and reading Tom’s tweets and was amazed by how much stuff he created for his classes and how innovative and exciting it was. I was quickly using ideas from his tweets in my classroom. I also found that Tom suggested other people to read in his twitter column, and some names came up over and over again. These people were my next ones to follow. Again, their work was fantastic, it was mainly based around primary education, but some people went beyond primary and share ideas about secondary education and HE. Some people had moved out of schools, but still worked in education as advisers, thinkers etc. These ideas were very exciting and my offline practice was changing, as were my thoughts about the purpose of education and my role and the children’s role in it.

These people form the ‘do not miss’ part of my hootsuite twitter organiser and their influence now extends beyond education into the worlds of music, food and books.

In these early stages, I was following, consuming and being influenced by the ideas of others a lot. I decided that I should share work ideas, thoughts etc in return. I’ve always been quite reticent when it comes to sharing ideas I have (a chronic fear of rejection holds me back - which may be hard for people who know me to imagine as I climb onto my soapbox about another thing...). Twitter was a very easy way to share ideas and as I consumed so many of other people’s ideas I didn’t feel ‘showy’ about sharing. Positive tweets and re-tweets helped build confidence in my own practice (by people whose opinions I really trusted and valued) and also connected me with more people, making the my connections circle larger and more informed still. Find new people, admire the quality of their work, their opinions, develop a trust in them and then see who they interact with and whom they trust and maybe develop a connection there. Fairly simple, but incredibly powerful and changing for my work practice offline immensely.

Since then my online influences helped me find chefs whose books I use for recipes, music, events such as the Ukulele festivals I’m signed up for, produce suggestions when we want to buy something, as well as being a massive influence in my professional life.

In late 2011, I was diagnosed with depression and was off school for 2 months. There were a lot of reasons for my depression but as it was really the first time I’d suffered to that extent it was quite a scary time for me and my family. I was very lucky in that the first doctor I visited was brilliant, I respected her thoughts and ideas and found her manner to be perfect for me at that time. I did everything she said (well apart from eating fruit). My online work halted as my energy levels hit zero, but I was still able to flick my phone on, see the people whom I respected working away - life going on as normal and know that I could get back there. I searched a few depression hashtags and read some harrowing accounts and accounts of hope in people’s blogs. I realised I wasn’t alone, that the path nowadays was well trodden and hopefully having depression would not be a massive issue for the rest of my life, just something that needed managing, a bit of care and a bit of sense. I drew strength from the people who I found influenced me, having had, still having and living with depressive illnesses. Marcus Trescothick’s, Iain O’Brien’s and Alistair Campbell’s struggles are well documented in places, but I also found people whose struggles weren’t so well documented. These online connections made me realise I could deal with this, and are why I add such a personal piece into this writing, as thanks to those influences and because it might help others.  

Work, music, books, attitudes, illness, politics the list could go on, are all influenced by my online connections as much as by the offline people I live with and love. They are a large influence on my life.

[goteachthyself]

Remixed Profile.

Here's my remixed profile page. https://thimble.webmaker.org/p/l7ox/ This is based on Chris Lawrence's webmaker profile - https://thimble.webmaker.org/p/lr79/ and earned me 5 badges!

[goteachthyself]

I thought this was really interesting and useful to myself and others in school when working with children with dyslexic tendencies.

[goteachthyself]

[goteachthyself]

What is the advantage of making as learning over traditional “forward facing” pedagogies? Disadvantages?

Some quick thoughts on advantages of making as learning.

It's a different method to traditional 'info in, info out,' method of teaching therefore I would expect it to have an enthusiasm bounce with the learners.

The learners will get an investment in their making - they need to focus to create this real thing, it's not a 'teacher task'.

Creating is hard and requires thought and work. Many textbook lessons don't, therefore 'I don't know what to do,' is often heard when something different happens. The only way to improve this is by doing some creating/making activities.

There are more opportunities for high quality group interactions.

25 children beats 1 teacher for creativity EVERY time. Opening up the group to being creative and actually getting them working together will produce something amazing and beyond teacher's scope.

And disadvantages.

It's different, and schools, LA's, parents etc whilst saying they want innovative and risk taking, actually don't. (It just sounds good)

Assessment. Education loves a tick box. 'Soft skills' don't map well to a tick box, and they certainly don't map well to an end of year assessment or exam.

Schools are still product focused over process. The classroom with wonderful displays (created by teacher and school support staff mounting a piece of child's work and displaying it) is more highly thought of than a class with pupil curated displays where mounting may be skew (or non-existent!!) and words may be spelled incorrectly by LA and HMI/OFSTED alike.

I'm sure there are many other thoughts I've missed. I'll maybe add them in the comments.