To Learn is to Live

This blog is about sharing my thoughts on looking a little bit longer, seeing what lies beneath the surface, and delving a bit deeper on any number of things that catches my interest. 

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I read a lot of books on Budō or martial ways (kind of macabre but you know to each their own).The Japanese sword is considered to be the tangible manifestation of the carrier's soul. To unsheathe is to reveal your true nature to the world. When it is on the floor you do not step over it. To do that would be an insult to the owner. Back in the day that could have serious implications. Even today it is best not to casually dismiss any type of tools of the trade. If you ever watched the Iron Chef when Bobby Flay went up against Chef Morimoto you can see how Japanese might react to this breech of etiquette (clips on You Tube). B.F stood  on the cutting board - Chef Morimoto - "He's not a chef he stood up on the cutting board - that's not right ... cutting boards and knives are scared to us." Items that assist you in making a living would fall under this umbrella. Ichiro, the famous baseball player, talked about how American Baseball players distain for their baseball equipment. It is the thing that support your livelihood - I would suppose even your computer or smartphone might fall under this category! I never had a sense of that growing up in the states. In any case, all this comes from Budō -  from the caring for your sword - not many Japanese even realize this. All this and more from my study of swords, that probably why I like to post pictures of swords. There is more to it something beneath the surface that escapes the casual observation.

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The Motley Crew takes on Learning Communities Part 2

In my last blog, I describe two dynamics for learning communities.  The inner dynamic focuses on internal group relations, while the outer dynamic focuses on the external group relations.  I have created these groupings to clarify the dynamics that I saw from my readings.  I felt even though there is some overlap that each perspective looked at an entirely different thing.

Michael Borman (2012) came up with the Ten Step Approach to Developing a Learning Community Here is a summary of what he advocates.

Developing awareness - educators must develop awareness of  a modern PLC.

Taking the big plunge - educators sometime need to get out of their comfort zone, find a learning community, and take the plunge.

Experience the WOW moment - educators become amazed at the resources and opportunities available online

Enter the time warp - educators begin exploring what is available online could make hours seem like minutes.

Making the big picture - educators begin to see "the big picture" their assessing the situation and seeing the possibilities.

Experience the light bulb getting bigger and brighter - educators realize they cannot learn everything and meet everybody. They sharpen their focus.

Putting into practice - educators start putting things into use.

Paying ahead to others - educators start sharing what they learn with others

Entering the superhighway - educators begin to reach out into the larger community.

Thinking like a living museum - educators realize that curation, collaboration, and discovery can all come together in some awesome web 2.0 tool. (Gorman, M., 2012)

Gorman has fun with the 10 step approach.  And, I believe that this is significant when thinking about your own forming your own groups. If there is no fun element to any online learning collaboration, what the sense? The nuts and bolts are important, but with no fun who going to want to be a member long.

The Motley Crew is still trying to build a group character and I am fine that we all have a part in it. Outside, of the nuts and bolt contributions I hope I am bring a little fun to the group. It would be great at some future date we can look back and see our time as members of the Motley Crew as a high point of the class.

Work Cited

Gorman, M. (2012).  Part : Professional education learning communities: definition, process, common core. 21st Century Education, Technology & Learning. Retrieved from http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/part-1-professional-education-learning-communities-definition-process-common-core/ (Links to an external site.)

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The Motley Crew takes on Learning Communities Part 1

The Motley Crew is an online group that my classmates and I created in order to understand some of dynamics that take place in online learning communities. I read a lot about what online learning community are and their characteristics. I grew a little curious and wanted to find out what makes these types of learning communities successful, because in a sense wouldn't our group be a microcosm of a larger professional learning community (PLC)? Wouldn't it makes sense to know how they fit promote professional development. 

     I thought of the inner dynamics of an online learning community as being its internal characteristics. The outer dynamics as being its external characteristics. This blog will focus on some of the internal characteristics, while the next will focus on the external characteristics.

      It appears that online learning begins with a basic understanding of the internal dynamics of a PLC. DeFour (2004) come up with four big ideas when it comes to collaboration. 

1. Ensure the students learn - this ensures a shift in focus from teaching to learning. Every member of the community must ask themselves 3 critical questions:

What do we want each student to learn?

How will we know when each student has learned it?

How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?

2. A culture of collaboration - educators must come together to work collectively to create a collaborative learning community for all. Despite this understanding many educators continue to work in isolation. Yet, it is understood that powerful teacher collaboration results in student achievement.

3. Focus on results - professional learning communities judge their success on the basis of results. "Educational institutions suffer from DRIP (Data Rich Information Poor). The results oriented professional community does not only welcome data it turns data into useful relevant information. 

4. Hard work & Commitment - educators need to focus on learning instead of teaching, work collaboratively with one another, and to hold itself responsible. 

What I liked about the four BIG ideas is that they are simple and easy to remember.  I also like how they can apply to either an on-ground course or an online course. There are characteristics that are exclusive to online collaboration, and I will explore these in another blog.

The important thing with Defour's ideas is that he keeps it short and sweet.  Something that is hard to do these days. 

Work Cited

DeFour, R. (2004). What is a professional learning community? Educational Leadership, 61 (8). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may04/vol61/num08/What-Is-a-Professional-Learning-Community%C2%A2.aspx

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Duh! A community where people learn!

                                       I am member of all kinds of communities both physical and virtual.  The other day, when someone asked me, "What is a learning community?" I answer, "A community where people learn." I then gave myself a pat on the back thinking, what was so hard about that? I suppose, that my questioner was looking for an answer more on the details and less on quip. Just between you and me, I probably need a little schooling myself. 

     Kevin Wilcoxon, shares this definition, "a learning community is a group of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct meaning and confirm mutual understanding." (Garrison, 2007; Wilcoxon, 2011) Nice, it's one of those definitions that should make you feel warm and fuzzy all over. In any case, if you are one of the less curiously inclined, go no further. There is a handy dandy reference at the bottom of this page that you can share with your friends and colleagues.

     For the rest of you, cursed with the curiosity gene, there is a lot of other cool stuff we can look at. There is Garrison's nifty model on learning communities, which has a whole theory is behind it. This diagram shows the three different components of a learning community. (Wilcoxon 2011; Anderson, Archer & Garrison, 2000)

                     1. Teaching presence signifies the design, facilitation and direction of the cognitive and social processes towards the goal of meaningful and educationally worthy learning outcomes.

2. Social presence signifies the ability of the learners to identify with the group, creating a trusting environment, and developing social relationships by way of expressing there individuality.

3. Cognitive presence is the exploration, construction, resolution and confirmation of understanding. (Wilcoxon, 2011)

When you pull all these components together you are creating a learning environment were learning experiences can be shared, and that is a beautiful thing. There we are all warm and fuzzy again. 

All this sharing of new found knowledge makes me want to herald the coming of learning communities. But, before I do that my faithful reader, realize that there is some criticism of the online learning community. Some say they are unstructured, and that learners cannot learn from one another, can you imagine that? This is something I will address in a later post.

I want to encourage you, however to have a look at Wilcoxon's article on Building An Online Community. While, it is geared towards instructional designers, he does a good job in explaining what learning communities are and elaborating on the basic set-up. 

Works Cited 

Garrison, D., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education 2(2-3): 87-105.

Garrison, D. (2007). Online Community Inquiry Review: Social, Cognitive, and Teaching Presence Issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61 – 72.

Wilcoxon, K. (2011). Building an online community. Learning Solutions Magazine. Retrieved from www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/761/building-an-online-learning-community

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Blogging for Educators: Whose Lisa Nielsen?

     Just for the record, I was down for this whole blogging thing from the get go.  The idea of sharing your thoughts with liked minded people online was very appealing to me. I staked out my piece of blogging real estate and waited for the infinite wisdom of my many personal experiences to flow from my fingertips and onto the page. I got nothing. What do I write about in any case?  Trying to narrow myself down to one topic seemed too inhibiting, and blogging about everything under the sun was too meandering. 

     The Motley Crew decided to focus its attention on finding five blogs for our Fun Activity. When we set forth on this endeavor I thought I might once again attempt to start my own blog.  The fact that we had to post a blogspot for our assignment was also an added incentive.  Still, I am left with the same problem, what should I write about? I have explored many different things. Who is my audience?

     I started to search online for someone to model myself after.  I was not looking for anything in particular. I just kept changing words around in my search window.  Until, I eventually came upon this post, Don't Follow the Lead of @chirsky in Banning Technology.  This passage caught my attention:

“While banning might be a good idea for the 'sit, listen, discuss, repeat' style of teaching, for the rest of us, not so much.  The disengaged classroom Shirky describes brings to mind the scene from the 1985 comedy “Real Genius” where eventually most every desk had a tape recorder and eventually the professor also gives in and replaces himself with a reel to reel to deliver his lecture.” (Nielsen, 2014) 

     Lisa Nielsen does not mince words. I got a lot out of what I read and thought that I might have found a kindred spirit. We are both New Yorkers, well I am an ex-New Yorker but lets not nitpick.  We both see the importance of get technology into the classroom.  We both see technology as a way of preparing our learners for a new world.

     In any case, I am definitely a fan, and anyone who wants to get their blog groove on should definitely check her out Lisa Nielsen The Innovative Educator.