Paul's Online Notebook

Reflections on Learning, Community, Collaboration, and Innovation

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For three hours yesterday, I was shoulder to shoulder with a wonderful group of colleagues facilitating a highly-interactive advocacy workshop for people working with libraries and the communities …

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Promotion for the broadcast has begun; to receive notification of the date/time or to receive info about when it will be posted online: https://www.c-span.org/video/?512312-1/communicators-paul-signorelli https://www.instagram.com/p/CQDQgoALWYr/?utm_medium=tumblr

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It started a few days ago when a crow began taking up residency in our backyard, and was soon joined by a companion. Sharing a few photographs with a friend, I found our online conversation quickly drifting to that exquisite little long-blooming pink rose bush (which occasionally sends out a branch or two of equally beautiful red flowers). Although it originally was a ridiculously inexpensive impulse purchase for our kitchen, from a local supermarket, it quickly outgrew its original space and has been thriving more colorfully than any plant we have ever found in any of the lovely nurseries we have visited over a very long period of time–and one of the few roses that does well in our cold, foggy, windy setting.

“You should post that to Facebook,” she suggested. So I have, and I’m adding it here for friends who may not have seen it on Facebook. (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQCr-7MLZTt/?utm_medium=tumblr

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When you have friends like Jill Hurst-Wahl helping you promote your book ("Change the World Using Social Media," from Rowman & Littlefield, January 2021), the possibilities appear endless:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538114414/Change-the-World-Using-Social-Media

For discounted copies of Change the World Using Social Media: 1) go to the publisher’s site for the book https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538114414/Change-the-World-Using-Social-Media; as you place the order, follow the prompt to create a free account with the publisher; when you proceed to check-out, use this code – RLFANDF30 – for a 30% discount. (Feel free to share the link and code with others who might be interested in buying a discounted copy.] 

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Enjoyed an online reunion this morning: was interviewed by Stephen Hurley for his "Hurley in the Morning" VoicEd Radio program:

https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/social-media-to-change-the-world-ft-paul-signorelli/

Stephen and I initially met several years ago when he was working with Jonathan Nalder on Jonathan's first-rate Edunauts podcast, and I have always loved Stephen's approach to interviewing, so being on the air with him today was a cherished opportunity to reconnect while discussing some of the stories and topics from my newly-released book, "Change the World Using Social Media," from Rowman & Littlefield: 

https://rowman.com/.../Change-the-World-Using-Social-Media 

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There is, obviously, that wonderful moment of satisfaction and outright happiness that accompanies receipt of the first printed copies of a book you wrote. And then there are those wonderfully odd—and oddly wonderful—moments when you start seeing copies elsewhere, e.g., in a friend’s home when you briefly stop by to drop off groceries for her. Or in tweets sent by friends/colleagues who have already received copies. Or, as is the case here, in a photograph shared via text by a friend on the other side of the country who received the copy she ordered online. Or as you anticipate the first of what you hope will be many interviews to promote it to the largest possible audience.

 Another word comes to mind at the same time: gratitude. For all the people who contributed to the book. To the wonderful people at Rowman & Littlefield who helped me shape “Change the World Using Social Media” from start to finish and are now helping me move that book into readers’ hands. And to all the activists—small-, medium-, and large-scale—whose work inspired me while I was writing the book and continues to inspire me in my own day-to-day work.

 If the topic appeals to you, please support your local independent booksellers by ordering copies through them, or support Rowman & Littlefield by ordering directly from the company’s site. For discounted copies of Change the World Using Social Media: 1) go to the publisher’s site for the book https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538114414/Change-the-World-Using-Social-Media; as you place the order, follow the prompt to create a free account with the publisher; when you proceed to check-out, use this code -- RLFANDF30 – for a 30% discount. (Feel free to share the link and code with others who might be interested in buying a discounted copy.]

 And, above all, let me know of any successes you have in using the stories from the book to foster positive changes in (y)our own onsite and online communities.

 It all starts with us.

 #ChangeTheWorld #activism #SocialMedia

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They are survivors, those lovely succulents in San Francisco’s Botanical Garden. They grow through crevices in a wall comprised of centuries-old stones from a dismantled Spanish monastery. They thrive through the attention and care of the Garden’s fabulous caretakers. They glimmer in the fading light of a late afternoon California-winter sun on New Year’s Day. And they remind us, in spite of the passage of time, the shift from one year into another, that there are always small, consistent signs of the larger beauty that surrounds us. If we notice it. Cultivate it. Cherish it. And promise to do all we can to help it spread.

#SanFrancisco #California #BotanicalGardens #Succulents #NewYearsDay

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You wake up two days ago at 9 a.m. and mistakenly believe you are at least an hour or two away from dawn. Because it is still dark outside. And cool. And silent. Eerily silent. But your clock is assuring you that you are well past daybreak even if your eyes are offering conflicting information. Then you notice the color of the sky. An almost sickly combination of gray and orange—not the dramatically striking, almost beautiful hues of orange you’ll see in photographs throughout the day—as if the fog and something else unspeakable had mated while you were asleep and produced something you never could have imagined. So you try to capture it with the camera in your tablet. Which makes everything look far more grainy and sooty and slightly out of focus than it really is—no soot out there, no discernible scent of smoke—but which, in spirit, captures the disorienting night-consuming-day sense that is engulfing you because smoke from wildfires here in California is literally blotting out the sunlight. As the day progresses, you wait, in vain, for any sort of clearing of the air. But news reports and online explanations of how the smoke remains high in the atmosphere—up to 40,000 feet above the earth—let you know that the air you are currently breathing is temporarily, relatively clean. And will remain so until light starts to shine through as the smoke falls back to the earth and carries air-quality readings back into the “hazardous” range today. Leaving you wondering what it will take for us to collectively agree that we need to find a way to set our differences aside if we want to positively address the challenges we face and that are choking us while we remain mired in rhetoric, divisiveness, and inactivity.

#SanFrancisco #California #wildfires #ClimateChange

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"Solvitur ambulando," [It is solved by walking.] --attributed to St. Augustine I have always found that taking a walk draws me closer to my creative spirit. It removes the cobwebs. Provides perspective. And even, at times, rekindles a sense of awe, of wonder, of possibilities previously overlooked. Feeling overwhelmed by all I had been reading, seeing, hearing, and doing recently, I carried my usual Sunday morning social-media fast well into the afternoon a month ago to take an extended walk and pay proper attention to some of the details that make me love my neighborhood: San Francisco's Inner Sunset District. Starting down the ceramic-tiled Hidden Garden Steps, I was surprised and charmed by the sight of a painting someone had placed in the lowest terrace of the gardens. Walking along nearby streets, I was comforted by the numerous signs of social engagement on display in neighbors windows. Walking through the charming neighborhood business district, I stopped to admire the spirit of determination many of the local merchants continue to nurture--and I felt a bit encouraged by the brief conversations we had as I visited with them briefly. Strolling through the exquisite botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park, I found a sense of peace and tranquillity embracing me. A friend/colleague from New York, that night, was commiserating with me via Facebook over the tragic losses of long-time family-run businesses I had been describing, and he observed that while he loves his city, he is struck, during his visits to San Francisco, by the strong sense of neighborhood and community he experiences here and how post-shelter-in-place, post-pandemic San Francisco may be a place where those losses may be more deeply felt in some ways than they will be in New York City. I walked around San Francisco that afternoon and saw those changes taking place. Dreaded them. Mourned them. And, in walking, I also found comfort in the great big heart that somehow continues beating here in spite of all the change and loss. #pandemic #SanFrancisco #InnerSunsetDistrict #community

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Another Pandemic 2020 loss here in San Francisco: Louis' Restaurant, a family-run business since 1937 and one of San Francisco's great diners, officially closed permanently earlier this week, as I discovered during a walk near the Cliff House and Land's End a couple of days ago. So many wonderful memories. So many enjoyable meals served by wonderful staff. So much gratitude for everyone who made Louis' irreplaceable. The city seemed a little darker to me at I stood there looking into that silent space that was once so full of life and community.

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The clivias are blooming in our atrium and in our backyard. They don’t care that, for the moment, our world is again completely topsy turvy. That we are sheltering in place in an effort to lessen the impact of what is obviously a terrible situation. That our loved ones (and we) are losing loved ones, and that the losses are increasing exponentially. That some of us are struggling just to make it through another day. In spite of all of this, the clivias are blooming. And we, inspired by their beauty, try to create as much beauty in our world as we can at a time when sadness threatens to overwhelm all thoughts of beauty. The beauty that comes from reaching out to someone by phone or online tools just to say “hello,” or ask how that person is doing, or offer condolences. The beauty that comes from members of communities reaching out to laugh together or share a link to something that will make us laugh. Together. Collaboratively. In friendship and support. With a commitment to finding ways to work together rather than allowing ourselves to be torn apart even further than we were before “distancing” became the word of the day. And with a commitment to apply everything we have ever learned into our efforts to better function—short-term as well as long-term—in a world that appears to be much different than the one we knew a month or a year ago. A world where the clivias are blooming.

#Covid19 #Community #Resilience #InnovateInsideTheBox #Clivias

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In Tampa earlier this week for the kick-off of a lovely blended (onsite-online) series of train-the-trainer sessions for Tampa Bay Library Consortium, I was repeatedly drawn back, during my free time, to the charming Ybor City neighborhood. For its architecture. Its wonderful restaurants. Its vibrant street life. Its opportunities to walk rather than ride/drive everywhere. Its free, historic trolleys. Its rich history. And, of course, its chickens. Not hot on your plate Southern-fried; the kind descended from generations of backyard home-kept hens and roosters. I passed far more time than I had ever spent before just watching chickens as they roamed freely...through Centennial Park, neighborhood gardens, and a few of the streets; listening to them; and admiring the brilliant plumage of the roosters. And as I settle back in (for a few days, before my next trip) here in San Francisco, I'm struck again by how much the act of giving attention to what surrounds us can provide such tremendous levels of pleasure and appreciation for what surrounds us.

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The #InnovateInsideTheBox community appears to still be expanding: the book and the Instagram Book Study group were the topic of discussion last night during the recording of the latest episode of T is for Training, a biweekly podcast I absolutely adore; which is hosted by my friend/colleague Maurice Coleman; and to which I regularly contribute. Also did a follow-up blog posting at https://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/2020/02/14/t-is-for-training-innovators-mindset-instagram-and-trolls/. Guess I'm not quite done yet with Instagram...or the book study group...or the Innovator's Mindset or...or...or... #InnovateInsideTheBox #IITBFinalReflections #TisforTraining #lifelonglearning #Instagram #socialmedia #edtech #learning #innovation #collaboration #community @gcouros @katienovakudl  https://www.instagram.com/p/B8jwHrmlN5M/?igshid=g7vrvqi7cwuu

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Sometimes a book can be much more than what rests upon its pages. It can be a catalyst. A meeting place. An invitation to engage in reflective learning. And the center of a community that forms when each of us, through our own reactions and interactions with the book and other readers, end up producing our own individual, highly-personalized versions of that book—which is exactly the sort of multilevel, potentially transformative experience that George Couros and Katie Novak have produced through Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL [Universal Design for Learning]and the Innovator’s Mindset.  A final set of reflections inspired by my participation in the Innovate Inside the Box Instagram Book Study group should be available at:  https://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/2020/02/12/learning-innovation-and-instagram-iitb-pt-4-of-4-on-reading-innovate-inside-the-box/   All four sets of reflections on my Building Creative Bridges blog should be accessible through this link: https://buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/category/iitb/   #IITBFinalReflections #InnovateInsideTheBox #socialmedia #edtech #learning #innovation #collaboration #community #rest #rejuvenation @gcouros @katienovakudl  https://www.instagram.com/p/B8ekGgll6n0/?igshid=16itz2lpeeq36

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As teacher-trainer-learner-doers, we tend to want to take care of others—even to our own detriment, George Couros and Katie Novak suggest in the final chapter of their book Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL [Universal Design for Learning] and the Innovator’s Mindset. Taking a sick day, missing a workshop, or postponing a formal presentation we have promised to do is something we attempt to avoid at all costs. But the overlooked cost of that approach is the cost to ourselves in terms of health, mental acuity, and overall well-being—and the opportunities other miss when we don’t ask them for assistance in our moment(s) of need. “We’re all in this together” is a truism all too easily forgotten…but brought back to the forefront of our minds when we realize that perhaps we have been spending just a tad too much time trying to meet our commitments to our other members of our communities, e.g., our Innovate Inside the Box Instagram Book Study group! Forgetting that there is a world out there beyond the rooms and walls and virtual spaces in which we all spend too much time. Time which we could be spending observing the world. Learning from it. Immersing ourselves in it. Riding its waves. Exploring its beauty. And stepping outside the boxes into which we so willingly have placed ourselves in ways that keep us from remembering, as George says, “to inspire yourself.”   #IITBCH14 #InnovateInsideTheBox #socialmedia #edtech #learning #innovation #collaboration #community #rest #rejuvenation @gcouros @katienovakudl (at Ocean Beach) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8czqJ_FXQh/?igshid=1nn3disrqi5x4

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We lead. We learn. We grow, collaboratively, with our co-conspirators in learning face to face, online, and in blended (face-to-face and online) communities of learning. Above all, we innovate with what we have instead of succumbing to being overwhelmed with frustration over all the barriers we perceive and face, George Couros and Katie Novak suggest throughout their book Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL [Universal Design for Learning] and the Innovator’s Mindset) and the Innovate Inside the Box Instagram Book Study group that is inspiring these posts on a social media platform I had not much explored before being drawn in by George and Katie. “The only way to help move people forward is through building relationships and understanding where their journey begins, not focusing solely on where you want them to be,” George writes, and we have, through our participation in this innovative online book study group and our explorations of how we might incorporate Instagram into our training-teaching-learning tool kits, turned that lesson on ourselves as we continue building relationships via Instagram and supporting each other in understanding where our journey has begun and where it just might take us.   #IITBCH13 #InnovateInsideTheBox #socialmedia #edtech #innovation #learning #leadership #LeadershipByExample #collaboration #community @gcouros @katienovakudl (at Ocean Beach) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8cRPZWnHy9/?igshid=mcxoealtqm70

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“The ability to reflect is crucial for understanding and processing,” George Couros reminds us as he and Katie Novak take us through the eighth of eight characteristics of the Innovator’s Mindset: reflection. “It is also essential to our ability to move forward and create something from what we have learned. … Reflection time is something that should be seen as vital to learning…” The entire experience of participating in the Innovate Inside the Box Instagram Book Study group here on Instagram has been exactly that: a combination of moving forward in my learning about Instagram as a tool for training-teaching-learning; reading (and rereading) and reflecting on each chapter within Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL [Universal Design for Learning] and the Innovator’s Mindset); creating something that builds upon what I have already learned; and learning more by sharing it on Instagram, seeing how my co-conspirators in learning respond to it, and responding to the results of their own moving/creating/innovating/learning process. And because we are part of a community of learning, we have the chance to celebrate each step we take in moving toward improving what we do in service to the learners who rely on us for support, inspiration, and collaboration.   #IITBCH12 #InnovateInsideTheBox #socialmedia #edtech #innovation #learning #reflection @gcouros @katienovakudl https://www.instagram.com/p/B8aVOy6FdRv/?igshid=jzlywh5c12j6