K12 Summer Reflection Challenge

June 27, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

I typically listen to Craig Norris on CBC KW 89.1 on my morning drive into the office and yesterday was no different. I happened to catch an interview Craig did with Roger Farwell, the new CEO of Creative Enterprise Inc.

What caught my attention in the interview was the idea of one’s “change stance”. In a time of rapid change you can sit back and see what happens OR actively ‘play in the space’ to position yourself for the best possible outcome.

Lets apply this notion to education. This is a time of rapid change in many areas of the K12 environment.

instructional practice: facilitated, inquiry based, PBL, collaborative etc.
assessment practices
technology enabled learning
SAMR
TPACK
owning your own professional learning
sharing
reflecting
collaborating
making your thinking visible
mobility
technology trends
bring your own devices (BYOD)
etc.

Summer reflection challenge: What will your approach be to educational change? Will you sit back and see what happens OR actively ‘play in the space’ to position yourself for the best possible outcome?

Read the CBC Creative Enterprise Initiative (CEI) post.

~Mark

Note: cross posted to OSSEMOOC.

21st century learning, Connected Learning, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, Social Media, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Sharing your Learning: Collaboration

June 24, 2014 markwcarbone 1 Comment

This year, WRDSB teachers Alison Bullock and Andrew Bieronski ran a very successful cross curricular and cross panel collaborative project with grade 4 and grade 10 students.

Full project details may be read [here]. A “quick peek” overview of the project is included below as a point of reference.

The Collaborating

The grade 10 students will provide mentorship to the grade 4 students as they research, plan and write the scripts needed for the audio guided tour files. Students will be collaborating through the WRDSB Google Apps for Educators (GAFE) environment. The role of the grade 10 students will be related to their civics and English courses.

All students, in both grades, will share about their experiences in this collaborative learning project through their blogs. Blogging platforms may include Google, WordPress or Weebly.

As part of the professional learning with this project, Alison and Andrew met with me for a live streamed interview to share their learning and reflections on collaboration, student voice, engagement and professional practice.

~Mark

21st century learning, Connected Learning, ProfessionalLearning, Technology Enabled Learning

UnGoogleable Questions

June 19, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Today’s post is a reblog from my original “picture and post” on OSSEMOOC.

Part of my weekly routine is to check out the Twitter #cdnedchat hashtag stream. I have learned that there is always something interesting to check out.

The words “UnGoogleable Questions” in this post seemed to jump right out at me. While Google is a great tool that provides almost instantaneous access to limitless information, it is important to pause and recognize that this is just the beginning in the context of a learning journey.

What does the notion of “UnGoogleable Questions” mean to you in terms of asking, inquiry, probing and going deeper with learning? How might this impact your professional practice?

Resource: Link to Nancy’s full blog post.

Ask great questions!

~Mark

Connected Learner, Connected Learning, PLN, ProfessionalLearning, Social Media

Celebrate and Share with Twitter

June 12, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

June is always a busy month in education, but last night a number of WRDSB staff found time to participate in a year end Twitter Chat to celebrate successes in the 13/14 school year.

I was struck by the richness of the discussion, and the level of openness. You can share in the learning by reviewing the Storified capture of the live chat [here].

I look forward to continuing the sharing of our learnings through these chats next year.

~Mark

OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning, Things That Caught My Eye

Tweet as Prompts

June 11, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

When I saw this tweet this morning, it reminded of a recent conversation with Rod Lucier where the point of discussion centred around the ideas that:

a) all positions have leadership components and
b) perhaps the best leadership position is the one you are in.

Using this tweet as a prompt, I think it is time worthy to reflect on the leadership traits described here.

What changes will you make to your practice?

~Mark

Note: Cross posted to OSSEMOOC

21st century learning, Digital Citizenship, SAMR, student voice

Digital Citizenship meets SAMR

June 5, 2014 markwcarbone 4 Comments

Setting aside the debate of whether “digital citizenship” should just be “citizenship”, I think there continues to be a need for focus on the digital aspect of citizenship as people learn the in and outs of our rapidly evolving digital world.

I enjoyed an opportunity to have an in depth conversation with the WRDSB student senate and trustee Kathi Smith last night on this very topic. The discussion was lively, and a number of important points were made through the evening.

In the end, we landed on digital citizenship (or D.C. as we ended up abbreviating it):

is not a “check box” or single event
be embraced and lived
must be relevant
role modelled by staff and students
experienced with real life tools and contexts

There was agreement that action is needed to continue to raise awareness among students in terms of managing your digital profile, understanding what online information about you is actually ‘out there’ and understanding the impact of your choices and actions.

I look forward to meeting with next year’s senate members to explore options to bring the ideas and action items identified into play.

On the drive home, I was wondering what approaches to teaching, coaching, mentoring and role modelling digital citizenship would look like if you applied the 4 stages of the SAMR model. Hmmm.