Category Archives: Connected Leader

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, Digital Citizenship, Growth Mindset, ProfessionalLearning

DigCit Toronto 18

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As excitement builds for first Digital Citizenship Summit Toronto on Saturday October 27th, I look forward to participating, sharing and networking at the event.

Digital Citizenship is an ‘old‘ but important concept –  brought to life at the birth of social media.  Areas of consideration and discussion included your digital footprint, staying safe online, building and participating in online communications etc.  Educators shared ideas and resources regarding approaches to embed Digital Citizenship into the classroom. In the educational context, current work expands to digital leadership, using digital tools to solve problems, expanding understanding (global perspectives) and to move society forward in positive ways.

Context: 

I can remember the early adopter days 10-12 years ago.  Everyone, at least in my mainly educators circle,  was focusing on the potential – new connections, sharing blog posts and resources, kicking the tires on new ideas and approaches, developing your PLN etc.  The future looked bright and rosy.

When you consider how things have evolved,  the complexity is overwhelming! While I do think the ‘solid base’ I described above is still there, one must contend with Influencers, bots, fake news, the far left,  the far right, alternative agendas, promotion of “the negative”, privacy challenges etc.  We owe it to today’s youth, our students, to learn to navigate this digital landscape safely and positively with an eye for opportunity and “doing good”.

Check out related blog posts by other conference organizers Jennifer Casa Todd and Tina Zita

If this topic interests you, consider attending the first Digital Citizenship Summit Toronto,   this Saturday (October 27th, 2018). I hope to see you there!

~Mark

 

 

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, Leadership Perspective, open learning

Knowledge Mobilization Context – a response

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A couple of weeks ago  Donna Miller Fry  blogged about open education leadership, exploring the question: Is knowledge more rapidly mobilized through the system when leaders work openly?

Her post begins “For the purposes of my work, I am considering personal professional openness – the concept of sharing thinking and learning in open spaces, curating resources for others, engaging in open conversations in text or through broadcast technologies like podcasts, videos and YouTube Live, blogging and commenting on blogs, and participating across the educational boundaries in wider conversations across the web. Working open” means different things in different contexts …”   You can read Donna’s full blog post [here] .

In my view, this is a well written post, and as is typical of Donna, she invites further comment and discussion.  I have been mulling over my thinking on this topic since reading the post and decided to share my response as another blog post.

I fully believe in open learning, sharing and question asking,  and do my best to model this in my own practice.  My experience, and I believe that of many, is that the personal value of being a connected professional, connected learner, and engaged in global conversations is truly boundless learning.  Yet, Donna’s post has prompted me to do some deeper thinking about context of open learning and knowledge mobilization.

My thinking on this has moved to a triangulation model of open learning, conditions & culture  and purpose/focus with knowledge mobilization at the centre.

mk-triangulation

The question for me is what brings knowledge mobilization to life beyond personal growth and interest?

openness: sharing thinking, learning and questions openly – publicly in digital forums

conditions & culture: innovation and creativity – an interest and receptiveness in moving positions and growth

focus: alignment to a purpose or goal  (beyond self)

Applying knowledge mobilization strategies to system
system change is often a task faced by large organizations, including school boards.  The open learning model that Donna describes in her post I believe is a key element in change:  learning openly from others, leveraging the “global room” of the digital world,  bringing new ideas and  experiences to the table,  challenging  and adjusting thinking and landing solidly on the right place to promote, activate and execute system change.

Mobilizing knowledge through to a system requires a certain receptiveness, a level of readiness, a plan.  In my view, a culture that embraces innovation and creativity is needed or must be created to truly embrace change.  This process takes time, but is important. If this is missing, the pace of change – time needed for the process will undoubtedly be extended, perhaps less impactful or worse, not achieved at all.

Finally, meshing open learning to a culture of change, innovation and creativity then applying it to a strategic focus or goal amplifies the entire process.  The strategic focus may be drastic such as a company reinventing itself to “stay alive” in the business world, or perhaps the focus is change one or more elements in an education system. No the less, understanding the need and target for the change process must be well understood.

I believe the triangulation approach creates purpose and amplification for planned change.

Your thoughts?

~Mark
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Connected Leader, Connected Learning, GAFE, PLN, Presentation Resource

#GAFEsummit London Session Resource

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Today’s post shares my resource prepared for #gafesummit London ON (May 28/29, 2016. It was a great day of learning, making new connections and of course had many of those special ‘sparkle’ moments when you meet an online connection face to face for the first time. This particular summit had a special connection for me as a Saunders SS graduate.

gafesummit_london_Saunders

Resources:

~Mark
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Connected Leader, Connected Learner, Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, PLN, reflection

Reflections on Innovator’s Mindset Panel 4

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I enjoyed supporting the social media component of this week’s Innovator’s Mindset panel discussion.  As I listened to the panelists and monitored the Twitter stream, I jotted down phrases that resonated with me in terms of student centred thinking and important professional practice.

I framed a few questions from the discussion here:

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I thought the panelists shared some insightful professional practice elements:

Tell your story:  everyone  (students and educators)  has a story.
Reflect
Challenge Thinking as part of your regular practice
Make it Public
Model – model what you seek
We are collectively better and stronger as co-learners .

Will you take the challenge?
Will you support change and choose to model normalizing the practice of making your learning and thinking visible?

Related Resources:

Storify of panel discussion 4
Follow the Twitter stream at  #innovatorsmindet 

View the panel discussion

~Mark
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Connected Leader, Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC

One Word ONT 2016

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I love the idea of setting a focus for a period of time to guide your thinking, actions and reflections – Considering One Word.  This  past year I choose “model” as my word.  I really believe in modelling what you seek, so this seemed like a great choice.

I have been pondering my choice for this year as I wanted build on my 2015 choice.  I finally settled on “ignite” for my 2016 word.  This year my goal is to make more connections, start more conversations, be intentional about empowering people with a goal of creating greater synergy for change.

candles

Ready to connect?  Catch me on twitter at  @markwcarbone  or via  about.me/markwcarbone

 

~Mark
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Connected Leader, Connected Learner, Interview, Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning, SAMR, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Digging Deeper into Edu and Edtech

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When opportunity knocks,  answer!

I was recently approached by Kristin Frizzell (@71frizzell) who is taking a course with  Brenda Sherry  (@brendasherry)  to do an interview as a component of the course. This sounded like a great opportunity so we worked out a suitable time this week.

I was impressed with the set of questions the class collaboratively developed around the intersection of learning, instructional practice and edtech.  Our Google Hangout on Air meeting was our first “official”  face to face (F2F)  — hmmm, make that virtual F2F  —  meeting and conversation.  Awesome!

I hope our discussion around the question set stimulates your thinking and supports your learning.

I look forward to a continued connection with ongoing learning and sharing with Kristin.

~Mark

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, OSSEMOOC, Social Media

Beyond the Wall

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This week I came across an article about “hitting the wall” with social media (via social meda 🙂).   I thought it was a good read,  and it was certainly easy for me to relate this to many conversations  I have had about the  OSSEMOOC  project.

Getting to the wall seems to be an all too familiar story, the “too” problem – takes too much time,  too few characters, too many choices, too much online time, too hard to organize, too … well, you get the picture.

brick wall now what

Yet,  when people stick at it and get beyond these questions and concerns by finding connections, relevance and meaning, they don’t go back.  Learn to channel information,  improve meaning or context, contribute and balance time & work flow in new and more powerful ways.

There are some nice tips about setting realistic goals and pacing yourself. You can read the full article at  social media today.  Why not apply some of these tips to the  30 day program at OSSEMOOC (see sidebar).

Make your “wall experience” a journey,

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a personal journey!!!

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SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Perhaps you will find that your journey will have this result!

~Mark

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, engagement, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, SAMR, student voice, Technology Enabled Learning

Breadcrumbs and Ripples

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The 2015 WRDSB learning carousel day focused on  Innovative Change  was a great day of learning and connecting for me. I was impressed with the quality and quantity of the sharing sessions and loved the energy in the room.  As a reflection,  I wanted to share a few things that resonated with me by bringing together ideas from two conversations.

Each year, we have been purposeful about initiating targeted new projects to model change, inform our collective practice and leverage opportunities to share and role model.  Some of our projects from the last few years are captured in this whiteboard ‘clip’.

TELT-01

Along this journey, we have learned some important items or “breadcrumbs” as I like to call them,  that should be applied to new projects and scaling up strategies as we move our innovative change agenda forward.

Some of our breadcrumbs include:

  • learning IS messy. We need to accept this and continue to play in this space.
  • co-learning between teachers, and teachers & students is a really important element.  It is OK to fail.
  • shifting writing from paper to digital spaces makes a difference
  • student voice and choice are motivators in the learning process
  • using technology as an enabler creates new possibilities  to be explored in the context of the C’s and the  SAMR model.  Think about boundless and joyful learning.

breadcrumbs

In my view, as we look at a path forward, each of us has to own our piece of the collective through our own actions.  I like the question,  what is your next?  Creating a culture where:

  • conversations of change and identifying entry points are ongoing and natural
  • we celebrate small steps forward with joy and encouragement
  • the process of nudge, encourage, give/have  permission and expect is openly explored
  • we continue to be intentional and
  • we share our experiences in open and  easy to access ways

are all important elements in sustaining the synergy and  energy of forward movement.

ripple effect

Join the move to  innovative change and add to the ripple effect.  Learn, connect, reflect and share.

~Mark

Related Resources

The storify of the days twitter stream.

The ongoing twitter discussion at  #wrdsbchange.

The  Innovative Change  blog.

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, Connected Learning, GAFE, Leadership Perspective

The Importance of Now and Next

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N  O  W
E                     
X
T

Last fall I can remember sitting in a Starbucks with Donna Fry working on our  OSSEMOOC  project, and talking passionately about the importance of being “present” – living life in the moment and explicitly doing the best thing possible in that moment:  listen, understand, suggest, advise, coach, act …  you get the picture.   I don’t recall specifically how we got onto the topic, but the importance of the conversation stayed with me.  This is a choice,  a way of living, a way to interact with people.   That is the “now”.

StarbucksLogo

In his recent address to Microsoft employees on the 40th anniversary of  the company, Bill Gates restated his views on the importance of making  “the power of technology accessible to everyone, connect people to each other and make personal computing available everywhere.” 

And then, there it was – a very powerful quote:  “What matters most is what we do next”  he wrote. Let that sink in:  What matters most is what we do next.

Lets take a moment to frame the importance of now & next in terms of our GAFE Summit experience this weekend.

Clock-now

Be in the moment – learn, experiment, play, document,  ask and savour the joy of learning.

Clock-next

What will you do to

  • keep a new connection
  • document your learning
  • share your reflections
  • change your practice
  • make your learning visible and/or
  • nurture those around you?

It is up to you.  What is your  NEXT?

~Mark

Resources:   Read Bill Gates email address to Microsoft employees email address.

 

 

Connected Leader, Connected Learning, Leadership Perspective, PLN, ProfessionalLearning, uLead

uLead15 Keynote reflections

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The kickoff to the uLead 2015 conference was spectacular: over 800 educators at a great venue with Simon Breakspear and Abdul Chohan keynoting.

Simon focused on 3 keys for critical change:

  • Design Learning Futures
  • Embrace Radical Collaboration and
  • NEVER stop learning.

I am keen to reflect on this framework and see what else I can learn about the approach.

Now, how many times have we heard the “never stop learning” or “life long learners” messaging.  The giant  BUT  is you HAVE to LIVE it – lip service doesn’t make the grade.  Not only can we never stop learning, but we have to take things to the next level:  connected learning, a commitment to sharing and making your thinking visible.

Are you up for the challenge?

I really enjoyed hearing Abdul’s story and appreciated the learnings he shared.  Some personal highlights include:

  • theories of action do not equal a well understood vision
  • technology allows us to do things we just could not do before – in all walks of life.  Why resist this in education?
  • go beyond substitution to redefine (#SAMR thinking)
  • leading change: build community, secure accountability, manage process, develop the people and secure with vision
  • Simple, reliable and equitable technology is ESSENTIAL
  • increasing planned coincidences
  • take it global
  • the challenge of taking the complex and making it simple

EasyButton

The highlighting of the easy button approach to technology really resonates with me. Complexity drives people away which means the flow between F2F, online, and digital resources is broken … the chance to do something that was not previously possible (#SAMR) is gone or at least unlikely.  Simplicity, reliability, equitable access and sufficient bandwidth are requirements.  I think this aligns with the ideas of Digital Inclusion.

Finally, a few tweets to give you a flavour of the learning and sharing. Check out the full stream at  #ulead15.

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u02

u03

u04

u05

u06

u07

u08

u09

and … Abdul’s closing challenge.

u10

~Mark