I appreciated the opportunity to participate as an online panel member for Jamie Reaburn’s (@msjweir) class hosted discussion about Future Learning with: Dean Shareski, Donna Miller Fry, Brenda Sherry, Karen Beutler and Geoff Williams today.
A context for the discussion:
The class led planning for the day allowed for a wonderful opportunity to bring students and a variety of forward thinking educators together for an insightful live broadcast conversation. Hats of to Ms. Weir for facilitating a rich and deep learning experience for her class.
I look forward to further interactions with the class to learn more about their perspective on the event.
Live Twitter stream for #FutureLearning
Storify capture of session tweets by Donna Miller Fry.
Follow @CHCI3uu
Read Jamie’s blog.
Update to original post: This project has since been featured by the Ontario Ministry of Education as exemplary modelling of instructional practice, students voice and technology enabled learning.
~Mark
Over the fall I have enjoyed many conversations with educators across the province through my work at WRDSB and connections through OSAPAC, OSSEMOOC and ECCO. I note the themes in these conversations, which have led me to a personal wondering.
On one hand we have Dr. Fullan’s research backed and detailed go forward comments in A Rich Seam and other recent publications. We hear messaging about changing practice, improving student learning and quality assessment strategies. Digging a little deeper leads to technology enabled learning, innovation and innovative projects, student voice/choice, student generated content/learning artifacts, reflective practice, sharing of learning (blogging etc.) … even highlighting innovations and change of practice on special provincial days to highlight the importance of change.
Hold that thought!!!
In other conversations centred on student voice/choice, the topic of gathering student data floated into the discussion. Generally speaking, it seems that data collection appears to be anchored in very traditional practices that don’t really allow for voice, choice, leveraging technology, differentiation, collaboration, creating, … you get the picture.
From this vantage point, it would seem to me that there are competing interests: student voice/choice, innovation, change of practice VS standard traditional data collection strategies.
I can’t help but wonder: If changing personal practice and innovation are truly critical shifts to be achieved in education … is it time to remove the competing juggernaut and actually focus on changing practice as a first priority?
~Mark
This post in my Virtual Coffee Shop series features a discussion with Huron Heights Secondary School Principal Ed Doadt examining the initial excitement, impact and observations around launching the school into a 1 to 1 program for all grade nine students are provided with Chromebooks.
Learn the insights through our discussion.
~Mark
As summer winds down and the sunset times are getting notably earlier, the start of a fresh school year is almost upon us. Generally, I sense a focus on anticipation for what will unfold, but within this notion, I find myself zeroing in on what will be different, what opportunities will come into play and how to bring change into effect.
I look forward to my continued work with Donna Fry on the OSSEMOOC project where we focus efforts on connected leadership and the importance of Now and NEXT. I have set a personal and group ‘NEXT’ for 2015/16 and thought I would share them in different formats to illustrate that there are many approaches to creating your online voice.
Personal:
.
— prepared with Tellagami which I learned about at #CATC15 —
Group:
Listen to the podcast:
What will your NEXT be? Join the conversation by sharing your plans via blog post, podcast, animation or video clip with OSSEMOOC by contributing to the collaborative project.
~Mark
Once again our annual summer computer camp, CATC By the Water, was a great learning experience. You can check out some of the learning and innovating thinking at: CATC Camp learning and sharing or CATC innovators.
One of my favourite conversations this year happened when I took the time to sit down with George Couros and Donna Fry to revisit a conversation from a year ago, where we debated why educators look to one well known lead or theory to follow rather than leveraging the room – the educators who are learning, changing, innovating and sharing publicly. After all, the smartest person in the room, is the room!
Personal photo
Digging deeper into the conversation this year we talked about another angle that I believe is important in this discussion. Perhaps the most important element is not if fact “the one” vs “the room”, but each of us recognizing which one of these causes the personal disruption needed to learn, change, grow and share. After all, we each have a responsibility for owning our professional learning journey. Perhaps a good term for this would be “differentiated disruption“.
Personal photo
Where do you stand: the one, or the room? What does it take to shake up or clarify your practice?
~Mark
David Truss writes on his blog “Pair-of-Dimes”: “It seems odd to speak of lone wolves to you, a person that is so intricately… connected. And yet, as you read on, you will relate to the loneliness that I describe, that I too have shared. Sometimes it is surprisingly …” [ read more here ]
This summer I had the opportunity to watch the movie Patch Adams (1998) again. It has been years since I originally watch the movie. I remembered the general story line, but this time I was stuck by the parallels between Patch’s journey and courageous journey that many educators are currently undertaking as David describes in his blog post.
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Adams#/media/File:080515patch.jpg
Themes that resonated with me include having the courage to experiment, innovate, being brave enough to step out of your comfort zone, and a focus on making connections – the human connection to build relationships and influence perspectives.
Without risking spoiling the plot in case you have not viewed the movie, the closing 15 minutes contains such a powerful message about following your passion(s), making a difference and being willing to challenge the status quo in positive ways. I wonder if these phases will capture your interest: the power of transference, win/lose vs win/win, share your compassion, the passion to serve others, and carry the flame like a brush fire. This movie is well worth the watch (or re-watch) in my opinion. Perhaps viewing this movie will influence your next!
Related Material:
Wikipedia: Patch Adams
Patch Adams, M.D. – Transform 2010 – Mayo Clinic
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdCrPBqQALc]
~Mark
In my reading last week, I came across an article from the Disney Institute titled “Leadership Lessons From Walt Disney: Perfecting The Customer Experience“. As a connected learner and leader, I am always interested in ideas for improving improving service. The interesting part is taking time to consider how new ideas can be applied to another setting – K12 education in this case.
Consider these two quotes from the article:
“At Disney Institute, we were recently reflecting on the phrase, “simple is the new smart,” and it reminded us of a leadership philosophy we share with our clients and training program attendees – keep it simple so that everyone understands.”
“Walt Disney was a master at this. One of the simplest, yet most powerful and timeless leadership lessons we have learned from Walt is: “You don’t build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them.”
Photo by Stephanie Schmidt (my daughter)
If you consider education through the perspectives of “simple” and “build it for them” (the students), what would be different in education? My initial thoughts include:
What would you add to the “K12 by Disney” list? Please share your insights to this idea by leaving a comment or connecting on Twitter.
Additional Resources:
Read the full Disney article: Perfecting the Customer Experience
~Mark
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
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’.
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:
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:
are all important elements in sustaining the synergy and energy of forward movement.
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.
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 