Picture and Post Wrap Up

June is always a crazy  “go all out”  month in education.  Many thanks to the following educators who joined  Donna  and  me (Mark)  to contribute to the OSSEMOOC  “Picture and Post”  30 day collaborative blogging project.  It has been a great month of reading. Thank you for sharing your thinking and learning.

 

Julie Balen  @jacbalen
Stacey Wallwin  @wallwins
Heather Theijsmeijer  @HTheijsmeijer
Louise Robitaille  @Robitaille2011
Paul McGuire   @mcguirp
Michael Redfearn  @redfearn
Deb McCallum  @bigideasinedu
Lorraine Boulos  @RaineCB

Nicole Morden-Cormier @nickimc40

We will be sharing the occasional summer update here on the blog and/or via the email list as we plan for the next round of OSSEMOOC professional learning opportunities.  Have a wonderful summer.

~Mark & Donna
The OSAPAC OSSEMOOC Team.

Conditions vs Thresholds

Today’s post is a good example of connected learning. This recent tweet from Julie Balen resonates with me.

Watch the video:

We look forward to your comments.

Today’s post by Mark W. Carbone.

Would you go back?

Today’s post is shared by Mark W. Carbone.

Over the last 8 years, one of the constants in my personal growth path, has been through my association with Powerful Learning Practice.  My PLP experiences as a learner, connector, collaborator, community builder and coach have truly been life changing for me.

I continue to enjoy learning through the #plpnetwork twitter stream. This tweet seems to be a perfect fit to the theme of this Picture and Post collaborative blogging project.

After reading  Why I Would Not Go Back to Offline Teaching  why not take a moment and share a reflection by leaving a comment here.  We look forward to learning from your sharing.

Change Readiness: What is your approach?

Today’s Picture & Post is by Mark W. Carbone.

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.

Digging Into Curation

Contributed by Donna Miller Fry

Here at  #OSSEMOOC we are often asked questions like, “How do you find time to blog?”, or  “How do I find good stuff online?”.

While sharing tools is one approach to answering that question, I like to think of all of these activities as part of the process of curation.

When you have a PLN with strong curation skills, navigating through the vast amount of information online becomes so much easier.  In fact, curation is an important skill for everyone.

Sue Waters (@suewaters) has very neatly and concisely explained the curation process.

 

 

In this post, Sue takes us through the process of discovering and recording information that we need, organizing information, contextualizing, editing and making meaning and then sharing.

 

She has also described the process in further detail on her personal blog.

As you head into summer, consider how the suggestions in this post can help you make your own learning and sharing more effective and efficient.

How can we help our students develop better curation skills?

 

 

PBL: Where to Start

I spotted this Twitter post from  Lisa Neale  this morning.  My initial reaction was why wouldn’t you start with a question?

Perhaps we shouldn’t limit ourselves with a starting question.  Read this  interesting insight  from Peter Skillen’s  Construction Zone  blog.

Today’s picture and post shared by  Mark W. Carbone

Learning is Social

In some ways, this picture says it all.

On the other hand,  maybe not.

I think the real question is: what does is look like in the classroom? – or the work place for that matter.  Rows of cubicles are no different than rows of desks.  Learning, and collaborating, in messy mode requires a shift.

How do we build greater comfort and capacity to let go, let the messiness happen and let the students/staff benefit from less control and increased socialization?

Please share. What does this look like, sound like and feel like in your classroom or work space?

This picture and post was shared by  Mark W. Carbone.

Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy

Today’s Picture and Post is shared by Lorraine Boulos, Curriculum Consultant with HCDSB.

Yesterday our curriculum department was involved in some pretty heady reflection about our current teaching practices as we participated in an in-services with presenters Jeff Kugler and Nicole West-Burns from the Centre for Urban Schooling.

Here are some of the comments tweeted during and after our in-service. I think our learning led to more questions than answers, but it was a good awakening for us. I realize that I have carried many assumptions that I now need to challenge.

Lorraine Boulos
Twitter: @RaineCB
Blog: www.raine6.blogspot.ca

Is Linear the Right Approach?

Many of our conversations around eLearning in Ontario involve the idea of online course “content”.  As schools make plans for online learning next year, teachers want to know, “Is there a course?”.

Years ago, when I was teaching full time online, my principal often said, “We are not in the business of content delivery, we are in the business of learning!”.

In one conversation about content this year, a teacher said to me, “Well, wouldn’t you just have the students build their own content?”.

This article in my zite feed caught my attention this morning:

As we think about how our students learn, how does it impact our thinking about what online learning should look like?

Shared by Donna Miller Fry (@fryed)

Failing Forward

This recent tweet makes me think of iterative learning.

How might this approach be beneficial in your classroom or the workplace?

This Picture & Post was submitted by Mark W. Carbone