The more I know; the less I know! (ProCon.Org)

Confucius said, "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." This is a concept that has rolled around in my brain for years, although I never said it so succinctly. When I was in my third year of University, I remember realizing that the more I know the less I know because there is so much more to learn that I still do not know! Make sense?

I'm not even supposed to be working on this blog because I'm trying to finish off my obligations for the EC&I 831 class that I am taking, but I stumbled across a site as I was browsing through some of my the unread blogs in my Goggle Reader account that really illustrated the point above. I visited the blog, Free Technology For Teachers, and specifically a blog titled, "ProCon -Helping Students Evaluate Controversial Topics." It looks like it would be a good tool for students engaged in researching controversial topics in school. However, it is a site that illustrates just how much there is that I do not know; I'd never heard of it before this morning and now I'm writing about it. I've never used the site and would have to take some time navigating around it to know its full capabilities, but because I do not teach a lot I doubt I will use it. However, I do think there are teachers who could use the site and so I'm sharing my latest discovery yet again!

The sad part is I have over 300 unread blogs in my Reader account; how many more gems have I missed because of time? I guess though in a way this is the power of EC&I 831; it forced my to learn a lot, but in doing so made me realize there is so much more that I do not know! Nevertheless, it has given me the tools to learn more and independently. I am a better educator as a result!

I have attached two images (click on them to make them larger) above for those interested in ProCon.org; might be enough information there to get you to have a look for yourself.




Source of Confucius Quote: Inspirational and Motivational Quotes @ http://quotations.about.com/cs/inspirationquotes/a/Knowledge4.htm

Major Digital Project - the end of the beginning!

My Major Digital Project for EC&I 831 is an E-portfolio. It is a compilation of my learning over the last three months, as well as, a venue to house 2 of the 3 main parts of my project. The first part is actually a Moodle Class, Career Ed. 7, that I created to use with a group of Grade 7 students I teach. Part 2 is a Wikispace that I have created for the benefit of the staff of La Loche Community School; it includes scheduling, important dates, and numerous links that teachers will find beneficial. It is not complete; it is a space that will continue to be developed and improved upon. The next phase of the site will be to develop teacher video tutorials using Jing for school programs like MAT (mark and attendance program). Finally, the third part of the project was to learn about WordPress for the purpose of teaching e-portfolios to High School students. I decided that to make the experience meaningful, I would make my own portfolio; this WordPress blog pulls together the main parts of my major digital project and it includes aspects of almost all of my learning through the EC&I 831 class. I hope you enjoy your visit and please feel free to leave me your comments; I really appreciate feedback!

My Major Digital Project is now nearing completion, at least as far as evaluation is concerned, and I am ready to share it with my colleagues and the world. I just have one piece left to add (my final thoughts on the class) and I hope to have it in place either today or tomorrow.

If you would like to see what I've been working on over the last three months, you can visit the site by clicking on the link here. You can also hear more about it by watching the YouTube video below that I produced using Jing Pro.

Tiny Chat and Hashtags

Sometimes the unplanned leads to the best learning. Tonight, a few of us from the EC&I 831 class were searching for our beloved prof., Alec Couros, because we believed we had a class. He believed we had an e-mail with instructions for what we were to do and some actually received it while others were wondering what was going on. Anyway, I tweeted out that if anyone had an alternative way of getting a hold of Alec to let him know that we were wondering where he was. In the responses, it was suggested that we have class without him; @Capohanka suggested we meet in a bar, but considering the distance between us that was not a realistic option. She then suggested I do a hashtag and find him that way. Having no idea what a hashtag was I had to ask her to explain it to me. The conversation went as follows:

@capohanka explain the hashtag thing please

@Kicode hashtags are a way to tag tweets and then search for them as a group.

@capohanka okay so you attach it to the end of a tweet?

@Kicode yep. then you can search for the tag. Search for #itsummit.

starting a new hashtag - where in the world is courosa "witwi@courosa"

@capohanka it would like my last tweet?

@Kicode yes, but you put a "#" in front of it. He was at the #itsummit today so he prob just got home.

@capohanka Okay - learned something today ! Thanks for walking me through it! #witwi@courosa

I now understand what those comments were on Twitter but I was too shy to ask about! Thanks @capohanka!

During this conversation @bbcrfc (DLowry) suggested that our class meet in Tiny Chat. I had never heard of it before and told him I would have to check it out. I wasn't going to at the time, but something pushed me to check it out and I quickly learned that it was a very simple chat room that can be limited easily to only people you invite. However, I did a tweet with a link and was pleased to be joined by @kimcottini, @gracemcleod @bbcrfc @capohanka @leannemerkowsky @dslink and @courosa! Yes, we finally found him! The nice part though was that some of us in the EC&I 831 class had a sustained chat on Twitter that involved a few others from outside of the class including @bbcrfc @capohanka and @shareski! Some of my classmates added @bbcrfc as someone to follow on Twitter and we all got to learn a little more about each other while I got to learn about Tiny Chat and hashtags. Not a bad way to spend the evening!

Blogging with benefits!

When I began the EC&I 831 class back in January, I had a very vague idea about what blogs were, but I really was not sure how to find them on the internet and, therefore, largely ignored that realm. What I knew, I learned back in the fall before I started this class. I had met Alec Couros and I was certain he would expect us to take up blogging so I started to experiment with writing my own thoughts before the class began; I had no idea or expectation that much of what I would be learning in his class would be because of the blogs of others. At first, I was only following a few blogs, but when I realized the power of Google Reader and discovered links to blogs through Twitter, I quickly jumped at the opportunity to follow more. I am now following 45 blogs including 21 from my class and another class; I also have several others in the back of my mind that I may yet follow. I sometimes find myself reading and writing comments for several hours in the evening and I want to do more! I am not being mark driven; I am knowledge driven. There are so many people sharing ideas and tips about how to do things or where to find information that I have to put off some things that I would like to know about. Even with my efforts, I still have some 306 blog entries to read not including archived blogs. Obviously, learning to be selective in what you read and even who you read is an important skill to hone.

I have found out about many different applications that I have tried as a result of blogging and microblogging (Twitter). I am also getting comments from people who are thanking me for sharing what I've learned from others which leaves me with "warm fuzzies" by the way! I am being entertained and educated at the same time. I have found the experience of reading and reacting to what I read in a public manner to be a huge step in my own thinking. Ironically, I think I am becoming a more positive person as a result of being a critical reader and responder. I now have a better understanding of what it takes to put yourself out there in print and even if I don't agree fully with what I read, I find myself reacting positively. I share my thoughts on the topic and compliment the writer for stimulating discussion.

On the down side of blogging, it can be hard on the ego. You strive to put something in print that you hope others will see and react to, but often you end up with only a few comments and in some cases no comments (and sometimes after spending hours drafting your blog). The reverse is true as well; sometimes you get a comment from someone you don't know and you realize there are people paying attention and reflecting on your words.

I am now trying to learn more about the things that make a blog something worth reading. On Tuesday, March 10, my class was lead by Will Richardson who has been blogging since 2002 and is known for being a "trendsetter in Education."I asked him what does he consider to be the qualities of a good blog. First of all he did not define a good blog; he answered the question by giving the qualities of blogs that he likes to read. This is roughly what he said, " I like to read people who are willing to test their ideas who are not coming out saying this is the way the world is..., people who write well, who read widely and who have a certain amount of passion in their voice ..., people who are asking questions and engaging people in conversations, who make it about ideas..., people who provoke thinking and conversations ..." To hear Will himself you can visit the Elluminate session here. I liked his response; despite his experiences blogging, he framed his answer from his own perception and did not pretend to represent all readers of blogs. His humility is remarkable considering his achievements.

I often feel like I take more than I give online. However, when you consider the wealth of information available, I suppose we all take more than we give. Blogging is changing me into a contributer though, and I am enjoying writing in way I've never experienced before.

Update March 21, 2009

I found this blog on what makes a blog good and thought I would add it to this posting. It also includes a good activity for student bloggers. Thanks to Clarence Fisher for the excellent ideas.

Reflecting on the journey with thanks to Ulises Mejias

EC&I 831 Computers in the Classroom has already been an incredible journey for me; I have seen corners of the internet that I didn't know existed and I have plunged myself into an "electronic social world" that is becoming something of an obsession. I'm checking Twitter and my Google Reader Account regularly to see if the people I am following are live on Twitter or if they have posted a new blog. People that I've never met are sharing things with me (and others) on a personal level, while at the same time they are sharing things on a professional level. Current events are discussed and quirky news items are circulated. I can't remember where I read it but someone referred to Twitter as being like an electronic staffroom; I didn't understand it then but now I see the parallel. You really never know what you will talk about once you enter.



So the question then is how do these social networks affect learning? I know my experience has seen my horizons broadened and I am constantly finding myself reflecting on my beliefs and attitudes. If it has such power on individuals, surely it should be an easy sell as a new tool for teachers to use with students.



Well consider the words of Ulises Mejias who wrote in A Nomads Guide to Learning, "It is relatively easy to incorporate new technologies into the learning process if the goal is to merely replicate the traditional ways of doing things without significantly disturbing institutional values." The thing is social networks by there very nature are more self-directed and in a school environment it would mean a teacher would have to sacrifice the director's role leaving students more and more responsible for their own learning. Mejias went on, "But what is more difficult, and for this very reason perhaps a more worthy exercise, is to introduce new technologies while we step back and question the pedagogical principles that inform our educational models." Social networks are changing the way people learn and who they get there information from; the notion that the teacher and the prescribed curriculum as they are written today controls the content would be gone forever. Social networking when used responsibly is already a challenge to current pedagogical principles; the building of personal learning networks may become a normal activity at schools and learning how to build a personl learning network will likely become a part of the curriculum.


Mejias also looks at social networking as a way of personalizing e-learning, "What social software can do is to reintroduce the social back into the learning equation, while preserving some of the advantages in personalization that e-learning and flexible learning have introduced." If it has this kind of impact on e-learning, it would seem that more and more learning may be done through the world wide web. Even as I write this I am learning and yet it my choice about how much I write or even what I write about; the assignment expects me to choose my own learning path. This class essentially requires the students to define their content; it is the processes that matter. If this is the future of education, we are heading for some radical innovations in education in the years ahead; we are questioning our 'pedagogical principles'!

Attention Community Based Master's Students

I know many of us are feeling the strain of work, a new class (for me EC&I 831), and an action research project that is due this spring. I have this nagging voice in my brain telling me, "You gotta get going!" I am hard on myself, but I feel like I'm procrastinating. Well I decided to check procrastinating out on Youtube just to see what I could find; and I found this beautiful little clip that I now use when talking to students who delay getting to their responsibilities. It's a good laugh I hope you enjoy it.

Goggle Reader and Labels

I dabbled into Goggle Reader last night and added the blogs of those in my class to Goggle Reader. Well today I played around with it a bit and learned that as I read through blogs that people had posted the number of blog entries to read automatically decreased. I was able to read through all the blogs of my classmates (ok - some I scanned) and I now know there is nothing left for me to read in their blogs as of 11:59 p.m. I now understand why Alec Couros was encouraging us to use Goggle Reader; I do not have to go to the participant page on the EC & I 831 Wiki (http://eci831.wikispaces.com/Directory) to find the blogs of my classmates and that can save a person quite a bit of time. I am wondering how to organize folders in Goggle Reader; I will have to visit the course tutorial and see what it says.

I am also wondering about the labels that we can attach to our blogs. I just started adding them to my last couple of blogs and I noticed I got more feedback from others on the web. I'm guessing by adding labels I make it easier for web surfers to find my writing with a goggle search. I think I'll do a search to test my hunch!