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Professional Learning: We are the experts we need

On Donuts

Someone once told me that it would be better for me to eat a dozen donuts in one day than a single donut every day for 12 days.

It has been a while since that day and I wasn’t listening with especially detailed attention, but my recollection of the reason was that the body has a threshold for fat and once it reaches that threshold, the body directly passes the rest.

I think of this story from time to time because it reminds me that the same raw materials can have a different effect depending on how you handle them.

On Experts

The pressures and resources associated with organizing a PD Day — mostly the brief-but-intense period of time and the limited-but-earmarked amount of money — sometimes result in the procurement of an “expert” to come into the school to deliver an address to staff or faculty on a topic chosen by the organizers (often the same people responsible for the time and money).

This can lead to a feeling that PD is “being done to” staff, that it takes people from outside the organization to provide the group with ideas of significance, or that the single-day dose of inspiration and ideas will provide a clear map of the road ahead.

I’m pleased to say that on Friday, Nov 9, our school didn’t do that.

On Learning Communities

On our most recent PD day, after an assembly for updates and direction, staff were offered a choice of topics.

Sessions included:

  • differentiated offerings for teaching with SMART Boards
  • a round-table discussion about assessing using rubrics
  • a shared forum for teachers to share their use of WikiSpaces, Weebly and Edmodo
  • a launch and follow-up look at Action Research
A variety of administrators and faculty took the lead on the 9 sessions, pulling together expert texts, preexisting resources and examples from around our school. It definitely had an ‘in-house’ feel; it was a reminder that the presenter becomes the medium and is able to achieve buy-in or risk-free participation through their (our) own local authenticity.

 

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New Media Literacies Conference @ Bell TIFF Nexus

New Media Literacies at Bell TIFF Nexus

Play: the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving. Having a strong sense of play can be helpful when you pick up a new piece of technology that you’ve never used before, when you’re trying to write an essay and your outline isn’t functioning as you’d hoped, and when you’re designing anything at all, from a dress to a web page to a concert’s program.
Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery. Being able to move fluidly and effectively between roles can help you when you’re exploring online communities, when you’re trying to decide what actions are ethical, and when you’re shuffling between home, work and school.
Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes. Being able to interpret, manipulate and create simulations can help you understand innumerable complex systems, like ecologies and computer networks – and make you better at playing video games!
Appropriation: the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content. Being able to remix media content (and knowing when doing so is appropriate) can help you understand literary works, music, and art; it can also help lead you to a deeper understanding of copyright and cultural clashes.
Multitasking: the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details. Being a good multitasker is required in our new media landscape – and that includes learning when it isn’t good to multitask.
Distributed Cognition: the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities. That can mean something as simple as using a ruler or calculator, or something as complex as efficiently using Wikipedia on your iPhone to access information on the fly.
Collective Intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal. This ability is key to open source projects. Being able to pool knowledge with others can allow us to solve challenges far more complex than the individual mind can process.
Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. If you’re worried about your students using Wikipedia at inappropriate times and taking everything they read on the internet as gospel truth, you’re worried that they aren’t exercising good judgment. But judgment also includes knowing when sources are appropriate for your use: for instance, sometimes Wikipedia might be the appropriate resource to use.
Transmedia Navigation: the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple media. Anyone who needs to do research needs a good understanding of transmedia navigation – how to follow threads through video, still photography, written work, music, online sources etc.
Networking – the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information. Writing something isn’t enough without the ability to circulate it to the communities where it will matter.
Negotiation – the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms. We now need to know how to live in multiple communities – from the hyperlocal to the global and from those composed of people like us to those consisting of people very different from us.
Visualization – the ability to translate information into visual models and understand the information visual models are communicating. VIsualization has become a key way we cope with large data sets and make sense of the complexity of our environment.
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Good Morning!

Welcome to my Technology & Teaching blog on The Cohort 21 Network.

I am the Technology & Teaching Coach at St. Clement’s School – an Independent school for girls in Toronto, ON. St. Clement’s School develops outstanding women who are intellectually curious, courageous and compassionate.

Cohort 21 is a unique professional development opportunity open to teachers and school leaders who are seeking to build a learning network amongst CIS Ontario member schools. The Cohort 21 community will be built on a foundation of collaboration and innovation and together, will investigate and refine 21st century teaching and learning best practices through the rich experience of “learning by doing”.