{"id":56,"date":"2014-04-23T08:40:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T08:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/?p=56"},"modified":"2014-04-23T13:13:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T13:13:28","slug":"process-over-product-and-baby-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/2014\/04\/23\/process-over-product-and-baby-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Process over product. And baby steps."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/5119083963_63f97254b1_o.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-74\" src=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/5119083963_63f97254b1_o.jpg\" alt=\"There is no finish line\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/5119083963_63f97254b1_o.jpg 600w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/5119083963_63f97254b1_o-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo by <a title=\"Fabienne Wassermann Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/fabi_k\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fabienne Wassermann via Flickr Creative Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>So, here I am, just days away from the final Cohort 21 session. The final session. Yikes! \u00a0I&#8217;ve written my final brief reflections up in a Prezi which you can access <a title=\"Mardi Michels Cohort21 final reflections presentation\" href=\"http:\/\/prezi.com\/81klrftz7nr1\/exploring-digital-citizenship-at-the-elementary-level\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. But is this the end?<\/p>\n<p>In my school, we emphasize <strong>process over product<\/strong> with the boys. It&#8217;s an approach I like a lot because it allows me the freedom to <em>not\u00a0finish<\/em> some activities perfectly (case in point &#8211; the <a title=\"Using Creative Commons to search for images for school projects\" href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/2014\/04\/02\/an-introduction-to-creative-commons\/\" target=\"_blank\">Powerpoints<\/a> the boys made about how to play certain sports were unfinished when they <a title=\"Reflecting on the Creative Commons Search tool with Grade 5\" href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/2014\/04\/14\/reflecting-on-the-creative-commons-search-tool\/\" target=\"_blank\">wrote their reflections<\/a>. And that was ok!). It also allows me the freedom to <em>change course<\/em> part-way through an activity if it&#8217;s not working.<\/p>\n<p>Ok so this might sound like I just teach on the fly and decide what I am doing in my classrooms at the spur of the moment &#8211; but it&#8217;s not like that, I assure you! Rather, it&#8217;s about being a <strong>thoughtful practitioner<\/strong>, sensitive to the needs of one&#8217;s students and to <strong>what is working<\/strong> with a particular class. Because, at the end of the day, you can have an awesome project on paper but it just might not work with a class (I find the way projects work varies dramatically from group to group from year to year) and when that&#8217;s happening, you need to be able to step away and change course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">My Cohort &#8220;plan&#8221; has been a little bit like this. Here&#8217;s what I *thought* I might like to work on:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/C21-Action-Plan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-76\" src=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/C21-Action-Plan.jpg\" alt=\"C21 Action Plan Mardi Michels\" width=\"497\" height=\"251\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/C21-Action-Plan.jpg 497w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/files\/2014\/04\/C21-Action-Plan-300x151.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">And to a certain extent I have done just that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I&#8217;ve <a title=\"Mardi Michels on Diigo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/mardimichels\" target=\"_blank\">read a LOT<\/a>\u00a0(about digital citizenship in particular, education and 21st century learning in general).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I&#8217;ve attended <a title=\"Where to start with digital citizenship?\" href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/2013\/11\/22\/digital-citizenship-where-to-start\/\" target=\"_blank\">talks about digital citizenship<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I&#8217;ve connected with people on <a title=\"Mardi Michels on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MardiMichels\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>, broadening my Professional Learning Network and following hashtags that interest me (<a title=\"#digcit\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23digcit&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">#digcit<\/a> <a title=\"#AimLang\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23aimlang&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\">#aimlang<\/a> <a title=\"#ipadEd\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23ipaded&amp;src=hash\" target=\"_blank\">#iPadEd<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I&#8217;m just having a hard time with the fact that my &#8220;final&#8221; Cohort presentation\u00a0doesn&#8217;t have to include any formal conclusions. \u00a0My action plan (which I was, being the multitasker that I am, using to complete my Folio Collaborative project for this school year) was to come up with a &#8220;cheat sheet&#8221; for teachers who want\u00a0to teach their classes about copyright for kids. I do have a lot of that information already\u00a0in place (although the pieces are all over the place!). And I&#8217;ll be collating that information over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But at this point,\u00a0I realise I&#8217;m nowhere near &#8220;finishing&#8221; my Cohort &#8220;work&#8221; as much as I would have liked &#8211; I guess in my head I had thought my\u00a0&#8220;project&#8221; would wrap up but it&#8217;s not like that, is it? It&#8217;s ongoing. \u00a0Because it&#8217;s about continuing education. For teachers. There is no finish line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Fabienne Wassermann via Flickr Creative Commons So, here I am, just days away from the final Cohort 21 session. The final session. Yikes! \u00a0I&#8217;ve written my final brief reflections up in a Prezi which you can access here. But is this the end? In my school, we emphasize process over product with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7,9,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","category-cohort-21","category-learning","category-random-thoughts","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/mardimichels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}