Week 8: Blog - Come on just try it, you'll like it.

“He who learns from one who is learning, drinks from a flowing river.”

--Mark Wagner

Source

I am part of a personal learning network at my school.  It is not digitally based and does not extend much beyond a dozen or so area schools.  I have not seen where I could find the time or value in becoming part of the larger digital community........This last set of articles begun redefining that view.  

There are two areas that have emerged out of these readings.  First is the requirement of moving beyond our voyeuristic position of web involvement and insecurities around educational leadership.  Second, meeting students where their educational needs live.  

In her article, Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities, Ruth Reynard makes a very good point.  

“My discussion here does not negate that good work but introduces the idea that social networking is only the beginning of a longer and more complex process of socially constructed learning and ultimately collaboration and knowledge building.....in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.”

I see this within the context of the coming educational shift.  No longer can we selflessly surf as disengaged voyeurs of information and ideas.  We are now being asked to become involved in the creation and exchange of ideas.  We will now strive to let go of “ownership” and work collaboratively in the creation of new paradigms and constructs.  

For success in these coming times we must continue to move forward but not before understanding how we move forward.  

"Self-proclaimed learners understand they will  never “get it” because “it” will always change!"

--Angela Maiers

As educators we need to not just understand this, we need to know this.  

If understanding is intellectual then knowing is felt at our core beliefs.

After we know, we then allow ourselves to be imperfect.  We no longer need to, “Stay one chapter ahead of our students.”  This new knowledge allows us to approach design that allows us to learn as we facilitate learning.

“Today, we have the potential to tap into a flow of conversation, a web-based learning ecology, that we can learn from 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

--Miguel Guhlin

Vitruvian Man, Leonard DaVinci, circa 1487

Our final hurdle is knowing that,  as educators, we can only connect to our students if we are willing to step into their communities.  From there, we can begin to move those students out of their digital 140-character construct of “me” into the communities of “we.”  It is then possible to leverage their base knowledge within communities that work towards the goal of all.  

“The purpose of education is Change....So I would Change the world.”

--Simon Finch