Jenny Levine’s blog, The Shifted Librarian, is one of my favorite blogs to read. Nobody blogs conferences as well as she does. She blogged Will’s keynote presentation at the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, California.and I felt like I was there. Now why can’t blogs be used for
professional development in our schools? I have learned so much reading her
posts about the conference. I learned here, here, here, here, and here.
Those learnings led me to even more learning on the blogs of those who had
presented. Talk about professional development. I’m getting to pick and
I’m learning a lot and it’s powerful.
Here’s a few clips Jenny blogged from Will’s keynote.
isn’t it more important to teach our kids to find the information
they need, rather than make them memorize things they might need just
in case?
new classroom: network literacy; your network of online
teachers; not just handed one thing and told to believe it; the
knowledge resides in the network
can nagivate that network
need to rethink the way we assess knowledge; make them show they know the information
thinks the next 5-10 years are going to be very ugly for schools
because they’re going to try shut all of this down but that this won’t
work
I can just hear him.
The fact that we can get information like this so quickly, so easily is
really incredible. Go read her blog, there’s much more there.
Now
I’m going to dare to dream. Enter the weekly faculty
meeting. I can picture a room full of teachers reading their
blogs, then
posting to their blogs, then sharing their thinking and reflections
with each other. Then they talk,
make plans, set priorities for their own learning. They may Flickr,
some may put together a quick podquest, others are experimenting with
new web tools that help us collaborate. Small groups form here
and
there.and you see the principal and others interacting with the various
groups. Everyone leaves charged and
excited about what they will be sharing in the morning with their
classes. They can’t wait till the next faculty meeting to discuss what
they applied and learned upon returning to their classrooms. Most will
have already read each other’s blogs, added
info on the school wiki, gotten comments from parents, students, school
board members and others across the world. Of course the first thing
the next morning the students get involved in the conversations and
then everybody is busy applying this to their prior learning. They
blog about what they have learned, where they learned it, and then
how they made connections to show the relevance and what it meant to
them.
Wow! A school
full of learners, both students and teachers, who are working together
and seeking ways to apply all this knowledge. It’s exhilarating!
Testing is out, learning
is in. There is no time for testing to merely regurgitate answers. What
a waste! Answers can easily be found. This class is too busy
explaining
what they understand to each other, too busy showing others how to find
the answers, too busy sharing experiences, and most of all too busy
reaching new understandings of how we learn best..
OK, back to reality. I said in my previous post that I’d
really like to see
blogs used for professional development but I don’t believe it will
happen anytime soon. I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no
doubts about the power of blogging for learning. I just want it to
happen sooner and realistically that probably is not going to happen.
At least not soon enough for me.
But meanwhile I’m going to keep dreaming, keep learning, keep blogging,
work at being a lot more
disruptive and keep reading blogs till we can collectively figure out
answers to bring about needed changes in education. And oh yes, thanks
to Jenny, Will, Lila, Steven, Jessamyn, Michael,
and others who provided my professional development today. It was great
and here I am at almost 10:00 PM tonight still learning. I did the
picking and it was great!
Update: In case you don’t read the nice comment on this post from Jenny she pointed me to Sarah Houghton’s wonderful conference blog stream. Wow! Here I go again - some more great professional development. Great way to start a Friday morning! Thanks again, Jenny!
