Tag Archives: “George Couros”

Blog comments on social media

This morning I read a comment Aaron shared here on my Daily-Ink, and then commented back on a link he shared.


Then I went to Facebook and commented on a post about a friend, George, who shared his healthy living before/now photos showing his progress. He started by saying,

“For the last year, I have been adding a “progress check” to my Instagram stories for my workouts. I have been teased about it, but It was a way for me to see a difference over time when it is hard to notice the impact of your work on a daily basis. Snapshots over time have given me a better idea of my progress.”

My response:

George, this is fantastic! I love seeing progress photos like this. What’s great is that you aren’t just dropping weight, you are creating a healthy lifestyle. As for sharing the photos… GO FOR IT!

Kelly, Jonathan, and I post workouts on Twitter and cheer each other on. I’m sure some people roll their eyes, but I firmly believe that being public pushes us when we need that push. There is both incentive and accountability to being public about our healthy living goals. You look awesome, and you will look awesome a year from now rather than yo-yo-ing… so share away!

💪😃👍

I know that my Healthy Living Goals have been positively impacted by my being open and sharing them publicly on not just my blog, but also on social media.

What I also notice is that I used to get tons of comments on my blog, and now they are all over the place. My blog gets shared to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn automatically when the post is published, and people will comment and respond on those platforms rather than on my blog. These comments live at a given moment, they don’t live on my blog, connected to my post, like Aaron’s comment(s) do.

Social media timelines scroll past for brief moments in time. You could argue that so do blog posts.. especially when they come daily, but I like the idea that these posts share easily searchable and longer living moments in time. And, if and when I go back to them, I like the idea that the comments are there with the post and not lost on my social media timeline, never to be connected to the post again.

But social media rules the day. I’d probably get 1/10 the readership of my blog if I didn’t post it on social media, and social media is designed to keep you on the platform… to keep you engaged and scrolling, and interacting on the site. I don’t think that will change any time soon.

There have been a couple instances where a blog comment on social media added enough value to the conversation or idea shared in my post that it inspired me to quote that comment myself, in the blog comments. However, it wouldn’t be sustainable for me to try to do that all the time. I don’t really have a solution, I think it’s just a matter of accepting that people will choose to comment on social media sites, and blogs are not as social (anymore).

Goals aren’t enough

I very rarely read or listen to a book, or watch a movie more than once. Atomic Habits is a book that I listened to twice. I also subscribe to James Clear‘s 3-2-1 weekly email, one of only 3 weekly email lists that I subscribe to. I listen to James last night on the Sam Harris podcast and stopped long enough to tweet this quote:

“A habit is not a finish line to be crossed, it’s a lifestyle to be lived.” ~ James Clear

My daily writing and meditation, my workout routine, my getting back into podcasting (trying to produce/create creative work)… these are habits I have developed or am developing. They don’t have an end goal. They don’t have a place where I can land and say, ‘Yes! I have arrived!“:

“A habit is not a finish line to be crossed, it’s a lifestyle to be lived.”

This is a time when more than ever we have an opportunity to do things for ourselves. I haven’t found my work schedule to be any less hectic at the moment. I still bring things home and fill my mind with the things I need to accomplish that don’t get done in a day. But I have more time at home to do things I felt I didn’t have time for previously.

It’s a great time to make positive lifestyle changes. It’s also a good time to reflect on what we will keep doing, or change, when things return to (some semblance of) normal.

It’s a Saturday, and after writing this, I’ll meditate. I meditate after writing because when I meditate first, I get stuck thinking about my writing and my mind is too distracted to meditate. So, I reward myself after publicly sharing my writing with 10 minutes of ‘me time’… a simple way to connect two habits and make them easier to do. I’ll work out, and at some point today and I’ll play with making my last podcast with Dave Sands into a video podcast. This is something new that I want to play with. The first video will take a while, since I need to create a reusable intro. But, since I need to interview people from a distance, and Zoom creates a video recording, it seems like a natural progression from sound recordings only… and it’s creative… and it’s fun… and it makes me use my brain in a creative way, unlike Netflix or Crave.

People set goals all the time, but as James Clear says, goals aren’t enough. Every competitive athlete at the Olympics has a goal of winning gold, only one of them will achieve this. But the habits we build into our lives, those become the lifestyle we live, they don’t lead to a finish line target, they lead to a life well lived.

Share it!

A great post by Seth Godin, “Did you publish?“

They (whoever ‘they’ is) made it easy for you to raise your hand. They made it easy for you to put your words online, your song in the cloud, your building designs, business plans and videos out in the world. They made it easy for you to be generous, to connect, and to lead.

Did you?

Maybe today’s the day.

_______________________

The world is filled with people who feel that what they do is not good enough to share… It is!

Why I Blog. Why blog with students?

Sharing and Building Upon by Silvia Tolisano

Sharing: The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski

another reason to share… by George Couros

One link and a handful of sentences is all I’m sharing that is my own work here. I’m just hoping that I add value to a bigger conversation. The rest, above, is from a network of people that share openly, thoughtfully, and have gotten better at it from regular practice.

Start with an audience of one. Blog, tweet, vlog, share on Pinterest, Facebook, Scoop.It, or any other tool that lets you share ideas and links. Do it just for yourself, but do it publicly so others can benefit.

It doesn’t matter what tool you use, what’s important is sharing. Be generous.

Find your ‘voice’ and share it!

(Oh, and comments on blogs are another nice place to share:)

And still more about CHANGE!

Great quotes on CHANGE shared on George Couros’ blog. 

“If teachers and students know ‘why’ then the change or the learning is meaningful…”  Edna Sackson

“Change can be a lot of work too. Sometimes people also get frustrated when it seems that we constantly have to change, and then just as things are working, we need to change again.”  Aviva Dunsinger

“Endless conversation about change is the barrier. Actually committing to doing something and then acting is what is required.”  David Jakes

“When we have the autonomy to learn for ourselves and grow through our own desires, we can and will ultimately embrace change for what it needs to be…finding a better way of doing something.”  Justin Tarte

“Put teachers together in an organized way, with clear objectives, and they’ll move mountains. Alone, the mountains are just too big!” David Truss

“…what if I build something, in this case a website on the way to building an entire movement, and wondering, and what if no one comes? That haunts me.”  Miss Shuganah

“many others have seen “the newest and greatest” ideas come and go…….and to invest their time, (because it does take time) and their energy and also possible total rethinking of everything which was their foundation — has to have a reason.”  Jennifer

“The best change comes as a result of individuals realizing they need to change. If we believe that teachers are the right people in the role, we need to help them realize this on their own and not because they feel forced. True change is internal.”  Dean Shareski

“The change that is sustainable must be something that has a reason (answering the “why’) and something that everyone has a stake in. I can get one person to change, but can I make it systemic?”  Pete Rodriguez

“It’s dangerous to think we are ever finished or have attained mastery….. which is contrary to everything we teach students by giving unit tests, by graduating them after ‘x’ number of hours, etc.” Julie Cunningham

“They (educators) need someone who has been in the trenches, slogged it out, and can share the good, the bad, the ugly about where they’re going. Too often they get someone who’s just done the research or the book learnin’. There’s no credibility there. They need to hear the war stories.“  Katherine Mann

“…my role is to be the force of change vs. having change forced on me.” Carrie Daniels

“Teachers do not fear changes that they believe in…it is those changes that are forced upon us that make us skeptical.”  Kelly Alford

“It is not change that people fear, it is the transition between where they are and where they want to be.” Ian Cullion

“As a leader (any type of leader….not just administrator!) it is our job to help people find their way in this time of change. I for one, am excited and ready to go!”  Melissa Dallinger

Here is the flickr group George created to share these. My 2nd attempt to contribute, using David Jake’s quote, is below. (I like this better than my first attempt.)

David-jakes-on-change-2

(That’s me in the photo, at Ariel’s Point near Boracay in the Philippines. Ann took the photo.)

More Thinking about Change

Is Change the True Barrier? | The Principal of Change | George Couros

Change for change sake is not good enough.  Change to make something better is the goal. If what we are doing now is the best way of doing things, then there is no reason to change.  But, if we know something is better and serving our students in a way that is needed, is change the true barrier?

Is it that people really don’t like change or is it truly that people do not like the process that change incurs?

via georgecouros.ca

 

I’ve been Thinking About Change a lot recently:

I think we are at a point of transition now where teachers are often learning to use tools as they teach with them & so a few key things are needed to help foster effectiveness:
1. Time- Pro-D, preparation, planning & play
2. Co-teaching & collaboration opportunities
3. Models & Mentorship

…and George asks a really good question about change above.

In my comment I said:

I think part of the issue is the ‘unknown’ factor of how much change is needed. For example: When someone struggles with email and adding an attachment, the move to a wiki seems daunting. Phrases like “It’s just like using a word document,” seem comforting to some, but not to others. To me the change is minor in the amount of effort, to others it can be a huge undertaking!

I also think the education profession is it’s own worst enemy simply because it always leaves you feeling you can do more. You can have an amazing lesson that excites all but one kid and you walk out of the room thinking, “What could I have done to engage him?” So, how much do you do? You can ALWAYS be better, you can ALWAYS do more. I love the phrase “Good enough is not good enough!” but I think too often it is perceived as ‘good enough’ when the prospect of big changes are presented.

The missing ingredient that I see: Collaboration time. Put teachers together in an organized way, with clear objectives, and they’ll move mountains. Alone, the mountains are just too big!

And I think that fits well with my post I linked to above.

Dean Shareski commented:

“Teachers do not resist making changes; they resist people who try to make them change. The best change comes as a result of individuals realizing they need to change. If we believe that teachers are the right people in the role, we need to help them realize this on their own and not because they feel forced. True change is internal.”

…Which adds the aspects of empowerment and ‘owning the learning’ to the equation. I think this is a really critical point!