Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
The early years of Twitter were wonderful. Back when I was following between 150 and 300 people, and most of them were following me back, Twitter was a conversation. I can remember coming home from work, going to my timeline, and following it all the way back to the last tweet I’d seen earlier in the day so that I wouldn’t miss a tweet.
I ‘spoke to’ Claudia from Argentina, Alec, Kelly, and Dean from Saskatchewan, Kim from Thailand, Wesley from Oklahoma, Sue from Australia, Rodd from Ontario, Miguel and Shelly from Texas, and Bryan from my own school district.
When these educators and others that blogged as well as tweeted shared a link, we would all go to it, read it, comment on it and retweet something that we added to the ‘conversation’.
I’m not a fan of nostalgically romanticizing the past, but that era of Twitter was so exciting and engaging. Now, I rarely get comments on my blog posts, and quite honestly I’ve reduced my own commenting too. Now I share a link and it is retweeted faster than the article could have been read.
My main timeline is ignored, with tweets flying in faster than I can possibly read them. The volume of tweets worth reading has decreased, with misleading but catchy, and retweetable headings and motivational quotes taking over from conversations and learning.
I still love Twitter, and it is still my go-to place to connect and learn from others when I’m online. But, 12 years in, I miss the power of this network to engage me in deep learning filled with rich conversation. However I also recognize that my focus has changed too. I transmit more than I converse, I dabble more than I engage. If I’m honest, I probably could not have maintained the engagement I gave Twitter at that time for 12 years.
For those new to Twitter, I hope that my book, Twitter EDU, can help you get the most out of it.
For those who have been here a while, how has twitter changed for you?
Wayne Gretzky had an amazing talent for scoring goals. Three records that he holds, that may never be surpassed, are scoring in 51 consecutive games, scoring 50 goals in 39 games, and scoring 92 goals in one season (80 games). To accomplish this he did something very well… He would visually focus on the back of the net, the open space between the goal posts and the goalie, and he would send the hockey puck into those spaces. Yes, that’s what most hockey players want to do, but it’s not what they actually do.
When most people are aiming at a goal, be it in hockey, water polo, soccer, lacrosse, or any other sport with a net and a goalie, they are (almost) always aiming for the edges of the net, near the goal posts or crossbar. However it is challenging to aim at an empty space, so many people end up looking at the posts instead, and that’s what they end up hitting.
When I coached and saw someone hitting the crossbar a few times, sometimes I’d pull them aside and ask them to close their eyes. “Imagine the goalie and the bars of the goal behind her. Do you see them? Ok, now make them all one dark colour, like black. Now brighten the space between the goalie and and the bars. Got that in you head? Ok, aim there.”
Related to this, have you ever noticed the weird odds that a car accident will often include the collision with a telephone pole or a post, when there isn’t any other obstacle for quite some distance? The less interesting reason for this is that accidents that do not involve poles and posts are faster to clean up. The more interesting reason is that when a driver is in a dangerous situation and sees the post, they fixate on it, and while consciously scared and wanting to avoid it, their hands steer where their eyes go.
In school, there are many ways that a student can aim for the goal posts:
What do I need to do to get a ‘A’?
What’s the fastest way to get this done?
What does the teacher want me to do?
There are also many ways that educators can aim for the goal posts:
Teaching facts void of big ideas.
Teaching ‘the how’ without ‘the why’, (such as in Math, teaching that a negative times a negative equals a positive, and not explaining why this works).
None of these questions or examples are about learning. They aren’t on target; they aren’t the goal. But when we aim for the posts, we tend to miss the intended target, or in these examples, the intended outcomes.
What’s a goal post you are aiming at? And what would you be doing differently right now, if you were aiming at the net rather than the posts?
I love the metaphor of ‘Teacher as compass’; helping students navigate their own learning journey.
Last night I read this tweet from Will Richardson:
Kids don't need to be taught how to learn. (No one does.) Our job in schools is to create conditions where they can practice what they already know. To trust their curiosity, creativity, and inherent agency. To get out of the way as much as possible. #justsayin
— Will Richardson-BIG Questions Institute (@willrich45) November 4, 2019
I quoted his tweet and responded:
It’s not explicitly teaching them to learn, but it’s also not just getting out of their way… Teacher as compass: A compass doesn’t point the way, it points north and guides the student on their own journey. #JustSayin#GoodTeachersMatterhttps://t.co/wCFF9sD9uI
This made me think about the first time I used this metaphor? I went looking on my Pair-a-Dimes blog and it turned out to be 13 years ago: David Warlick’s K12 Online Conference Keynote 2006. David used a metaphor about trains and ‘riding the rails’, and I decided to create a different metaphor:
“A great metaphor here, on the theme of learners navigating on their own, is the teacher as the compass. We point in a direction, (not necessarily the direction that the student is going), and we are a reference point or guide to the learning. As students sail (rather than ride the rails) they must choose their destination, (what they want to learn), and tack and adjust their path as they go… using the teacher as a compass that keeps them ontheir‘learning’ course.
Challenges
Students and teachers need to know how to sail- they need to beliterate in these new ways of learning and communicating. They must be adaptable, willing to course-correct as they go.
Students and teachers need to seek out other sailors-communities of learners, online this too could be considered a literacy issue .
Students must bring their own sails- and not all sails are created equally, the metaphor can work with sails being competency (skills), motivation, handicaps (the ability to function physically, emotionally, intellectually (not everyone has the same sized sail), and technically (the ‘new’ literacy issue again)).
Teachers need to let students steer- it will take a while for many teachers to give up the steering wheel and become the compass.
Teachers need to be ‘useful’ compasses- “Don’t confuse the pointing finger with the Moon” comes to mind here… also think of using technologyfor learning rather than using technologytoteach. If students steer themselves, they will take us into uncharted water, and we need to be able to point the way even when we may not know the best course of action. (It isn’t about ‘right’ answers, it is about the journey- this goes back to Warlick’s [or ratherToffler’s] idea that learners (students and teachers) need to learn, unlearn and relearn all the time.”
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If teachers are focussed on providing content, they don’t need this metaphor because they are essentially taking all their students on the same journey. The teachers are captains with their students on the same boat. However, ‘Teacher as compass’ works very well with inquiry-based learning. Students will do projects where they become more knowledgeable than the teacher in a specific area of content. If teachers are trying to be the content providers for students who are all on different learning voyages, the teachers will fail. However, if teachers are guiding their students, helping them seek out information, and expertise, and supporting them in creating a learning plan… if they are the compass… then they can support students on their individual learning journeys.
Teacher as compass: Teachers provide the true north, and help students find a worthy course… one that will challenge their skills on the open learning seas.
I’ve been thinking a lot about creative constraints recently. In the move to give students more choice and more freedom to explore their own passions and interests, we sometimes forget that constraints and limitations can help foster both creativity and work completion.
Tell kids to pick any topic to study and some will flourish while others will flounder. Tell kids they have a lot of time to work, some will engage and use it well, while others will squander that time. Tell kids they can present in any format they want, and some kids will be creative while others will choose the easiest path, (even if they love the topic they are presenting on).
We don’t always benefit from choice. 15 kinds of toothpaste to choose from doesn’t translate to us choosing the best toothpaste… and probably delays our selection time. Sometimes it’s easier if we have less choice or limits to how much time we spend on something. “Constraints aren’t the boundaries of creativity, but the foundation of it.”
When we put constraints on projects, limiting resources, time, scope, size, delivery, or focus, we might be restrictive and limit choice, but done with thought and purpose, we can also inspire creativity.
When students get time in their day to solve interesting problems, they need to learn to ask questions that go beyond Google. The problem isn’t interesting enough and worth solving if the answer is easy to find, if the data has already been collected, if the information is readily available.
If students are asking interesting questions, the teacher can’t be the content expert, they can’t know the answers that every student is seeking to discover. So, the teacher becomes the compass. The guide that points students in the right direction. Teachers steer students away from questions that are too general and easy to solve. They help refine questions that are too vague or too hard to accomplish. Teachers in the era of Google must still provide content knowledge, but they know that this knowledge is the foundation for discovery, not just the information to be learned. Learning is a process, not a product.
When learning goes beyond Google, students need to be supported in learning to communicate and collaborate with others. They need to seek experts outside the classroom. They need to solve authentic problems in the community or in students’ lives. Sometimes the teacher needs to create or help create the questions; They need to provide the scaffolding, direction, or support to ensure students are becoming competent learners. Sometimes teachers need to step back, get out of the way, and let students lead, teach, thrive, and even fail… on the path to learning through discovery, trail and error, and reflection.
The journey is seldom a straight line. The path is seldom easy, and well defined. It is not the teacher’s job to remove obstacles on the path to to solving interesting problems. On the contrary, they must ensure that there are enough obstacles in the way, and that students are challenged while not being overcome by obstacles too big to navigate. The compass does not know the final destination, or even the best route, but gives direction by pointing to north. This is the art of teaching in an era of learning beyond Google.
When you are in the stern of a canoe, you need to master one important stroke, the J-stroke. No matter how good the paddler in the bow of the canoe, the boat will drift towards the side that person is paddling on, and away from the side the stern is paddling on. Paddling at the back of a boat steers the boat the other way. The J-stroke is what you do at the end of the stroke to push water away from the side of the boat and steer it straight, rather than letting it drift.
The J-Stroke (Click image for instructions on openboater.wordpress.com)
When you first learn this stroke, it has 2 distinctly noticeable parts. First there is the power part of the stroke that pushes the the boat forward. Then your ‘J’ pushes water away from the boat to steer it. As a beginner, these two parts are quite separate and so the boat lunges forward, then is steered, lunges forward, then is steered… It should go without saying, but if you are spending time on steering, you are not spending time helping the boat go forward.
As you get better, you start to realize that you can put these two parts together and eventually the boat ‘feels more like’ it is heading in one direction, rather than bouncing between going forwards and being course-corrected. I say feels more like’ it’s heading in one direction because no matter how good you are in the stern, you are always doing some course correcting, unless you and your partner in the bow are perfectly in sync every stroke. It’s just that when you are good at it, this course correcting becomes a smooth part of moving the boat forward.
However, moving from two distinct parts to one continuous stroke is not easy. What makes it harder is that when you try, and it doesn’t work, you end up feeling like you have to steer even more to make up for not being able to pull it off. So many new paddlers will stick with the lunge forward then steer process, and avoid getting better.
You’ve heard it a thousand times before: “The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. Paddling stern in a canoe can be one of those things, because if you don’t intentionally try to put the two parts of the stroke together, you will always be stuck in the lunge forward then steer parts of the J-stroke. Coaching can help, but intentionally trying to put these parts together, and failing and having to compensate, is far better than thousands of strokes just repeating the two parts separately. It will not go smoothly for quite a while, then eventually you’ll realize that things are smoother and you don’t have to think as much about steering with every stroke you take.
Where else in our lives can we take this lesson? Where do we break things up when we should be building them together? How can we use this idea to build up good habits or eliminate bad ones? What daily rituals do we have problems with, that we can integrate with things that we already do well? How can we steer ourselves in the right direction, without even realizing that we are steering?
I’m listening to the audiobook ‘Sapiens’, by Yuval Noah Harari, and this quote struck a cord with me:
“… Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species. Just as when two clashing musical notes played together force a piece of music forward, so discord in our thoughts, ideas, and values compel us to think, reevaluate, and criticize. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”
This fits well with some of what I was thinking when I wrote Ideas on a Spectrum. We need discord to compel us forward. We need differences of opinions and rich discourse. Consistently thinking the same thing does not promote learning or progress.
On a related note, sometimes I forget to celebrate the good things that are happening around me because I focus on what still needs to change and get better. Maybe this is a flaw. Maybe I need to focus more on this, if not for myself then for those I work with. On the one hand, celebrating can lead to complacency. It can limit or cloud the perspective that more needs to be done. On the other hand, not everyone is willing to work towards a common goal if they don’t feel valued. It is challenging to put these two ‘musical notes’ together as we move forward.
In moving forward, I often think that, ‘Good is the enemy of great’. Consistency can breed mediocrity. And, striving to make things better is never dull.
This time of year, the word ‘potential’ resonates with me. There is so much potential in a new school year! What will be accomplished? What surprises await?
What questions can we ask to maximize the potential we and our students have? Here are a few that might be worth asking:
What will I do to build a good culture in my school and my classroom?
What can I do to inspire my students to go beyond the curriculum?
What can I do to support open communication between myself, my students, and their parents/caregivers?
How can I extend the learning beyond the walls of my classroom?
How can I connect my school and my classroom to the community?
What questions and challenges can I give my students to help them become more resilient problem solvers?
The questions we ask help to define the directions we go in, and the goals we want to achieve.
What questions would help you and your students meet or even exceed their potential?
“The word “sfumato” comes from the Italian language and is derived from “fumo” (smoke,fume). “Sfumato” translated into English meanssoft, vague or blurred.”
Sfumato “…is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane.Leonardo da Vinci… used it in many works, including theVirgin of the Rocksand in his famous painting of theMona Lisa. He described sfumato as “without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane“. (Wikipedia)
I think we need to soften some of our edges in education:
• School isn’t its own entity. We need to soften the edges between living and learning; Parents as teachers, sharing expertise, and; learning happening in our community... as part of a student’s school day.
• Assessmentisn’tformative or summarize, it’s both, it’scontinuous, it’s self-reflective, and it can be conceptually/curricular based as well as competency based.
• Subject lines need to be blurred. How can we learn about the biologyofcrisper without talking about philosophy and geopolitics? (Should scientists be altering the human gene code? If we don’t think so, who in the worldshould decide? And do we have the ability to stop research in other countries? Will we create a different class of humans?)
Here are some others to think about:
• Bell schedules
• Universtiy entrance exams
• promotion by age
• Does every kid need to learn to code? Or to do Calculus? Or… (insert skill here)
• Write the same test
• Do the same art project
• Be assessed on the same scale
I think there are many ‘hard lines’ in education that should be blurred, softer, and less definitive.
Where would you add a little sfumato in education?
For Week 1 I shared ‘Open Matters‘ with a bit from the reading, and an Open Education Manifesto that I put together in 2011.
For Week 2 I shared ‘“More Free” #OpenEdMooc Week 2‘ with a reflection on Stephen Downe’s 2012 post on the topic of why BY-NC-SA is more free than suggested in the Creative Commons.
I really haven’t done much more that summarize the readings, add a bit of reflection, and some of my thinking (previously) influenced by others… nothing really new, just summaries and review of things I’ve already thought about.
For that reason, it was refreshing to see Lisa M. Lane discuss OERs again.
“I’ve posted a number of times on Open Educational Resources, and mentioning these might help explain why I subject the entire issue to serious criticism, a small sigh, and a raised eyebrow…”
Go ahead and read the post, and the comments (please).
I found this refreshing because this was the first of the learner contributions to the course that went beyond summarizing the reading or past thinking, and it was also critical of the conversation.
Even my post on “More Free”, while somewhat argumentative on the Creative Commons ideas of what is more or less free, was still just reiteration of Stephen Downe’s idea, which he again mentioned in the last 38 seconds of his video, in this week’s course content (shared below).
In the course so far, Lisa’s post was the first student contribution that I’ve found, which promoted conversation and discourse. Discourse is actually the thing I most appreciated about a previous project involving George Siemens and Stephen Downes, “Online Connectivism Conference: Healthy Discord”
This discourse is something that I have seldom seen in the world of educational blogs. There seems to be an unspoken etiquette about being non-confrontational when discussing ideas on other’s blogs. Essentially teachers don’t criticize others’ opinions. Even when there is disagreement it is often polite, reserved and… well, annoying. On the other hand, there seems to be thoughtful discord and discourse happening in the Connectivism conference forums.
Yesterday, Donna Fry connected with me on Twitter (she is the reason I jumped on board to take this course ‘with’ her and others. She linked to a Tweet about another open course Learning Creative Learning, and also said, “…I am so far behind in #OpenEdMOOC already (right @datruss ?)”
My response:
Don’t try to catch up, just start at week 3 and move forward. You aren’t doing this ‘for’ others, you are learning ‘with’ others #openedmooc
This morning we connected and had a great Facetime conversation. This conversation was the second time my thinking has been challenged in the course. Donna helped me re-evaluate the value of the ‘No Derivatives’ aspect of CC, which I didn’t see a purpose for, because I thought of it as equally as restricted as copyright. Her example was sharing something controversial, where ‘altered’ works could then cause mis-attribution and confusion about your original message.
Another key topic discussed was that we both learn from healthy discourse (and even discord)… something lacking (so far) in this course.
Donna shared with me (and on Twitter with #OpenEdMOOC) an article by Margaret Wheatley, “Willing to be Disturbed“:
“There are many ways to sit and listen for the differences. Lately, I’ve been listening for what surprises me. What did I just hear that startled me? This isn’t easy – I’m accustomed to sitting there nodding my head to those saying things I agree with. But when I notice what surprises me, I’m able to see my own views more dearly, including my beliefs and assumptions”
• CC0/Public Domain: “No Rights Reserved” — I have created this thing, and you can do whatever you like with it.
…For me, the CC0 decision is a no-brainer. I’m working to make the world a better place through whatever talents and skills that I’ve got. While I want my family to live comfortably, I’m not trying to accumulate wealth. That’s not what drives me. So I definitely feel what Alan says that he’s “given up trying to be an attribution cop”.
Both of these articles have pushed my thinking a bit, both are initiated not by the course content, but rather learner relationships.
Reminding me that MOOCs are more about conversations & connections than content. Thanks @datruss for your time this morning! #OpenEdMOOC
However, I started thinking about why this idea of disagreement and discourse was missing, and that got me thinking about course design. So far, I can see this course being more informational that conversational and that makes me question the value of it being a MOOC, and not just an online course where the student, teacher and content are the primary focus.
To me, the value of a MOOC is that the participants get to openly engage with each other and the curriculum in a way that fosters greater value than if students immerse themselves in the course without the networked connections of other participants.
So here is a little image that I’ve put together to look at the MOOC as Learning Experience.
Venn diagrams are about the relationships between things and I think these relationships are key in a MOOC. Donna says above, ‘MOOCs are more about conversations & connections than content’, and I think learner experience in a MOOC is really about the relationships we have with each other, as much or more than the relationships with the content… if not, where is the value in being ‘open’?
Here is a brief description of the relationships that I see between a MOOC, the teacher(s), and the participants:
MOOC content <-> Teacher
If the material is Open and Online, the design around how things are shared needs thoughtful consideration.
Participant contributions are distributed and so a component like the ‘Learner Activity‘ page is essential.
Social sharing/hashtag/conversation beyond learner activity content is essential.
Participants <-> MOOC Content
Content is open and easy to access and share.
Learning activity is open and easy to access and share.
Content is designed to go beyond information delivery and designed to promote dialogue and discourse.
Teacher <-> Participants
Focus on open, publish sharing
Teacher as provocateur, agitator. The course delivers the content, the teacher inspires the conversation.
Teacher as questioner, not answerer (more socratic rather than a focus on content delivery).
Social interaction – connections and conversations with other learners – are fostered.
I think there also needs to be intentional teacher presence if the conversation isn’t happening, and perhaps intentional teacher ‘tongue-biting‘ when participants are asking the right questions and contributing to each others’ learning.
Ultimately, learner experience in a MOOC is about fostering relationships between the teacher, the content, and the other participants to add value to what the course would be if it were not open.
It is about connectivity and networked learning, not just a student <-> teacher <-> content relationship.
I invite conversation, by all means, go ahead and disagree with me… ask questions, provide alternative perspectives. Help me learn.
