Brain Dump for the week

Learning 2.0 was a great success, but now I’m left with the aftermath of catching up with work, and at the same time now supporting teachers who are excited about using all these new tools….what have I created? 🙂 (Don’t let it fool ya…I love every minute of it!)

So I have way too much on my mind and think a good old brain dump is in order.

Learning 2.0 continues to be an interesting project. They didn’t run me out of Shanghai so I guess that can be one way to know whether or not the conference was successful 😉 . I’m thinking about and working on turning the conference into a network of International teachers in Asia. We are redoing the banner to be more Learning 2.0 focus and I’ve created groups so that people can come together around common interests/teaching assignments. Of course people can create their own groups as well and I hope they do. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking around how do you keep the connections and conversations going once the face to face is over with. We’ll see how it goes. I am though now kicking myself for adding the ‘cn’ to the ning site. Hind site is 20/20.

I’m still reflecting on conversations I had with Will, Sheryl and Wes while they visited Shanghai after the conference. I love it when people come to visit…you get to see Shanghai through new eyes. Most people are overwhelmed and I think Wes, Will, and Sheryl are no exceptions. It’s not the China you picture in movies, it’s fast pace, in your face, look out here we come and yet parts are still slow calm 3rd world. I challenged Will to try and put it into words…and as only Will could do….he got as close as you can without experiencing it yourself.

I’m also teaching my grad course again for PSU this Fall. So I have 5 more students that have set up blogs and are starting to climb this learning curve into Web 2.0. Here are their blogs. Any and all support is appreciated!

• http://loveteaching.blogspot.com/
• http://divaonalimb.blogspot.com/
• http://catsinahat.blogspot.com/
• http://emilieknisley.blogspot.com/
• mathtech-hcms

My best moment this week even with the conference came when I sat down with a high school science teacher. I have been working with her for the past couple of weeks now helping her set up her class in Moodle. She invited me in as a guess speaker to her IB Theory of Knowledge course where I presented on how information and knowledge creation is changing in this new digital world. I was of course talking to the students, but both sessions I think she took more notes than any of the kids did.

Last week she approached me about setting up a wiki for one of her science classes. What she wanted was “for them to create the knowledge” she didn’t want to give them the information and just have them create a site with it…she wanted them to go out find the information and create knowledge on their own. As I sat with her Thursday morning setting up her wiki she turned to me and said, “It’s tough you know, I find myself having to learn and read with them. I’m no longer in control of the content, I just ask the questions to make them think…and they really don’t like to think…it’s tough!”

I put my hand on her shoulder and smiled…what a moment. She was scared, she was venturing into new territory. Territory where she might not have all the answers but will have to guide students to those answers on their own. She was also frustrated that students didn’t want to learn. They want to be told what to learn, be told what to know. We talked about that and how our education system is designed just for that. We tell students what to learn, what to read, what to write, we do not ask them to create we ask them to regurgitate.

All in all a good week. Next up is K12online which I have two presentations for that I haven’t started, then 6 presentations for an Admin conference in November…but first a trip next week to Kashgar…that I am looking forward to. 🙂

[tags]learn2cn[tags]

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