One section of the blogosphere that is of interest to me is the teachers/educators’ blogosphere (is there a name for it?).
Just saw this post on David Warlick’s blog, on self development:
A Path to Becoming a 21st Century Literate Educator — Self Development
- Find two or more other educators in your school who are interested in learning and using emerging information and communication technologies. It would be of enormous advantage if you can include your schools library media specialist.
- Identify the appropriate person in your school or district who can provide technical support and configuration for your increasingly utilized computers and network. Bake them some chocolate chip cookies.
- Identify some edu-bloggers who are talking about the emerging ICTs you are considering. See the Bloggers to Learn From wiki, contributed to by a world community of educators.
- Delegate! Assign each member of your team some of the selected blogs to follow, and share specific posts with each other.
- Read, study, and discuss books about teaching and learning and the world we’re doing it in. See the Books to Learn From. wiki, contributed to by a world community of educators.
- Schedule regular meetings (once or twice a month) at a local restaurant, coffee shop, or pizzeria (preferably with WiFi). Meet and discuss what you’ve learned and what you want to learn.
- Start a group del.icio.us (A social bookmarks service) account for organizing and sharing web resources.
- Start a wiki for posting notes, links, and step-by-step instructions.
- Join one or more of the Ning social networks, such as: School 2.0, Library 2.0, Classroom 2.0.
- Start your own blogs for sharing your reflections on what you are learning and how you are learning it.
- Start experimenting in your class and share the results.
- Share your results with other teachers in your school and invite them into your conversation.
Start to model, in your job as a teacher, the practice of being a master learner.
Us librarians are educators, too, and could very profitably collaborate with teachers - and learn from, and with, them. I’m often amazed (and sad) when I come across colleagues who are obviously not bothering to learn anything new, and have not done so for a long time. Everything you learn goes towards making you a better librarian.
I personally would be bored out of my brain if I wasn’t continually learning and finding challenges for myself.
Something I am enjoying a lot at the moment is my Dutch language class. This term I am doing Dutch 3 at TAFE.
Last week we worked on the perfect tense (e.g. “I have worked” Ik heb gewerkt) which seems straightforward enough, apart from needing to remember the conjugation rules. We also continued working on separable verbs (zich generen “to feel embarrassed”; Ik geneer me “I feel embarrassed”, Wij generen ons “We feel embarrassed”, etc.) - these separable verbs, of which Dutch has lots, are quite challenging. My grammar book defines a separable verb as “one with a prefix (e.g. opbellen “to ring up”) which separates from the verb and stands at the end of the clause in the present and imperfect tenses (e.g. Hij belde mij op) and which permits the ge- of the past participle to be inserted between it and the rest of the verb, e.g. Hij heeft mij opgebeld.” (Dutch: A comprehensive grammar, p. 334)
The thing that I find most fascinating and most frustrating about learning a language is the rules. The adult mind has so much difficulty trying to grasp rules that babies seem to just pick up in their first few years of life. You just seem to know the rules in your first language, without having to think about them, and without being able to describe them, necessarily - and everything flows naturally.
When you learn another language you have to start all over again and can take nothing for granted. It also makes you appreciate your first language a lot more, I find.
I didn’t mention that Jessamyn West was here, in Perth, last week, did I? She was here as a guest of the Loclib conference. I didn’t get to hear her speak at the conference itself but my friends Kathryn and Sputty were there, and Sputty reports that she “wasn’t disappointed” in Jessamyn’s talks (which are available at her blog, if you’re interested). Jessamyn graciously agreed to have drinks and meet folks at a pub (the Northbridge) afterwards, which is where I got to meet her.
Over a middy of Heineken, I asked Jessamyn how she handles the frustrations of being a technology evangelist. (Although technology evangelist wasn’t the term I used.) I described a couple of scenarios, e.g. folks wanting to know how to embed Microsoft Word into a wiki - gaaaaaah!! I asked her how she handled this sort of situation and how she coped with the constant frustrations of trying to show people how “new” technologies like blogs and wikis might make a difference in the workplace. Jessamyn’s answer: “be a smiling Buddha”- i.e. don’t let it get you down, just keep at it, be patient. I guess I wanted her to give me a magic panacea, but, on reflection, I’m glad to know that she’s experienced the same situations (it’s not just me!).
We also talked briefly, about the ALA and ALIA, “clean” jobs in rural Vermont, the Australian love of sport, which led on to how cricket is incomprehensible to Americans (silly mid on? huh?), and do Americans play rugby? (do they?) Followed by what to do in Perth (the consensus was the beach), and the weather (of course).
I think Jessamyn and Kate (her sister, who is accompanying her on this trip) are now in Adelaide. Fortunately for them, they are missing out on a forecast top temperature of 39°C/102.2°F today (tomorrow and Wednesday: 40°C/104°F). They’ll also be going to Sydney and meeting up with Fiona, I think. I hope you enjoyed Perth, despite its severe lack of wifi, and the rest of your trip, Jessamyn and Kate!
