Alien Pedagogy

Seth Godin points out that “Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.” Link.

I’ve decided to accept Godin’s advice and can be found in quite a few places now.

However, I think many teachers will be slow to adopt this response to the digital age. I’ve read edublogs that attempt to write from an anonymous perspective, which limits their ability to make meaningful networks with other teachers.

Further, there’s nothing worse than a student tracking you down on the Internet, right? I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to afford this sort of thinking. The cyber community belongs to all of us. Teachers cannot be denied access to it. This a real concern: teachers that refuse to create content hand over their online identity to others.

Besides, we should try to assume that what we post can be read by our employers as well as my students.

Before I attended this session, I’d read Jeff Utecht’s blog for several months. How could I skip his session?

(The Wifi was sketchy for much of this session, so my notes are incomplete. I got a chance to talk to Jeff twice after his session and have also included thoughts from those conversations here.)

Thoughts I Still Have From This Session:

• Too many people on Twitter are creating networks that are designed to create a flock of followers. It seems more practical to use a blog and to present at conferences to create a flock. Use Twitter to create meaningful PLNs.
• BTW, PLN – A network of thinkers that you interact with online. You can use this network of people to challenge your ideas. A real network would be one that you can draw upon for ideas and resources — that you can interact with. So if you ask a question on Twitter and don’t get a response, you haven’t created a very effective network.
• Face to Face Contact is important in creating effective networks. At the least, put your face on Twitter instead of a metaphorical representation of your personality.
• Social Tagging – I haven’t used this in the classroom yet, but am excited to try it. Essentially, create a unique tag and use a social bookmarking site like Delicious to collate the resources that are identified by a community of students.
• Wikipedia Deniers who are quick to criticize the project because “anyone can edit Wikipedia” should be using social tagging and advanced google search techniques for research. (Also, teachers that advise students to use external links, please remember that those links were added by anyone.)
• Twitter can be used for professional networking, though many people just record very minute details. An email is too tenuous to be effective in maintaining a professional relationship and facebook is too personal.
• Creating a personal learning network requires time and effort. Don’t wait for people to come to you: use wefollow and twit groups to form your own network. Before you go to a conference, look into the tags for that conference. If you can, find a Jeff Utecht Twitter user who already has a lot of followers and who is keen to help others create their own networks.

In closing:

The biggest myth that I encountered when talking to teachers about PLNs is that a useful network will appear overnight. A meaningful network requires a lot of maintenance before it will run on autopilot. Once created, it can be a powerful tool for teachers.

I left this session with a strong determination to incorporate more connectivism in my classes.

One thing that I enjoy about the interactive whiteboard is helping students to take notes.

On a regular basis, I encourage my ninth graders to draw pictures instead of writing titles for their notes. So instead of writing a title for the chapter that we’re working on in class, I often draw an icon for the scene. “How to draw the underworld” was my hook for “Land of the Dead.” We moved on to other activities and while moving around the room, I noticed that almost every student took time to draw the underworld but few took time to write “Land of the Dead.”

I also find it easier to color code information using the IWB than I did using markers. Teachers that have taken the time to identify skills and concepts required in their units can color code them during discussion to constantly help students to consider what it is that they’re learning.

These may not be fundamental changes to how I teach, but they are how I’ve begun to explore the use of IWBs in my classroom.

My school just provided me with an interactive whiteboard and within a week I found that I’d unconsciously created IWB routines to manipulate student behavior and learning as well as to non-verbally communicate messages.

One of the most powerful tools is lighting. When I run the IWB, the lights are out and there’s only natural light in most of the classroom (this is also in line with our school’s determination to reduce energy consumption). When I ask students to do a focused reading, I turn on the lights again. The first three times I did this, I said “I’m going to turn on the lights to help you read.” Now I give a focus for active reading and turn on the lights.

The flipchart is also powerful. For one thing, if you want to move on to the next topic you can communicate this by going to a new slide.

I’ve begun listing my objectives on my first slide and then use the flip chart to guide students through the activities and tasks of the class. At the end of the class, we start with the last thing that happened in class and then work our way back to the objectives, which I find a more effective lesson summary than unsupported oral discussion.

The whiteboard pen is like the conch in Lord of the Flies. Somehow, it’s stronger than handing a marker to a student, perhaps because there are many markers in a classroom but only one IWB pen.

In closing:

• There is much that teachers can do to express their expectations using IWBs.
• Teachers should remember that the “interactive” whiteboard should not be an excuse to return to overly heavy “sage on the stage” teaching.