Learn, Think, Write

Organizing myself online

What’s the value?

I’ve mentioned this before. Following people on Twitter and reading edubloggers can be time consuming.
Sometimes I share tidbits I’ve found:
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And more often, I learn from them:

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Is it worth it? Absolutely.

The Good News

Sometimes I get bogged down by details and forget to remember how many wonderful new things are happening in my school. For example,

  • Carey stopped by to tell me that the French students have started their Google Earth projects, learning about layers and using all the tools available to study French history and culture.
  • Suzi’s students are creating Voice Threads about visits to French museums–commenting, of course, in French (and using flickrCC for images.
  • Katie emailed me with a link to a funny yet creative Audacity file, with a rap about Galileo her students made.
  • The fourth grade book reviews on Voice Thread are coming along well, and we can’t wait to share them here.
  • Jenny wants to start a geometry wiki, and Alpana’s students are using her wiki here.
  • The English teachers are using blogs here and here plus a wiki here.

Even I seem to be keeping some perspective on the amount of information coming my way from my PLC. The arms aren’t flailing quite so much.

[Image: ‘slump‘
www.flickr.com/photos/50502690@N00/112295678]
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More on personal learning communities

Flailing
I’ve been thinking more about how I learn. Or more to the point, how I learn differently now.
Wasn’t it simple then? Read a book, take some notes, write a paper.
Books such as A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, or Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, have energized me. Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins and Wikinomics by an old reading friend Don Tapscott have challenged my thinking. 
My learning community includes my RSS feeds, Twitter, and several ning networks, including one I just created for Virginia independent school teachers.
What a wealth of information. What opportunities. In the past couple of months, I’ve participated in a live streamed discussion of the future of schools, watched students from SLA talk about how they learn, connected with a teacher from Bangkok, and clicked on more links than I can keep track of to help me focus my efforts on how we learn and teach. One night I couldn’t sleep, and the next thing I knew, I was online, participating in a conversation with teachers in Australia!
Sometimes this information overload seems, well, overwhelming.
The term "community of learners" can be a buzzword or can be the central focus of what we do, what we encourage our students to learn to do. The onus is on us to ensure  this happens effectively and efficiently for all us.
I am spending the next few weeks thinking through the next step so I don’t feel like I am flailing my arms, running around in circles.

[image: Creative Commons Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man!RWhitsell]