On the Ed Tech Radar - Free Online Professional Development Opportunities in October

Stay at the comfort of your home or keep yourself comfortable in your office, but don´t miss two great professional development opportunities that you can access from wherever you are in the world for free.

October 12th - TESOL CALL-IS & IATEFL LEARING TECHNOLOGIES SIG Online Conference

It starts at 2pm GMT / 3pm London time / 7am Pacific/ 11 am Brasilia time with fabulous guest speakers like Prof Carol Chapelle, Shaun Wilden, Gavin Dudeney, Nicky Hockly, Deborah Healey, Phil Hubbard, Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou, Paige Ware, Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Christel Broady and a closing joint session at 8pm GMT / 9pm London / Pacific 1pm/ 5pm Brasilia Time.

From October 11 to October 13th - The Reform Symposium Online Conference

The 4th annual Reform Symposium Conference (RSCON), a free online three day event bringing together educators, students and innovators from around the world, will be held October 11th to 13th in conjunction with Connected Educator Month. 

The Reform Symposium Conference is a global community initiative to transform teaching and learning. The Reform Symposium Conference will be a highly inclusive and engaging event that will encourage students and educators around the world to share and learn about transformative approaches to learning and teaching. To attend this year's conference and to be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, check http://www.futureofeducation.com/page/2013-reform-symposium. There will be

• 10+ international keynotes
• 3 panel discussions featuring distinguished experts
• 100+ presentations by educators around the world

There are no excuses for you to invest in your professional growth, learn from educators around the globe and connect with a great audience!

Technology Giving Wide Wings to Creativity

As long as I keep seeing transformative and exciting examples of how technology can help the next generation of professionals acquire new skills in different areas, I'll advocate its use.

That's exactly what happened with me some days ago. I was at the Apple Store with my kids, looking for the present my husband had asked for his 40th birthday, his first Mac. In fact, his first computer! Up to that point he'd just use all the gadgets I would put aside or my kids' computers or mine. Anyway, I was there talking to the salesman while my kids had fun with an iPad Mini. They were giggling, whispering, having real fun. So much fun indeed that I thought that they were certainly playing a cool game.

To my surprise, when I closed the deal and invited them to eat something. They asked me to come closer, for they had something to show me. I had a blast! In just some minutes, all by themselves, they figured out how to use the app iMovie and were, in fact, enjoying themselves as movie producers. The result? Check for yourself how far kids' creativity can travel if they have the means and freedom to go beyond the regular, the ordinary:




I guess that this video is what I've been always trying to show teachers. Technology empowers, decentralizes learning in ways that we should really reconsider our roles as educators not because everyone else is telling us so, but because our kids, our students need guidance, expertise and wisdom to move forward and succeed now and beyond when they become professionals.

One thing they were having trouble doing? Transferring the video to youtube. I also showed them how important it was to delete the video from the public iPad Mini and from the app due to digital safety issues.

Learners' creativity harnessed by technology and guided by an educator's wisdom is certainly an explosive combination. That's why I'll make sure that I help more and more educators get there in their digital literacies. I'll make sure that I give them support to let their learners express themselves and fly even higher.

What have you been doing to encourage your students' creative juices to emerge?

Teaching a Dramatically Outstanding Class - Tension and Release

Yesterday I was talking to a very experienced teacher who I know suffers from the same syndrome I do and most of the teachers out there do. The how-can-I-reach-teens syndrome.

We all develop strategies, sometimes war strategies, we think and re-think ways that we could better engage our teens. The roller coaster is always on and the list of our trials and errors abounds:

- using tech in class
- making them move
- using topics that are close to their hearts
- songs
- giving some free time if they "behave"
- using games

And the list goes on. Some activities seem to work better than others. And my guess is that generally what ticks our teens are not exactly those sophisticated types of lessons that we spent hours preparing. Sometimes they surprise us by enjoying a very simple task you propose. Have you every considered the main elements of these moments of engagement are made of?

My insight tells me that no matter what we do, what makes an activity engaging is not the degree of sophistication or the main topics that will reach our learners or even the many hours you took to prepare it. Just today I read an interesting article that gave me a hint of what might make a class dramatically outstanding in which you feel that sense of flow and you know the students are there with you in the same wavelength. As stated in Wikipedia, you and your students turn into

"mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does."

How?

By unconsciously using the idea of "Tension and Release", by creating a moment in which you reach a climax of your class with an activity that the students feel compelled to participate, to "solve the puzzle", to be part of it. That's why storytelling is so powerful. It is just one of the many shapes you can build upon the idea of "tension and release" to create engagement.

Let's consider, for example, TV shows, series, Brazilian soap operas, films...What do they do to keep us there on the edge of our seats?! Tension and release! That moment before the disclosure where our heads spin, then the relief of seeing everything unfolding.

When was the last time you had this "tension and release" moment in your class? What made it special? What was your trick?

If we teachers can spot these aha "tension and release" moments in our classes, our how-can-I-reach-teens syndrome might be overcome.

The Magic of Professional Development Claims for a Growth Mindset

For years I've been training teachers and coaching them to integrate technology into the classroom.
The changes I've seen around throughout those years vary from none to new, reinvigorated professionals. How does the move happen?

Change will take many different shapes, from reframing an activity the teacher has already tried out to taking the leap into the unknown and thinking of the transformative power of new technologies in the classroom.

The pace is also varied. Some just jump in, others need a "marinading" period to let things sink in and  make sense of what's going on.

However, transformation has its commonalities from what I've noticed. Educators who embrace change:

- are optimists by heart (even when they seem wary of new situations, deep down there they believe change can be good)
- believe in their own power to change direction, even if they feel insecure at first
- are not considering if the professional development opportunities are paid hours or not (though we shouldn't be working for free, educators with an innovator mindset know that these hours will be paid back in other forms in the future)
- do not count their efforts in time spent, but how their effort transformed their practices
- do not give the same old excuse of lack of time; even in some minutes they can learn something new and apply to their classes
- like the adrenaline rush that comes with new findings
- still believe in the transformative power of education
- enjoy being in class with their students
- have, above all, a growth mindset.

And here's a passage from HBR Blog Network that gives a quick overview of a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed one:

"In her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford Professor Carol Dweck distinguishes two extremes of the mindsets people tend to have about their basic qualities:

• In a fixed mindset, "your qualities are carved in stone." Whatever skills, talents, and capabilities you have are predetermined and finite. Whatever you lack, you will continue to lack. This fixed mindset applies not just to your own qualities, but to the qualities of others.

• In a growth mindset, "your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts...everyone can change and grow through application and experience." Qualities like intelligence are a starting point, but success comes as a result of effort, learning, and persistence."

There's certainly no formula to change and I might be a little too simplistic about what I see happening to the educators who take a leap of faith and move on, but in all these years the main traits I see in the ones who transform their classes and themselves are those of optimism, passion, eagerness to learn and attunement to their learners' worlds.

Do you fit in this category of educator who embrace professional development and change as part of your job? Or is it time to rethink what you are doing and how you face things?


If you are interested in the topic of change, you might enjoy reading Becky Bair's post "Changing Our ‘Stuff’ Is Not Enough"

A Teen Educator Failing Miserably

For some, I might seem confident and a bit tech-savvy.
However, with teens it seems that I'm bond to failure. That's how I feel so often. Teaching them is like a roller coaster. Yes, don't get me wrong! Sometimes I fear I won't reach them. Every time I prepare my classes I have the feeling that I'm about to fail miserably. It is like that first part of the ride in the roller coaster when you really don't know what's next and your stomach swirls.

My classes are always a box of surprise. Teens never stop to amaze me when I get to that adrenaline part of the ride - being in the classroom. They are always surprising me with their wittiness, creativity, eagerness to do something different. What I've come to realize in my ride is that every time I take for granted what they like, what moves them, what ticks them, that's when I fail. There's no way out. I use the book, but I can't just follow as it is. Why? The topics are totally apart from my teens' dreams, reality, daily lives. So, just like they have to adapt to me, to my own teaching style, I must be open to adapt to them, right?

Last class, for example, I wanted to give an example on the board and invited them to give a name of a famous person. Oh my! I could see the sparkle in their eyes talking about Megan Fox and Ian-I-Don't-know-who! They wanted to show me photos, they wanted to know if I thought they were cute. And when I said they were not my style. They wanted to know who I liked. Well, "besides my husband??? Andy Garcia!" . "Andy, who, teacher?!" "Oh never mind..." This is exactly the bridge we need to cross to enjoy the ride until our next failure or until our next adrenaline rush.

So, how do you feel about teaching teens?

Being an Educator of the 21st Century

Much have been told about the competencies and skills educators should develop to "survive" and thrive in a classroom nowadays. High on my list are some that should have always been there:

>> developing listening skills
>> practicing our empathy at all times, even when we feel like giving up
>> preparing lessons that are brain-friendly, helping our students emerge as engaged learners

To complement my list, I've come across this wonderful chart from an edudemic post:

Is there any other skill you think educators should work on to become full-fledged professionals in our times?

Educators as Designers

I've always had a deep fascination for what was aesthetically beautiful for the eyes and pleasing for the mind. Design has always mattered for me, and it has guided me personally and professionally as a principle of good living an a people connector. I've always believed in its engagement power. And unconsciously I understood that through design, you could express to a group a sense of belonging, being part of a community with shared values.

I remember that from the start of my role as an Ed Tech Supervisor how I'd worry about the simple things, starting from a well-design poster inviting teachers for professional development opportunity. I felt that through design, I could show in a way that I cared for them and that I valued their presence in our training sessions. It was not just a simple announcement on the wall, but a call for action, for meaning and connections, and all of that had to be transmitted visually.

When I think of design, though, it is not only about its aesthetics aspects. Instructional design has permeated my role as an educator. Again, when we are aware of the power of certain rules of good practices and processes, learning sticks, the experience of constructing new knowledge holds meaning, engagement, excitement. It takes the learner to the next level, where he/she feels the thrill of experiencing that urge to move forward, to keep learning.

It is also through instructional design that an educator builds community, makes a tribe thrive as a group, considers effective instruction for differentiated learning. If

If, when we make our lesson plans, we start seeing ourselves less of teachers, but more as designers of experiences through creation and exploration with our learners, then we transform the way we teach and learn. We will then realize:

- the meaning of flow from one activity to the other;
- the need for blank spaces to leave room for creation, questioning, experimenting,; and not cramming one activity after another with no space for thinking or wondering:
- the power of a carefully planned lesson with a variety of activities that engage and not bore, but letting serendipity and surprise have their role in the learning process;
- the significance of considering your audience and its specificities to design experiences that make sense and bring on board layers of knowledge construction that are solid, meaningful, and long-lasting.

When we think os ourselves as Designers of learning experiences, we are enhancing the art of possibility and wonder. We become the catalysts of the so-desired change in our classroom microcosmos.

From Inertia to Editing Teaching - A Challenge

Many times we are trapped in our own routines, hectic lives and infinite tasks. It is hard sometimes even to breathe. Inertia takes over, and we see our personal and professional lives as if it were part of a film.

I know there are many challenges around for teachers, and I could name a few that you could follow for 30 days to make our lives more bearable and pleasant, but what if we set TWO WEEKS at first not to make revolutionary changes, but just small ones.

Our brains love surprises. The unexpected, unpredictable hooks us up, grabs our attention, so how about very simple changes that won't be radical at first, but could cause some tectonic shifts in the long run in terms of our pleasure in teaching our classes and our students' joy to be in class, connected, absorbed, hyped.

What if you invited your co-workers to join us for TWO WEEKS and take action, move and shake a bit? So, here I am making it public the idea of the EDIT TEACHING movement.

For the next two weeks, I'll blog every single day - which is already part of my own call for action - about a very simple idea that we can do in class to EDIT our TEACHING a bit, to make those changes that in the long run can ignite us to keep in the loop to continuously seek for the new experience, crossing the boundaries of our daily inertia, making us effervescent, upbeat, lighthearted educators.

THE FIRST #EDITTEACHING IDEA

Start your next class with a very simple question to your students, "What's in your playlist?" Give them five minutes to talk to each other about it, to see what they have in common and something new they learned about a song, singer or band. I'm sure that they will have something to say and you will connect in a more personal level with them!


Our twitter tag will be #editteaching . I'd love to hear from educators if they try this idea out for the next  TWO WEEKS! Ready to edit your teaching routine to smile and connect more often?

Thinking and Re-imagining Education

This video is a call. A call for reflection and action.

 I agree with much that it is said, but we need to find a balanced view to education. It is not just moving from a controlled, Prussian model of education to an utopian school. We can achieve student engagement, motivation and passion for learning depending on the way we view your pedagogical role as an educator, but there is no one way, but many possibilities if we think of approaches to our classes that tap into the challenge of giving support to our students to develop their competencies that are essential ones for their lives now and in the near future, like creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking. Let us help our students connect, dialogue, question, learn and direct their learning efforts throughout their lives. 

My call is for passion and connection. This video is a shaker in the sense of giving us a broad view of what happens in many schools around the globe. It is worth watching it as a starting point for re-imagining our classes. And, yes, this is how change happens, from the small movement we make within our own classes.

What Yo Yo Ma Has to Teach Educators

As I write these words, I'm listening to Yo Yo Ma, a well-known cellist, who never ceases to amaze me.  First, I was totally taken by his music, empathy, charisma. I remember I used to teach using a book for advanced students who talked about Yo Yo Ma and his tribute to Sarajevo during the tragic war years in the region. It deeply touched me.

And he still does in so many ways.

I could spend hours listening to him. I always feel like crying as he is such a passionate musician who plays with his heart and soul. I could finish here, for Yo Yo Ma is an accomplished cellist and has given his contribution to the world of music. However, he is much more to teach us.

Just yesterday, I read an article about his visit to MIT (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/08/inspiring-as-well-as-educating/ ) in which Yo Yo Ma talks about

the ability to find that “internal switch,” fueled by passion and engagement, that helps players to transition from feeling like “I have to do it” to “I want to do it.” Great educators need to help students tap into that sense of involvement in the classroom, he said at the opening of a two-day symposium aimed at helping teachers use the arts to inspire passion-driven learning.

That's what I've been talking about for so long, and not only saying about passion-driven teaching and learning, but trying wholeheartedly to put it to practice in every class I teach.  Ma's idea of educators helping students find this switch is exactly what makes a difference in our students' lives and what distinguishes an ordinary teacher from a great one. And, I'm sure that if teachers are there for so long, it is because they all want to become and be great teachers.

I see so many tired, unmotivated, grumpy educators...And when I see those unlighted faces, I just wish they could listen to Yo Yo Ma and find ways to, first, turn on their passion switches that they once had, so that they can repurpose their career paths to become all that they once wanted to be as educators, inspirers of young souls.

But, where to start after so many years dragging our feet to get in the classroom? Yo Yo Ma again can give us some clues. He is one of the most eclectic musicians I've ever seen. He can be playing the Argentinean Piazzola or Brazilian Waldir Azevedo's Brasileirinho, after enchanting the audiences with a classical piece. So, his secret to keep the flow? Challenging himself with a variety of styles, rythms, cultural pieces, all to connect music and people, to communicate, to engage. How about you, educator? How can you give another meaning to you professional life? Which new rythms, flavors, pedagogical practices are you challenged to try out to bring new life to your classes, to illuminate those young-spirited faces around? How are you going to turn on you internal switch to fuel your  passions and engagement?

Start by listening to Yo Yo Ma to feel what I'm talking about...

Surfing the Waves of Change in Education: No Action is not a Possibility

Serendipity is one of the strengths of a hyperlinked world in which the network is always providing us with learning moments and reflective checkpoints. As I was browsing my wonderful Pinterest network, I came across, by chance, this clean, unpretentious blog http://thingsigrab.wordpress.com/, and I couldn't help but start browsing it, scrolling down, with my eyes glued in interest for the variety of topics and simple interestingness. Powerful.

All of a sudden, a click on the video Surfing Waves of Change, which is mainly about socio-economic change. However, the message is totally applicable to our changing roles as educators and the daily challenges and stages of change we face every single day.

The video zooms in to the need of our being resilient to become catalysts of change. It evokes the power of communities and networks to overcome the hurdles we are challenged with. All with the surfer's metaphor that learns by doing, by getting into action, learning to go with the flow and understanding the waves movements, all relying on how own guts and other surfers for information, support and learning. The main message: a surfer cannot learn how to surf if it isn't by doing, falling, and standing on the surfboard again. It is not about being taught how to be resilient, how to change and become an active player, but getting there and doing it, connecting, collaborating, experimenting...Then, we can become catalysts of change. No action is not a possibility.

This is a video worth sharing, watching together and deciding for ways in which we can catalyze change in our own communities of learning.

On Online Social Bookmarking, Tagging and Connections

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Diigo. The heart of social bookmarking is its power of a group making available their resources that were once saved on our computers for a very individual use. Now, in online spaces like Diigo, the information out there can be retrieved, mixed and remixed in the ways we need it when we need it. David Weinberger, the author of "Everything is Miscellaneous", says that with folksonomies (people categorizing links), we can filter information, resources in the way out, not on the way in. As we bookmark and tag stuff, the links are there. As we need them, we manipulate information to make meaning, to construct knowledge. Thus, social bookmarking adds value to the information everybody is gathering in the digital world. It's not just the links I have, but tons of collective resources available at a click.

Issues that are the main concern of educators are  related to lack of time and information overload. There are two facets for lack of time. One is educators' busy lives and schedules, and the other relates to the syllabus that they HAVE TO "COVER" within a time frame. My point is that if we use social bookmarking frequently, it becomes a mechanic process. Every time you see something interesting, we press the "share button", add as many tags, keywords as we can think of, and that's it. We'll filter the information later on, no need to deal with it right now. Even if this process doesn't save time right now. In the future, when you need to retrieve information for any kind of project, and if you have bookmarked it before, the whole process could be a time saver. As for the syllabus, I envision Diigo bookmarks as part of a classroom adding a mix of flavors that students' findings could promote. We could have, for example, learners responsible to feed the class bookmarks on a specific topic, learners finding and sharing videos, podcasts, texts based on what they are studying with little notes. How meaningful this could be? I know, I know...time to set it up! Diigo has a Diigo Educator account that you can ask for. A friendly environment for a group of learners where the system to have the class altogether is different. The educator adds all learners to the group and it's a safe environment. 

As for information overload, I consider bookmarking a way to dribble information overload. Why? If you have tons of bookmarks together with tons of people's bookmarks being tagged, you can use those bookmarks to create meaning whenever needed. You save them for later. One day, you can retrieve them and use them as you wish. This is exactly what David Weinberger says about the infrastructure of meaning, "We are building this connected miscellany link by link and tag by tag. Its value is in the implicit relationships that turn it into an infrastructure of meaning". It's an open-ended context in which we're creating streams of information. We can slice up our online resources as we wish according to our needs in a specific moment. A clear example:  to design this online course, I've been collecting lots of resources for the past years, but have not done anything with them. The only immediate action has been to create a specific tag for later retrieval. So, I just used teacher_project. when I actually started putting all together, I got back to all I have tagged with teacher_project to make sense of it and see where I'd head to. Interesting results as I could mix and remix what I was considering for the course and my bookmarks gave me invaluable insights of what was worth keeping in or out. Besides, as I used many other labels (tags) together with the unique tag I created, I could intertwine information. So, I could see what I had for specific topics, like teacher_project + blogs, for example.

On the bookmarking platforms available nowadays, we can really create very enriching networks of information, sharing and knowledge. Diigo is a great example! We've been exploring just the bookmarking part of it, but I must say I also love the highlighting, annotating features, plus the comment area in the bookmarked links. They take learning to where I think it should be, to the collective, social sphere. Just by being social, one might say that we're spending much more time there than we can afford it. I agree it's messy, non-linear. We tend to hop from one place to the other eager to keep learning, and then we get lost. Oh, I've wandered in the richnesses of my friends' bookmarks and lost myself in thoughts, possibilities, accounts sign ups even when I knew time was an issue...There's no easy solution for that. Some possibilities?

• Timing how long you'll spend browsing (even setting an alarm might help!)
• Setting specific goals: "I'll find two useful resources in this specific area"
• Deciding for a specific tag you want to focus on
• Defining a feature in Diigo you want to master
• Changing your email settings to receive only daily or weekly notifications of new resources added to the group

The burning question is how can we better share in the group?

Certainly tagging is a useful way. There are two aspects to it. First, add tags that are meaningful for you, for your private retrieval, and also tags that have been suggested by the group that will help others browse through the treasures you find online. Tag for your private use and for the public good.

Some tips:

• the use of words all together (professionaldevelopment, socialbookmarking)
• the use of webtools4educators unique tag
• the use of as many tags as you can think of 

Check some educators' discussion about educational uses for Diigo

http://message.diigo.com/message/why-would-teachers-use-diigo-29443

The trick of online social bookmarking is to keep sharing and tagging, as well as joining groups of interest to you.

Any other aspects we should consider?

So, why should any educator embrace the idea of social bookmarking and Diigo and why it is an essential tool for every educator?

- It helps us filter information
- It is about community sharing
- It helps us find interesting resources
- It connects us to the community
- It is portable
- It is an extension of our memory

 Parts of this post are cross posted at http://webtoolsforeducators.posterous.com/our-get-together-its-all-about-connection-con 

Changing Education Paradigms

Every educator, administrator, parent, professional should watch this. Great summary of our historical perspective, but, at the same time, giving perspective to what we do and should be doing. Now, it is up to us make the small shifts to change education.

With you, Sir Ken Robinson:

Value your DNA - Keep Passion Alive

I've just started reading a very pleasant book. Nothing new, but simply painfully true. Gary Vaynerchuck's "Crush it" talks about being true to our DNA in the beginning of his book.

For me, being true to our DNA is rescuing our roots and reminding ourselves what really makes it all worth it. I've been talking more and more, or even preaching, about the power of passion in everything we do. I've seen many educators with their passionate instincts dormant, just burnout, stressed out, lifeless...They even forget why they've started. They forget how fiery they once were about teaching, learning, the classroom....

I'd say that we need to start a Rescue your DNA program, in which inspiring people, professionals, educators find inspiration in what they believe in and who they are. What ticks them? How can they match their passions they once had and are latent into vibrant forces that are conducive to self-fulfillment, effective teaching and on-going learning?  What is the balance of keeping up with our routine, but not keep our drives simply inactive. We all need action, movement, transpiration, passion in our lives. We need to be true to our DNA. We need to find understanding and truth in what we do to be multipliers of powerful inspirational sourced to the ones around us. We need to transform or reform ourselves to be agents of change in society.

How should we start regaining passion in what we do and who we are?

Say NO to Change

Why bother?
Why leave the comfort zone for the unknown?
Why seek emotion and a bit more of fun into our dull lives?
Why should one work harder just for the sake of changing?
Why even consider the transformation if all things seem to fall into place?
Why innovate if someone else will get the credit?
Why do something different if everything seems to work the way it is now?
Why alter the state of our classrooms if the students are learning for centuries this way, but just seem "a bit bored"?
Why transition to a more proactive view of professional development if I won't get a raise?
Why spend my precious time studying, searching, planning for better teaching if I won't get more recognition from my superiors?
Why the shift?
Why the move?

That's why most of us keep saying NO to the inevitable passages in life, when we have to transition from our well-known, safe routine to a new "unpredictable" mode of thought and act. Though we might question ourselves the WHY, and this is healthy when it doesn't block the possibilities ahead, innovating, moving towards a new direction, finding a more appropriate perspective to learning and teaching is simply part of our own evolution as human beings, as educators.

The word CHANGE is part of my daily job. Every day, there's something new that makes me change the way I see things, a new tool to do things more efficiently. Though resistant at times, I've learned to listen to opposite views, to ponder, and to come to the conclusion when change might be beneficial to the collective.

Say YES.
Innovate.
Surprise.
Give a new sense to your own life.
Bring life to your classroom.
Make it lively.
Laugh, dance with your students, sing a song, create one.
Let breadth and new light enligthen your educational practices.
Learn with your students.
Don't expect recognition, except your own perception of how engaged, motivated your students are.
Consider your own small rewards when you see a sparkling eye, a curious soul.
Laugh again.
Teach with passion. Teach with soul and intuition. Find magic in the small details.
Add bits of tech before you can call yourself a true innovator.
Keep daring.

Are you still considering saying NO to change? Well, you might use 100 lame excuses to avoid becoming a more adventurous, happier educator. Or you might start considering making small innovative changes that will make a difference in your and your learners' lives pretty soon.

Say YES to your very simple changing acts.
Try it.
It can be really powerful!
Let's start right now a Say YES movement.

I'd love to hear what you've done to substitute inertia for hard-hitting transformation.

Rewarding Networks

Yesterday was delightfully exciting. Never have I worked so hard and intensively in different projects for the school I work for and my volunteer work in the communities I'm part of . No complaints. All the effort has been paying off. First, I got to know that our proposal to present in the TESOL international conference. More than being happy that our proposal had been accepted, we were thrilled to know that we will be able to share a bit of what we been doing in terms of language online learning. In fact, we don't want to show what WE are doing, but what our learners are producing, their content, their making sense of the world and the language.
http://listeningplus.pbworks.com/1o2008
http://www.pageflakes.com/edutechtools/24766454

Another highlight of the day was the e-tutoring online training session we are facilitating for the state of São Paulo educators. What an interesting, diverse group that emanates energy and curiosity about the digital possibilities they see ahead. It's a challenging mission because for most of these educators elearning is a totally new experience. However, I can see that they are into this new stage of their professional development. Uplifting.

Visit Online Start


Last but not least, as I was interacting with the participants of the training session late at night, I got to know first hand on twitter that I had won a nice blogging competition proposed by the inspiring Sue Waters. It was a simple task and one that everyone could contribute to create a mosaic of useful blogging tips.

All in all, the lesson of the day was that the best reward is being part of a network, a hyperlinked network of people who share, dare and help put together the pieces of our digital educational world. Thrilling.

Empathizers, Educators

I must confess that I tend to go against the new buzz, trendy book, film, fashion. Seems even a bit paradoxical as I work with Ed Tech and am always tuned to the latest developments in my professional area. However, I try to give books, films some time after the excitement of their release to see if it is really worth it exploring the new concept mentioned, the new aesthetic idea...

Well, all that because of the book "A Whole New Mind". It was very much commented when it was out in the bookstores. I thought I should get it, but only now I'm delving into its ideas. Perfect timing! Wonderful read for any professional.

One concept that is worth exploring in any workplace. The idea that we need more "empathizers". That's exactly what educators should be working on. What are our abilities as educators that cannot be outsorced? How can we be meaningful in this conceptual age that arises?

Will keep thinking about that...

Cybersurfing with Young Learners

I had the great opportunity to present for the IATEFL Young Learners SIG invited by Dennis Newson, who moderates the list.

What a pleasure to explore one area that is dear to me, but I´m not an expert at it. The presentation reminded me once again that there is no need to be an expert. Information is out there, your network is a powerful human resource that you can count on to learn about what is happening around the globe. Of course I had my own examples as I teach a group of tweens and the examples of my colleagues at the language school I work for in Brasilia. However, I wanted it to be a worldwide mosaic of young learners digital production. Twitter is the way to go. Just ask Twitterverse and you´ll be suprised by the abundance of resources, examples, ideas and generous educators ready to share and interact with you.

Just by preparing for the presentation I revisited some of my own beliefs in terms of teacher training and the fundamental role educators have in the process of their students´ digital literacy. I was reminded that, yes, young learners can have fun while doing serious school work. And certainly these youngsters can become better citizens, more prolific citizens if they are enabled to think critically, create, remix concepts, understand the process by which they become digitally literate, and not only persons that use the Net to socialize, as I see most of the students doing.

By starting with very simple, cost-effective tools, educators and learners can give a learning boost their digital experience to use the power of the online world to make a difference.

All the resources of the presentation are available at
http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/Cybersurfing-with-Young-Learners

Cybersurfing With Young Learners

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Flickr Educational Power

As a group of wonderful, inspired educators - Alice Barr, Ana Maria Menezes, Bob Sprankle, Cheryl Oakes, Daniela Munca, Jane Petring, João Alves, Mary Hillis, Nina Liyulkun, Ronaldo Júnior, and Susan Burg - get ready to co-moderate a free six-week online session, Images4Education, through the Electronic Village Online, I've been totally immersed in Flickrverse. My main focus has been the potential of Flickr in the Classroom.

It's been a journey of discoveries. True pearls. Starting with Mike Coghlan's tweet and enjoying his very straightforward wiki which he's been using to train educators.



I'm lucky to be in Twitter and connect so easily to others...

Back to Flickr, would you like to see even more? The wiki http://educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com/Flickr is a very comprehensive resource if you plan to work with Flickr4Education.

By the way, a Diigo group called Flickr in Education was also a place that I looked for good references. Though it is still a small library of bookmarks, it has provided me with great tools and blog posts. Our own Diigo space to share bookmarks during the Images4Education session is starting to take shape and soon will be a resources-rich hub for educators when the group starts to add their contribution.

Talking about Flickr posts that are worth exploring and considering in an educational setting, here are some true gems worth spending time with, even if they are not all directly connected to education, they can give you wonderful ideas:

My Own Interesting Snippets
Why Flickr and Alan Levine Rock
Telling Tales with Flickr
Classroom Uses of Flickr
The Davey's: Best of Flickr
Embed Flickr Notes in Other Websites
Motivating Language Learners with Flickr

These are just some of the finest pearls I've bumped into recently, or have bookmarked them some time ago.

By the way, an idea that comes to my mind. What if we all bookmarked in Diigo Flickr resources we found in cyberspace related to education, Flickr4Education? Not only that, what if we tagged Flickr4Education our Flickr photos that might be of interest to the educators community? What if we started the #flickr4education in Twitter? I'm sure Flickr would be even more powerful for our community with a collective action to bring together loose pearls out there in cyberworld into consistent tagging.

Let's start right now the flickr4education movement and show the educational power of Flickr.

Tag it: flickr4education

Edublogging with Passion

A friend of mine in Italy, Seth Dickens, has kindly asked me to talk a bit about edublogging. We had planned for an interview, but due to technical issues, we went for a recording.

Edublogging... How many times have I written about it, gave tips, presented, and tried to inspire others? Fact is the ones who endure the first stages of discoveries and experiments are the passionate educators, those who teach with heart and soul, who truly believe in their transformative potential as an educator. These are the ones who, later on, become passionate edubloggers.

The point of my talk was what I've been saying from the beginning and what I wrote about in the article "Blogging in the Classroom: It Doesn't 'Simply Happen' ". Persistence, fearlessness, being passionate and knowing that you have something that will add value to someone are key to make it a successful endeavor.

We make lists of how to be a successful blogger, but formulas are not in the core of Edublogging, conversations are. Conversations don't mean that you need to get tons of comments. They mean a talk to yourself, commenting on other people's blogs, and yes, getting comments when your readers feel the urge to interact with you. I sin as a blogger, for I am not consistent as I should be or as would be willing to. However, I've decided to let it go, for I have little ones and a husband to care for. I have professional projects and other ways to connect. Nowadays, Twitter is my means of quickly connecting to others, though it's not a substitute to blogging. Twitter is connection, blogging is reflection + connection. One complementing each other in my circle of learning.

Through blogging, edublogging my mind pours out, I learn, share, re-shape who I am and how I see things. But, my ultimate question is how could I show that to other educators? Maybe I can't. Just through their own blogging journey they will learn what passionate blogging is all about, some will just find the excuse for not even giving a try. Blogging is a transformational act one should be willing to undergo. It won't work if it's just mechanic, technical. No. It's humanistic, contextualized, personalized, collective, cultural, intense.

I'll never forget some memorable posts that show the power of blogging:

Marina's post - A psychologist talking about her experience about being a clown.

Having Dennis Newson as our class mystery guest

Motivating my adult students to predict a short story by Edgar Allan Poe we read in parts in class.

The rich cultural exchanges my group had with Dennis Oliver's group in the US due to our International Exchange blog.

Emerson, a quiet adult student in class, surfacing as a wonderful blogger and commenter.

Discussion with Russian students and readers about the Brazilian movie "The City of God".

Sharing Love Stories

Wow! Just so nice to travel back in the past through blogging. It's a record of a moment, a state of mind, it shows us and our learners in ways we'd never share in the old brick and mortar classroom in such intense exchange and connection. These are just some of the examples mainly with students in it, but there is the other side of edublogging as a professional and personal development. This is another story and certainly deserves another blog post!



This post was first published at http://explorations.bloxi.jp/a/edublogging-with-passionedublogging-with-passion