I’m blogging from Regina and working with nine great teachers. It’s kind of like preaching to the choir. These folks get it and are already asking how to get other teachers interested, connected with social software. Still don’t have all the answers but am enjoying good conversations. The coffee arrived late but other than that, things are good.
As the day went on it was clear that:
- some were overwhelmed
- some couldn’t get enough
- filtering came up several times (read Darren’s thoughts)
- the real issue is not about these tools, it’s about our beliefs about teaching and learning (read David’s thoughts)
I’ve probably done a half dozen workshops on these things and this was the first time I had the whole day. As usual I tried to cram a bunch of stuff in one day. That’s okay but I’m wondering about spending more time getting to understand the implications of teaching and learning. We did talk about this at various times but this kind of discussion needs time and work to get at the big issues. But I did suggest that they spend a good deal of their time in their bloglines reader to get to know some of the people writing the good stuff.
After showing them a myriad of things that Flickr can do, one person said, “How do you know all this stuff?”
My answer was that I don’t but because of the good folks that help me out, they find much of the good stuff and just share it. That’s a major concept I was trying to present.