Document Your Thinking!

My Learning 1.0
Before last summer I would have said that I was an avid learner. I read many professional development books, went to many conferences, and participated in face-to-face book clubs. I would converse with others about what I was learning, but I rarely wrote anything about it (unless it was for a class/credit).

My Learning 2.0
Then, last summer I discovered blogging, wikis and even twitter. The collaborative nature of these web 2.0 tools facilitated the need to express my ideas/reflections about what I was learning in writing. I now feel like I understand what I have been learning much more deeply. I am more confident and capable of teaching the things I have learned, and feel much more committed and capable of facilitating and advocating for change in those areas.

The Difference
I have always been rather tech savvy, but for some reason the whole web 2.0 evolution caught me sleeping. The web 2.0 tools helped me to become a more active learner in two ways:

1) Writing - I knew what the research said about the benefits of nonfiction writing or “writing across the curriculum”. Now that I have experienced the benefits I understand that it is not about benefiting writing (a misconception on my part). It is about the increased understanding of the subject you are writing about. The benefit to writing is a by-product. I prefer to call “writing across the curriculum” “documented thinking across the curriculum” because of this misconception.

2) Collaboration – I could have done the writing about my learning without web 2.0 tools in a diary or something similar. However, the web 2.0 tools offer an added dimension – an audience. When I write for an audience I think more deeply about my ideas and what I have learned, and I spend time organizing that thinking so that I can articulate it in such a way that it can be understood by others. The audience itself provides additional opportunities to learn. They may agree, disagree, pose questions, or take your ideas in directions you would not have thought to take them. It is quite exhilarating to have someone from across the world comment on one of your posts or have the author of a book you are reflecting about comment on your reflection.

Summary
Typically, I advocate for the use of technology as just another tool. There are other tools that we have at our disposal that can accomplish the same thing. Sometimes technological tools can help accomplish our goals more effectively. However, in this case I cannot think of another tool that can accomplish the depth of understanding that my learning has undergone with the use of web 2.0 tools (primarily blogging). So, in the case of blogging I will advocate for it’s use as the only tool of it’s kind.

Implications for School Leaders
While there are great learning gains that can be realized by our students through the use of blogs, that is not what I am advocating for directly. I am not necessarily advocating for teachers to begin blogging as a professional learning tool either. I am advocating for school leaders to begin blogging to further their learning. I have heard people say that if we don't inspect it - we can't expect it. How can we inspect it, if we don't use it ourselves? If we are the leaders of learning organizations, then we must do everything we can to enhance our own learning and model that learning. There is no other tool better suited to that purpose than blogging.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. - Albert Einstein

How Do I Get Started Blogging?
1. Start following some blogs that are of value to you. Scott McLeod has compiled a list of Great Blogs for Busy Administrators.
2. Comment on some blog posts that caused you to reflect, have questions, or think of extensions to the ideas that the author presented. Why not start today and comment on this post. If I haven't convinced you that blogging will be beneficial to your work, tell me why. What other benefits do you see or have realized through blogging?

We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak. - Mohandas Gandhi

3. Begin your own blog to share your learning, reflections and ideas. It is much easier than you probably think. Here are some easy instructions to help get you started. The toughest part is not the technology; it is the writing and thinking (tasks as school leaders we should be more than willing to take on - learning and sharing ideas after all are the very nature of our jobs).

The Game of School

One of the blogs I read - http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/ - has been posting quotes from a book called The Game of School by Robert Fried. They are very thought provoking. Here are the ones he has posted so far:

There is quite likely no substitute for the experience of feeling empowered . . . if we hope for children to pursue learning enthusiastically within the structure of a classroom or a school. Learning and power are inextricably linked.

We have opted not to create schools as places where children’s curiosity, sensory awareness, power, and communication can flourish, but rather to erect temples of knowledge where we sit them down, tell them a lot of stuff we think is important, try to control their restless curiosity, and test them to see how well they’ve listened to us.

The place we call school or college, which should be our society’s most vital promoter of learning, too often instead creates the field on which we learn to play a game that demoralizes us even when we are winners (and can permanently scar us when we lose). In the daily course of attending school, as they do what their teachers ask and strive to earn good grades, our children unknowingly substitute lesser goals for an invaluable goal they were born with: the pursuit of learning for its own sake.

There is a simple test we can perform to find out whether or not our children are truly learning. We can ask them, not the usual question, “How was school today, Honey?” or “What did she teach you in your math class?” but rather, “Did you learn anything in school today that you really want to know more about?” If the answer is … usually no, you have cause for worry - even if your child brings home a good report card.

Far too much of the time our children spend in school is wasted ... Most of what they experience during school hours passes over them like the shadow of a cloud, or through them like an undigested seed. They may be present in the classroom, but they are not really there. Their pencils may be chugging away on the worksheets or the writing prompts or math problems laid out for them, but their intelligence is running on two cylinders at best. They pay some attention to what their teacher happens to be telling them, but their imagination has moved elsewhere... And, worst of all, by the time our kids have reached fourth or fifth grade, they think what they are experiencing in school is normal.

Amid all the accounts … of kids complaining to each other about how bored they are with many of their classes, why do we accept this so passively, without arguing for the right to be learning something of value.

Part of me says this is too harsh - that the author is not taking into account the myriad of difficulties we face. On the other hand, he points some things out from the view of the child - whose learning needs should be met regardless of our difficulties. It has got me thinking. I think I will pick up a copy.