so - i'm a crazy fanatic about learning. ask my colleagues. (i know i annoy some of them.)
thing is - i'm passionate about high school kids, about learning, about spending 7 hours a day (school) wisely. what my colleagues might not get or see is that i'm passionate about them as well. and that's what i'm wrestling with just now.
i feel like i've learned at least the equivalent of a master/doctorate in the last 6 months - through my expert individual tutor and a couple different plns that i feed off of and crave insight from daily. i've listened to webinars on end, engaged in twitter and blog conversations galore, read a kazillion sites and blog posts and articles, several books.....
i'm so pumped for this school year. i believe we are in such an amazing time for education (that's another conversation in itself - like will richardson's post.) bottom line - i want others to feel the same. i want them to see the future as unbelievably open to opportunities we never had before as educators - rather than the overwhelmed feeling i know a lot feel.
going through pd and training and meetings these last two weeks - i've been thinking about all this. wondering if there were ways to reward my admirable brave colleauges for all the extra hours they put in - a way to encourage others to dive into and embrace all the remarkable opportunities we have.
here are some suggestions - (please add more or suggest more or start conversations):
i would like to see these things considered for tic and pd:
1) attendance at webinars - ie: george siemans and dave cormier - social media seminar
2) book clubs (online or off) - ie: mcleod's castle book club
3) online courses/conferences - ie:
*mooc (massively open online course)
*open ed conference ie: just listened to gardner campbell's talk on thinking the unthinkable - and here is dave cormier's post after the conference
*thinkfinity through verizon (nice move verizon)
some of these you can currently get tic for. for example: the thinkfinity course - you can submit the site (preferably 2 weeks before the event) for approval. i got it approved in 2 days. however, verizon offers for FREE - 30 cde hours or for $50 2 college credits from adams state. my approval was only if i went the $50 route.
but i'm thinking - there's got to be a better way. a more meaningul and useful way - to incorporate accountability (rather than paying to prove it.)
some thoughts i have for attaining tic credit after attending a webinar, etc... (listed in order from least to most useful/beneficial:
1. meet with your instructional coach or admin (you should have something you want to share)
2. get a colleague to participate with you and then turn in some form of your rich discussion after
3. do the same as #2 only with someone from your pln (professional learning network)
4. produce a copy of the webinar dialogue (showing your comments/questions) either during or after the event, or the comments from the book club blog sites, etc..
5. add a post on a district (or personal) blog site, so that you gain a rich reflection on the experience and others interested might also gain insight from your experience through ongoing conversations (i'm thinking blog = reflection/conversation)
6. create a wetpaint/wiki workspace to encourage/enable collaborations on some activity/topic you learned about so that others can then use it (i'm thinking wiki = workspace)
will richardson's post today is a must read. we have to let go of the way we've been doing things. we need more people to understand that:
1. this isn't just another trend/cycle/new toy
2. we're missing it
3. the kids lose - but gosh - we do too - why wouldn't any teacher want to crave the next day with his/her students