Our state system is transitioning from BlackBoard to ANGEL and this course is one of the pilots.  Students will initially log in to Bb, then receive info for  the ANGEL login.  If you follow me at all, you know we’re not going to stay in ANGEL!  We’ll definitely play around with it and see how far we can push it.  The course will include reflective activities, but learners will get to choose their medium.  I won’t require everyone to blog.  There will definitely be group work, so come prepared to openly share with others.

I’ll post all my content in public spaces, though the student work may not always be available to everyone.  We will step outside comfort zones, but it will be in a supportive and nurturing environment.  I expect there will be a lot of community and technical college instructors, so we will have a great opportunity to explore how eLearning works across disciplines.  Here is the current syllabus, but I plan to be very flexible and base a lot of the work on the dynamic of the group.  You can register through BTC.  The course is only $268.15 and runs 1/8 to 3/18/09.  Feel free to ask me any questions about it!

I asked her if she was writing the stories, or copying them.  She said she writes them.  I asked how she gets the ideas for the stories.  She said some are based on characters in books she reads, others are just from her head and some come from songs.  This one was based on the Don McLean song, The Day the Music Died. As I read the story, I wondered how all this stuff got in her head.  Surely a child her age didn’t just come up with it.

I didn’t want to push her or accuse her of plagiarism, but I started to wonder how teachers handle this with young children.  It seems to me, that even if they copied most of the words from another story, it would be beneficial to them.  My instinct is that even repeating stories they hear or see on television, would help nurture a love of writing.  I’ve never taken a course on teaching writing in elementary school, so I thought I would post here and see if anyone could enlighten me.

She didn’t write this as part of a school assignment, so it isn’t something the teacher will see. She just does this on her own time, for fun.  If it did end up on a teacher’s desk, would a second grade teacher even think about plagiarism?  Does it matter that young? How would you even check to see if a child plagiarized?  I asked her if I could post her story here and she agreed.  I would love to know more, to make sure I nurture her gift in the best way possible.  Thanks for any ideas!

Things are not fine.  Things are going to get worse before they get better.  Nothing is going to change until each one of us changes. If your life is still the same as it was yesterday, you can’t expect change to happen.  The mountains are not going to move until we all get a little uncomfortable.  If you’re sitting around reading this, you’re probably more comfortable than a lot of people out there.

One of the best ways I know to get out of a funk and to take some personal responsibility, is to give.  If you don’t have money, you probably have stuff you don’t use or need.  Give it!  If you don’t have stuff, you probably have time.  Give it!  If you don’t have money, stuff or time, at least start talking to your neighbors and find out what they need.  Maybe you know people who can help them.  If you have time to blog, or read blogs, you have time to make a phone call to advocate for someone’s health care.  You have time to write a letter of thanks.  You have time to help someone learn to read.

We all want our soldiers back from war, but what are we doing to help them when they get back?  Are we going to wait for government organizations to help them find educational opportunities, rebuild their families and cope with their fragile emotions?  Are we going to bring them home and then forget about them?  Do you have something, some time, some information that could help?

Today I’m going through the stuff in my house like I tell instructors to do with their course content before them put it online.  I suggest they figure out what’s nice to know and what learners need to know.  So I’m deciding what’s nice to have and what we need to have.  I’ve found and awful lot of stuff that will never be used again, so I’m giving.  If you’re looking for a way to give, you can start with freecycle.com.  I’ve even used craigslist before.  Today, I found new homes for items by posting on Twitter. I’m starting small, but I know I have things that will mean so much more to others.

I’m a fairly frugal person anyway.  In the past, when I’ve made purchases, I’ve asked myself if the item may one day end up at a yard sale.  If so, I try not to buy it.  Now I’m going to ask myself if it’s an item worth some day donating. I’ve come across a ton of things that I don’t think would even be of value to donate, and that is sad. They just take up space in my house, or will become garbage or recycling.  We need to start rethinking our consumer lifestyle, our brand loyalties, our entertainment habits, our need for immediate gratification.

We need to think about the kind of information we value.  What do we really have to give?  What benefit is it to keep sharing the same ideas with the same people?  Do you have something to share that will truly benefit society?  Give! I know there will be people insulted by this post, people who already do all these things.  Obviously, this post is not written for those people.  This post is for the people who want changes but aren’t willing to make any.

Sometimes I see individual tools promoted as making teaching and learning easier, because they provide access to collective knowledge.  But how many participants are only using that one site?  These sites were not developed based on the way we communicate, learn or work.  Some were developed as big-budget commercial products, where marketers and researchers designed interfaces with the intent to make us uncomfortable, so we make purchases to relieve our discomfort.  Others were modeled after successful predecessors, with the intent of being purchased and dismantled.  Some were created simply to collect data for marketing.  Rarely are they designed to promote learning or even productivity.

One of the reasons sites like myspace and facebook have been so successful, is timing.  They arrived on the scene at the exact moment of exponential growth in connectivity, due to infrastructure improvements and the reduced cost of hardware.  New users arrived online and didn’t know any better, so they connected in spaces with others who didn’t know any better.  You’ll notice that people who had been online a while were very uncomfortable with the design of those spaces, at first, and then joined because that’s where everyone else connected.

We’re now as used to it as we are to the QWERTY keyboard, which was designed to slow down typing.  But I think we have a chance to escape, and move ahead to technologies that make more sense.  In a well-designed space, users would control every aspect of their view, and would not have to tab around, refresh or log into multiple services.  We would each have one space. This would be a space where we could both publish and gather resources.  Our text, photos, videos, documents etc. would all be loaded from one interface.  The information we want to collect would be in the same space.  There would be multiple ways to sort, search and filter the information.  We would be able to easily mashup feeds to display in a way that best suited our learning and working style.

We would be able to see the status of our friends who who choose to reveal it, and we would be able to contact them in the same space.  We could collaborate, make new connections and pull together friends, but they would choose how they view the collaboration in their own space.  When we search for others, we will have access to everything they decide to release to us, and we can filter it the way we choose.  For example, if I want to connect with educators, I would perform a custom search within my space, that would access the Web and connect me with others who matched my search.  I could then select the pieces of their work I wish to gather. I may see they are seeking collaboration on something, and I could join.  I may see they have comments open on a photo or video, and I could comment. I may see other commenters and decide they would make good contacts, but these would all be within my own space, not on commercial sites.

I don’t think these are just dreams.  I think it has to happen.  The technology exists, but not in the commercial web sites we currently frequent and promote.  We shouldn’t have to visit different places to publish our media.  We should be able to publish from our own space, with our preferred licensing, where others could instantly gather and remix our material.  I’m not sure how this model would be financially supported.  I already think there is going to be a crisis when people realize the internet marketing models are not sustainable.  I suppose we’ll be paying for cloud services and applications, but there’s probably enough open source out there that this won’t even be necessary.

I just don’t think it’s reasonable for us to have to jump from site to site, logging in and out, and connecting with the same people in multiple spaces, reading the same messages over and over.  I know there are fancy, shiny aggregation sites and friend feeds, but they aren’t enough.  Facebook is just wrong.  I can’t stand the way all the applications mess with people’s minds and cause anxiety.  It may be rude for me to turn down all my requests, but I’m going to continue to do it.  Myspace is beyond hideous and I’m almost ashamed to have an account there.  I don’t have an immediate solution, but I know people aren’t going to put up with this much longer, when there is the potential for so much more.

In the back of my mind, there has been this little twitch reminding me of my corporate soft-skills training days.  I worked with managers in many environments who supervised employees with the technical skills to do their jobs.  They were frustrated with the interpersonal skills of their staff, the lack of group cohesion, and productivity hampered by poor decision-making.  Often, a manager’s first thought is that the employee must need more training.  I would perform a gap analysis and would often discover the employee wasn’t qualified for the position, the working environment needed to be changed, or the employee could benefit from some soft-skills training.

This led me to wonder if these are the same challenges faced by people joining digital personal learning spaces.  Maybe I would have a better understanding of the issues if I approach immersion in personal learning as a job.  Here’s where I see parallels:

• Building a personal learning network is work.
• Not everyone is qualified to do it.
• Not everyone wants to do it.
• Basic soft skills, such as customer service, communications, and feedback fundamentals, are required.
• There is a learning period before mastery, and this period is a different length for everyone.
• Mentor relationships allow for faster immersion and sustained growth.
• Mastery of tools enables more accurate work, efficiency and better decision-making.
• The physical (digital) environment affects perception and attitude and influences productivity.
• Knowledge sticks when learning is situated.

When I look at it as a job, I can see why introducing it to groups en masse doesn’t lead to successful adoption.  It’s almost like assigning everyone the same job after graduation.  Somehow, the introduction of the PLN must take into account individual and self.  This makes me wonder if it’s possible to develop a prior learning assessment that will help identify whether or not people are prepared to participate in personal learning in digital environments. I’m not sure what this would look like, but I think we could start by examining those we know who have either not been successful, despite valiant attempts, or who have rejected the concept upon introduction.  

I think we are at the point where we can admit that this is not something that will work for everyone.  To make the experience valuable, participants need technical skills, social maturity, emotional stability, self-control, professionalism, empathy, critical thinking ability, and common sense.  They need a conceptual understanding of social media the ability to select appropriate tools for individual situations.  Not everything on this list is teachable or even something that can be mediated.  Based on my observations, here are some potential pitfalls and my recommended interventions.

1. Environment:  This plays a role in any learning experience.  Some factors to consider when building a personal learning network are the physical spaces in which the work will occur, technical specifications, administrative support, and the design of the tools. (I have another blog post brewing about design.)  Some of these things can be controlled, but others cannot.  Example: Frequently educators face content filters, download restrictions, time constraints, and lack of support from IT and administration. It is worth the battle to convince others these barriers need to be removed.  Sometimes, the only way around them, is through a personal cellular phone.  Sometimes, these things cannot be readily overcome.
2. Technical Skills: Learners must be comfortable navigating the Web and exploring applications.  They must be willing to try things on their own, without formal instruction.  They must understand how to evaluate media and locate resources.  All of these things are teachable.  When a deficit is discovered before introduction of personal learning networks, learners can prepare, through training, or self-study.  When learners are very uncomfortable with the technology, the thought of building a personal learning network can cause anxiety.  We need to be aware of these people in our audience when presenting these tools, so we can offer solutions and help them get up to speed.
3. Social Maturity: It would be lovely if this were something that worked for everyone, regardless of their social maturity, but it just doesn’t work that way.  People who cannot socialize appropriately with other adults are going to have a very difficult time communicating in spaces where text is the primary medium of communication.  Lack of empathy, the inability to give and receive feedback, and poor communications skills also contribute to potential pitfalls.  We have all seen people fail because of their mean nature, pessimism, foul language, suggestive comments, or gossipy nature.  I don’t think  social maturity can be mediated, outside of creating rules of engagement, which I do not support or recommend.
4. Emotional Stability and Self Control:  These are more important than most of us realize.  We are talking about using behavior-based tools as conduits for cognitive stimulation.  There is a big disconnect.  We rarely introduce people to the behaviorist side of the media, but the effects are often the first thing that drags a person down.  Someone who is emotionally unstable, or suffers from serious mental health issues, may find the stimulation to be overpowering.  If you set aside the personal and professional benefits and concentrate solely on the physical processes, you will see what I mean.  Post, click, refresh, return, refresh, ding, flash, refresh, refresh, click, click, reward, stimulus, behavior,reward, stimulus, behavior, reward.  It doesn’t matter how you present it or model it, these are the realities of the tools.  They are all designed to elicit behavior, typically purchasing behavior.  It takes emotional stability and self control to recognize and moderate our habits.  While we can’t alter these things in our audience, I think it is our responsibility to address them when introducing people to the concept of building personal learning networks.  We need to recognize the possibility that people can actually be harmed by participating in digital learning environments. I don’t take this lightly, because I have witnessed online personal destruction.  We need to be honest about the challenges and not present these experiences as something that will be perfect, or even necessary for everyone. I find it disturbing when I hear people say that everyone needs to develop a personal learning network in order to be successful in teaching and learning.  To me, that’s like saying the only way to be a good writer is to use a black, ball-point pen and write in block letters.

Aside from these individual issues, I have a few other thoughts about our responsibilities when teaching people about PLN’s.  We first need to recognize that everyone already has a personal learning network.  It is usually comprised of people in their face to face world, along with some they connect with digitally. My other thought is that not everyone is able to recognize when they are learning.  I think a proper introduction to the PLN, would include encouraging the individual to recognize their own learning and identify their existing network connections.  Some of the people in their physical environment, may benefit from joining them in their virtual environments.  

My final thought is that we cannot expect others to be able to make the types of connections we made in the field of educational technology.  There is a level of online participation by educators and technologists that currently supports introduction of new members.  It could become saturated or reach a tipping point where it is no longer productive.  Many educators practice in areas where there are no online communities to support a functional personal learning network.  They aren’t interested in the world of ed tech and won’t benefit from mirroring your network.  

I am very fortunate to have been working part time from home when I started building my personal learning network. I had the time and resources to devote to strengthening connections.  I recognize that most people, especially teachers, do not have this luxury.  While I would love for all of them to be able to share the benefits that have provided such strong guidance for my own professional development, I know it just isn’t possible. I am searching for solutions to make this process more transferrable across disciplines and roles. I welcome any suggestions that would help me provide a more “sticky” introduction to the concept the next time I need to present it to a group.