Beyond Global Collaborative “Units,” on to Real PLN’s: Podcast with Chris Craft
(right-click and “save as” to download the enhanced podcast here)
Life as science fiction continues.
Here in Korea on a Friday night, close to midnight, I hop onto Twitter, see Chris Craft is there in South Carolina, USA, and tweet him an invitation to talk on Skype. He kindly obliges (and it’s just a free international computer phone call now, so that ain’t hard).
I record it, edit it, and an hour later, self-publish it for anybody in the world who is interested in lessons learned from two humble pioneers of global classroom collaboration.
Our topic? We take up the question of how to refine our approach to global collaborative projects so that they are less prone to fail, or to wear out all parties involved (teachers and students) when they succeed.
I’m most excited by the last 5 minutes or so. Chris and I fell into a spontaneous “pedagogical jam session” in which we riffed on the idea that the best projects are - not projects at all*. Instead, they are authentic uses - and modelings - of Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s) via Twitter, Skype, Facebook, etc: “quick in and quick out.”
Good background reading from the edublogs:
- Sylvia Tolesano’s Collaboration Projects - Doomed to Fail? (USA)
- Graham Wegner’s Parable 2.0 (Australia)
- Susan Sedro’s Learning from My Online Project Mistakes (Singapore)
- My own enthusiastic post on George Mayo’s “Many Voices” Global Twittory project, and my own lessons learned from the 1001 Flat World Tales (S. Korea)
- My “Freshman Arthus Invades Korea to Co-Teach with Me” post
It’s only 15 minutes. It’s enhanced, if you download to iTunes, with chapter markers for quick navigation. And notice, if you play it from this post, you can still see links to URL’s we discuss along the way in the embedded player.
Enjoy! And better still - extend or challenge in comments 
—
*I owe a debt to Chris Harbeck’s K-12 Online Conference 2007 presentation “Release the Hounds, Part 4” for planting this seed a couple of months ago. It’s sprouting some healthy shoots now.
- Podcasting for the Promulgation of People's Pedigrees
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Thanks for sharing….this is an example of quality “sharing”…..of huge value but yet very simple..
Dean Shareski’s last blog post..Lesson #1 Share
Dean Shareski
12 Jan 08 at 6:13 am
Fascinating!
Maybe you should start a list - wiki - Google doc - for brainstorming areas of interest or expertise. E.g. Diane Cordell , Fort Ann, NY K-12 Teacher/Librarian rural school. Students into outdoor activities, horses, soccer. Close to setting of Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. Summer Fr. & Indian War, Am. Rev. War reenactments.
…a directory of who has resources, contact information, etc. Not quite as spontaneous as what you and Chris accomplished, but it might be useful nonetheless.
*included time zones: midnight in Seoul is 10 a.m. here.
Excellent reading (and listening) as always. Thanks!
diane
diane’s last blog post..Harmful Situations
diane
12 Jan 08 at 7:08 am
Clay,
I am so in agreement about the need to stop rubricize these projects, and that is difficult to do in this age of mistaken accountability. Teachers feel they can’t devote time to something that won’t generate a grade, and in our current system, they are often correct. (Hence your blog name?)
I hope this is just the first of many podcasts from you and members of your PLN.
Susan Sedro’s last blog post..Learning from My Online Project Mistakes
Susan Sedro
12 Jan 08 at 8:27 am
Clay,
You raise a lot of interesting questions.
The combination of Twitter and Skype opens up all sorts of possibilities for teachers.
But I still have a lot of questions about how and why I would want to get involved in a really long-term collaborative project. Also, how can we set it up so students have more control over these larger projects?
I’ve been thinking about this as I plan my Educon 2.0 session, Online Collaboration 101-
http://educon20.wikispaces.com/
George Mayo’s last blog post..Winter solstice
George Mayo
12 Jan 08 at 11:14 am
[...] teachers identify with the parable and how it unfolded. One such contributor was Clay Burell from Beyond School, his blog looking at teaching, technology and a few other things. Clay’s comment As a [...]
Educational Discourse
12 Jan 08 at 2:54 pm
[...] teachers identify with the parable and how it unfolded. One such contributor was Clay Burell from Beyond School, his blog looking at teaching, technology and a few other things. Clay’s comment As a classroom [...]
It’s about the other person « Educational Discourse
12 Jan 08 at 3:00 pm
Just want to say that, I am very open to start working on some of these “in and out” conversations. I think the first step to getting more teachers on board is to have them start using these tools Themselves and to realize the advantages. I feel that only the can they start to understand the power they can have tools in the classroom…
I worked with Clarence and Kim last year on the Teenlife project, but this sense of instant connection was missing. I think once a PLN is set up it can be easier to have a more “rubricy” project. But first teh kids have to understand that they have a network.
I am so glad to be involved in this network of 2.0 teachers.
Intrepid Teacher’s last blog post..50 Reasons Not To Change
Intrepid Teacher
12 Jan 08 at 8:33 pm
@Dean - thanks bud. I hope we can push some boundaries like we’ve been discussing on Twitter and Skype, but whatever comes, thanks for helping me push with everything you do. You occupy a corner of my mind, like so many others out there.
@Diane - omg. Maybe _I_ should? Ironic, in a post about networking
You know I love you, Diane, so I’ll consider that a typo. (heart) Diane, your comments on Twitter about how we all have networks and skillsets beyond our schooly ones which might benefit student formation of PLNs was pregnant. It’s gestating. (Is gestating the right word?)
@Susan and Intrepid (mind if I call you Jabiz?) - interesting juxtaposition of your two comments. Susan finds rubrics schooly, Jabiz finds a place for them, if I read him right, only after the authentic PLN connections are made. I’m sympathetic to both positions and would love to hear more from either of you - and we can just do a follow-up PLN podcast on this with a simple skype call when we’re all in the same Twitter space-time - if you’re so inclined. (And Jabiz, it’s nice to see you here. You should write a post about the Teenlife experience in comparison with the type of approach we’re brainstorming here!)
Clay Burell
12 Jan 08 at 8:53 pm
@Kelly (Educational Discourse) - I’m going to reply to your trackback merely to say that I hope people follow it. Your post has some nice outside the box thinking on how to create change sidewise instead of frontally.
Clay Burell
12 Jan 08 at 8:55 pm
Clay,
You’re right to call me on that - I still have a tendency to hang back and follow the leaders. New “New Year’s resolution”…BE a leader.
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” -George Bernard Shaw
“If one desires a change, one must be that change before that change can take place.” -Gita Bellin
Still learning, after all these years.
diane
diane’s last blog post..Harmful Situations
diane
12 Jan 08 at 10:43 pm
Yes Clay of course you can call me Jabiz. Before I start let me apologize for the nearly incoherent comment I left earlier. My typing was lagging a bit form my thoughts. But I do think you got the gist of what I was saying. Doing a project for the sake of setting up networks and evaluating the process with rubrics seems overkill, but establishing yearlong PLNs and using these networks to then collaborate or simply bounce ideas off each other seems like a better use of some of these tools.
For example, I am starting a poetry unit based on the issue of labor stemming form the Christmas Carol and we are looking at labor here in Doha. I would love for my kids to have a PLN that they can refer to when wondering how labor is treated say in Seoul or Singapore. These personal connections could be much more powerful than say a goggle search.
But setting up these networks can be time consuming…
Jabiz Raisdana’s last blog post..50 Reasons Not To Change
Jabiz Raisdana
13 Jan 08 at 12:58 am
Clay,
When I was listening to you and Chris, something started to come into focus… from the way back of my mind. I am not able to define it completely, since the notion is still blurry.
Being a teacher…standing in front of a group of students…knowing you have to make it relevant and engage them… What makes it relevant to us as learners?… what engages us?… Instant answers…insights into worlds we have never seen before…personal relationships and connections…an idea, a thought that make us look at something familiar from a new perspective…blogs-twitter-skype-wikis… tools that just work and are accessible with a click of a button. Access to information that is just begging to be used, remixed and given my personal twist… to be shared with an audience that I can’t even imagine…
What an idea…
Silvia Tolisano
13 Jan 08 at 4:16 am
Making real-life connections to real-life people has definite value above and beyond reading it from a book, website, or hearing it from a teacher. Recently my students and I discussed the decision to change Pluto’s classification to a dwarf planet. I explained to them the reasoning behind the change and had a pretty decent discussion with them, but how much cooler would it have been for the students to have that discussion with a scientist who actually participated in the decision making process.
These “quick in and out” technologies have a huge potential for revolutionizing the way learning is done. However, they aren’t often appreciated by administrators, teachers, or even technology directors. Currently my school no access to Skype, twitter, or most blogs at school. I greatly enjoyed hearing some of the tangible ways these technologies could be included in the school room. We need more examples like this to sway the establishment…
Ben Wildeboer’s last blog post..The New Endeavor
Ben Wildeboer
13 Jan 08 at 6:36 am
@Sylvia, Your comment, after a couple of reads, started bringing images of future learning into focus for me too. it’s an exciting vision. I wonder how far in the future it lies? (Hope I was right to edit your comment by deleting the repeated first line! I know this comment box is imperfect and hope to hack it soon.)
@Ben, thanks for the feedback. It’s always hard for me to know if any podcasts or anything else I post are worth spending time on, so your vote to hear more concrete examples and more discussions of these ideas - for the purpose of sharing them with administrators in order to promote shifts - was helpful. Thanks for that. And congrats on the new blog. Have you started a Twitter account? If so, find me at cburell for ongoing conversations there
Clay Burell
13 Jan 08 at 12:35 pm
@Clay: It’s very important that a body of evidence supports the use of these technologies in a classroom. There’s a lot of talk about high school reform in the States and the word “authentic” is often tossed out there. Yet when I sit down to try to find a tool that connects students to authentic people living in authentic and relevant situations I’m at a loss. It makes me wonder why so many educators are so frightened of this stuff. It’ll change eventually- as people who grew up with these tools become teachers- but can we really wait the 10-20 years until that reality exists? The tools are ready today.
Do you think the best way for students to set up their own personal learning networks is to have teachers with mature PLN’s leading the way? Perhaps if enough teachers had these set up school reform would happen from the ground up.
I have started a Twitter account (you’ll find me at WillyB), and am working on my own PLN…
Ben Wildeboer’s last blog post..The New Endeavor
Ben Wildeboer
13 Jan 08 at 3:01 pm
[...] a comment I left on David Warlick’s riff off my podcast conversation with Chris Craft yesterday. Exciting [...]
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It’s quite fascinating that you can talk to other people through skype just after reading a blog post.
I guess there are a couple people out there who want to do projects that we’re doing. Although others are trying to do what we’re doing, i think that PLN class has a little more advantage because we’ve got the technology at reach. Also because our class is made to do what we’re doing and not as another thing in addition, it doesn’t pressure us with time which is good.
Stephanie
1 Feb 08 at 10:09 am
[...] “unschooliness” for a while and has taken me along for the ride. When he posted his quick chat with Chris Craft, it immediately resonated with me. “Quick in, Quick out” (this is one of many catch [...]
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