Feed: Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech - AggScore: 82.2

EdTech Posse 8.1

We are now in our 8th year of podcasting. I could be totally wrong but I'm going to declare us as the longest running educational group podcast on the planet. If I'm wrong leave a comment and I'll retract.

We had a relatively quick conversation with Rob as Alec and I were in the same room planning for our workshop the following day. 

Here's some of the show notes:

• The NBCHS Grade 9 photo gallery
• The Point-Counterpoint article about Bring Your Own Technology, featuring Jen LaMaster and Gary Stager (from Learning and Leading with Technology)

Also, you'll want to listen and earn a coveted Posse Mug. Hey, I've now done three consecutive posts as podcasts which is a new record. I'm kinda diggin' the audio again and am actually planning to develop a workshop on audio design. Anyway enjoy the show.

My second DE podcast

I'm not sure I'll keep double posting these here but have a listen if you like. For now, it's a way to publish to itunes as well. I do have an itunes podcast link if you'd like to subscribe but all the fancy prize winnings and such would go on the Discovery site. 

My first DE podcast

I have a heart for podcasting. Steve Dembo and Bud Hunt captured by attention way back when as they casually recorded themselves as they drove home from work. I loved the raw, authentic, casual nature of those recordings. 

​So Steve and I have talked about doing stuff with Discovery and we both share the philosophy of "just do it". So here's how this podcast was born:

​As you'll tell from the podcast, this was not rehearsed and it was pretty much uncensored. I hope it can be something where I learn more about the awesomeness of Discovery and you can too. Can you tell I've been drinking the kool-aid? If you want a prize, leave a comment on the DEN blog. 

Understanding the Digital Divide

I need to be careful. A new job and new learning gives me plenty of excuses not to write. My mind is occupied with all sorts of things that make it challenging to be be reflective sometimes. Writing and blogging has been a critical part of my own growth as an educator and I have no intentions of that changing but I need to force myself to write. This might be one of those occasions. 

Last week I visited two dramatically different conferences. FETC is one of the larger educational conferences you'll ever attend. While numbers have decreased significantly from the first time I attended over 11 years ago, there are still thousands that make their way to the Orange County Convention Center to drink in all things related to technology and learning. My first time there in 2001 I recall attending a pre-conference workshop on streaming video. I believe it was Miami-Dade County sharing how they were able to stream events such as football games and graduations to their community using a truck with TV studio equipment and servers coming out the wazoo. It took me about 15 minutes to realize that someone from Moose Jaw, SK with a handy cam and a lab of 30 computers had no business being in on that session and no hope of ever being able to do anything of that magnitude. I continued to be in awe that week of the emerging hardware and software that offered some new possibilities. I left feeling pretty excited. 

The next few years at this conference were less and less exhilarating and by the 2009 I had pretty much decided there wasn't anything happening there that I would need. My learning space had shifted. What I valued from conferences was about meeting new people whose ideas and sharing I was beginning to understand but wanted some clarification. Call it the flipped conference. Unfortunately FETC wasn't the best place to experience this. Unlike ISTE,  who was not only larger but had begun to acknowledge this need amongst a percentage of its conference attendees, FETC wasn't really embracing this need. 

This year I attended FETC as part of my new role with Discovery. As it turned out, it was a great way for me to spend time with co-workers, ask questions, watch a pre-conference event and connect with many DEN stars. In addition, there were many Canadians in attendance (Florida in January may have something to do with that) and made some important connections that will be helpful as develop community in Canada. But although for me, there was benefit, I couldn't help but noticed that 11 years since my first FETC, there was still a large focus on tools and devices. Very few sessions dealt with the real hard questions of teaching and learning. To be fair, I was largely going by the program and session descriptions but I struggled finding sessions I thought woudl be interesting beyond, "here's a bunch of tools I think are cool". 

The conference ended Thursday night and Friday I left for Philadelphia to attend Educon. Educon and FETC are nothing alike. Educon is small, 500 or fewer. Educon takes place in a school. Educon is in Philadelphia, not Orlando. Educon is designed to be conversational. I led one of these sessions with Alec Couros and shared this diagram from D'arcy Norman as the basic formula for the conference:

This happens because Chris Lehmann attracts smart people. It happens because a high percentage of these people interact with each other regularly online. It's a community  coming together to get at some important issues. It's kind of a flipped conference. It's not a perfect conference but it serves the needs of many who are looking to connect deeply with people and ideas. 

I think FETC meets some of their needs as well. However it's much more of an introductory space for many. A large number of attendees are experiencing shiny new tools and ideas for the first time. I often lose sight of that. At the same time I don't think they're adverse to having the conversations that might take place at an Educon but may not be ready to go there. I think they lack a context for change. 

I'm making a number of assumptions here and I may in fact be wrong. But I did come to realize that just because I find the format and style of Educon more to my liking doesn't mean that an FETC conference doesn't have value. I also realized that my role with Discovery is going to mean that I need to find more ways to reach a more diverse audience. In one month of travels and conversations, I'm seeing first hand the spectrum of technology use and understanding which is greater than I perceived. Working inside a single district, I at least understood the culture. I knew that while not every teacher was using technology to its fullest, I was aware of the circumstances and barriers to a greater degree and was able to provide the more appropriate supports. I've seen some schools and teachers who are dealing with very different challenges than I witnessed. Schools with virtually no technology outside of a single smartboard and a lab of out of date computers. No wireless access. High levels of filtering. Boards with limited vision. While I was aware these problems existed, they weren't really my problems. Now they are. 

So all this to say the digital divide is vast. Somehow I need to prepare myself to address that and It begins with a more sympathetic attitude towards those just beginning to see that things could be different. I think at times I've been harsh and impatient with people. Not openly perhaps but may have dismissed someone's seeming lack of interest as being reluctant. I'm realizing that so many people have not had the opportunities and time I've had. Again, this isn't new but I got a good reminder last week. 

The Educon experience of community and challenging conversations is something I hope to pursue and nurture with my time at Discovery. I've got lots of resources to make that happen but I've also got a big challenge in supporting a country as big as Canada. 

I'll keep sticking with what's gotten me this far; smart people. I know a few. 

A Tweet For Customer Service

While what I'm about to  share is pretty common place, i still find it fascinating largely because so many people and businesses haven't figured this out. 

Friday I left for Florida. Delta lost my luggage. This is the first time I've ever had my luggage lost. According to stats, airlines are 99.5% effective in getting people their luggage to the intended destination on time. I wasn't too worried. After all, I had my golf clubs which was really most important given I had a tee time the next morning. I knew my luggage was in trouble because it never showed up in Minneapolis where I have to claim it after I clear customs. The flight to Orlando had wifi on board so while in the air, I tweeted Delta's twitter account and they tracked down my bag letting me know it wouldn't make it to Orlando until the next day. They also instructed me to go to the baggage claim immediately after I got off the plane. I filed a claim and was told the luggage would be delivered to my Dad's place the next day between 6-10 PM. As the 10 PM hour came close it was evident the luggage wasn't going to arrive. I called the number on the claim form but only received an answering machine. Back to twitter. I tweeted @DeltaAssist again and they had me complete a form on http://whereismysuitcase.com where I was able to track the suitcase much the same way you track a package. Shortly after I received a call stating the luggage would be delivered somewhere around 2AM. 

The luggage indeed arrived and Delta offered me a rebate of my luggage fee as well as some Skymiles for the trouble. They were pleasant and quick to respond. 

Today I checked in to my hotel here in Orlando and immediately was faced with the $14.95 internet charge for a relatively crappy connection. Fine. Then as I go to connect my Ipad, I'm asked to pay another $14.95. I called the front desk and was told that's just how it is. I'll give you two guesses what I did next. 

Seriously Westin, $15 for internet and that's only a MB down and one device. @SPGInsider That's ridiculous.

— Dean Shareski (@shareski) January 22, 2012

I do this for a number of reasons.

1. I'm mad 
2. I think others should know about bad service or products
3. I like to see if companies are paying attention

Within a few minutes…

@shareski Hi Dean, Could we ask what hotel you are staying in?

— SPGInsider (@SPGInsider) January 22, 2012

And a few minutes after that the manager called my room and took care of the the charges.

I've tweeted about an even bigger resolution and many have had similar experiences I know. What I wonder is in the same way that some banks don't offer you the lowest interest rates unless you ask do companies only cater to twitter users because of its public nature? The hotel manager who called me specifically referred to my tweets as the reason he called. Is it simply a great way for companies and business to connect with customers or is it only about damage control? If I don't tweet, do I get the same kind of service? I don't think so. There's an immediacy with tweeting that and an ease at which they can respond to customers. I don't know if they watch how many followers you have and whether that plays a role but I do think it's a huge advantage to be able to connect with the people you have financial transactions with. (I wonder if any of the businesses, will track down this post since I tagged them?)

When I first began blogging and using rss, I wrote a post about how my expectations had changed. I expected to be able to connect and learn with people online and if I couldn't I was less inclined to read their stuff. I realize that's narrow and not very realistic but I'm feeling the same way about businesses and organizations and twitter accounts. I want to know that if I run into an issue, you'll be there to support me. I had that experience this week with Delta and Starwood. I recently had the same with Shaw Cable. 

I also don't want to use these connections only to complain, They all provided good service to me and I'm happy to recommend them because of that. I don't know if there's a lesson here for schools but at least it's one more reason to help our students understand how to leverage these tools. There are some literacies or skills here beyond simply creating an account. They aren't all technical but experience and being comfortable in these spaces is a good thing to have. It's been quite beneficial to me this week for sure. 

Should teachers own their learning?

What if school districts and school administrators trusted teachers to let them direct their own PD?

What if the ideas of personalized learning and students owning their learning was applied to teachers? 

These are questions I ask as I wonder about the ways in which schools and districts attempt to support teacher growth. In the same way schools have a hard time empowering students to own their learning, districts struggle with letting teachers own theirs. I'm not aware of any district that truly embraces the notion of personalized learning. Districts all seem to feel the need or push to set goals for schools and teachers. They tend to standardized professional development and in many ways replicate the industrial models of school. The underlying desire for accountability is largely the barrier to trust. 

What if their goal was to have teachers truly own their own learning? 

There seems to be a strong disconnect with the emphasis on differentiated instruction in the classroom and differentiated professional learning for teachers. Some teachers will encourage teachers to seek their own learning but only after they do what they're told or mandated. I've had enough experience working at the district level to understand the complexities and challenges of that branch of a learning organization but I've not seen any district brave enough to trust their teachers to do the "right work." Politics certainly play a role here but I have believe there are leaders who, if they truly trusted teachers and believed they could direct their own learning could make it happen. 

As most would agree, few if any teachers wake up in the morning with the intent of doing a crappy job. The more time I spend in schools, the more I believe that teachers are generally pretty awesome folks but are stuck in a bad system.

I think they need four things:

1. The time and opportunity to explore new ideas and possibilities. Of course time is an age old problem but unless we provide reprieve from the busyness of the classroom, we'll be hard pressed to see our teachers get better. 

…teachers must deal with constant daily disruptions, both within the classroom such as managing discipline and interpersonal conflicts, and from outside the classroom such as collecting money for school events,making announcements, dealing with the principal, parents, and central office staff; they must get through the daily grind; the rewards are having a few good days, covering the curriculum, getting a lesson across, having an impact on one or two individual students(success stories); and they constantly feel the critical shortage of time. (The New Meaning of Change, Michael Fullan, p. 31)

2. Autonomy. When schools and districts own the learning, teachers can't. Some teachers get this with their students and are making changes to reflect that belief. I'm not suggesting teachers currently have no autonomy but I don't know any that have full autonomy in their professional learning. As professionals, I think they should. I also think this might be the fastest way to improve morale. It costs nothing but sends a message of trust and appreciation that many of our teachers don't feel. 

3. The support to make it happen. The role of the district needs to be in providing teachers with new ideas as well as supports for current practice. Researchers, coaches and facilitators.

​4. The expectation to share. If you're worried about accountability, require every teacher to share their learning. While we give them autonomy, districts do pay their salary and require them to be good classroom teachers but also need them to share with one another. Whether they post their work online or not, I think they need to share what they learned. My pre-service teacher courses end with every student answering the question, "What did I learn?". Imagine if all teachers did that every year? 

I know Will Richardson is on the hunt for bold schools. While there aren't many, I know there are some.

I'm on the look out for districts who truly trust their teachers to guide their own learning. Do you work for one? I'd love to hear from you. Maybe you disagree, maybe you think districts need to mandate PD in some way. Either way, this is likely a conversation I'm going to be having for a while. 

1461 and counting

It's been nearly 1,500 days in a row that I've been taking a photo a day. I don't think I've missed more than an handful of days over that time. I continue to learn and find it now to be truly be a part of me. I don't ponder whether I'll keep doing it, I have no reason not to. It's not a chore anymore. As I've mentioned often, it's a mindfulness that has taught me a lot of things. Each year I tried to add something to challenge myself. 2008, was my first crack at it so I kept it pretty basic. 2009 I tried to create one word titles for each of my photos without doubling up during the year. Last year was the crazy challenge of trying to attach a song to each photo. This year I simply allowed myself to add video as an option. I'm still pondering what I might do in 2012. I feel like I'm repeating myself which isn't all bad. The fact I still find the the way sun hits the 13th hole at the Hillcrest beautiful every time I play it is likely a good thing. Yet I'd still like to expand my notion of beauty and my notion of what constitutes a moment worth capturing. Certainly not all of my 365 shots are truly worth capturing and remembering but many, the majority are I think. If any of you have any ideas of what I might focus on for 2012, please share. 

Creating a composition video is very rewarding for me and my family. While the photos are mine and represent the world as I saw it, it's a great way to see the past year and remember events and moments we shared and experienced together.  Many of the images have a specific story and memory. Others are representative of the beauty I see around me. Certainly the addition of HDR and other image enhancements add even more awe to the world around me.  A quick scan of the various subjects shows the following results:

• Family: 86 photos
• Videos: 44
• Friends: 40
• Dogs: 38 (of particular note, 14 of those featured Rue in some type of weird sleeping position)
• Sky: 32 (likely do do the HDR app but I seemed to be sky watching more than ever)
• Me: 30 (I need to work at getting that number down)
• Golf: 28 (I think that's down from last year. I need to play more courses)

Posting photos online continue to add so much to the experience. People have shared many of these moments with me both in person and virtually. We see the collection of these images to tell rich stories of one another and I'm happy to share some of my family and life with the world. 

Technically this video was pretty easy to create. I used iMovie instead of Final Cut Express. I simply brought in all photos I had tagged with 365/11. I cross referenced them with flickr and discovered a few errors. Unlike in past years, I didn't painstakingly go through each month to insure every day was represented. I'm sure there are a few days missing. Not because I didn't take a photo but because I didn't tag them properly. Big deal. Photos are set to 5 second and fit to frame by default. After adding music I tend to view and trim accordingly. Pictures of little meaning or content tend to get cut down to 3.5 or 4 seconds. Photos that have some story or object of significance seem better suited at times to using the Ken Burns effect. I'm not sure I always get it right but discreet pan and zoom can be effective. That's why I don't want to use it as the default. Choosing which photos need or benefit from that effect is intentional. I hope that comes through. I finish with a couple of songs from my daughter which I did in 2009 as well. I tried to make some smooth transitions between the end of songs and beginnings which required some additional adjustments.  

Anyway, it's meaningful to me. and easy enough to share with you. I'm Maybe you'll recall some of the photos, maybe not. Maybe you make an appearance in some, maybe you don't. Maybe you've got 30 minutes to watch it, maybe you don't.

I don’t think in lists

It's list season. Actually it's list season all year round. Writing a post with a numbered list seems the way many people think. Reminds me of my daughter's obsession with rankings. Come to think about it, I've written on this topic a few times so I may be repeating myself but as I saw a steady stream of tweets today linking to a plethora of posts I tweeted out this:

Working on some new posts. 54,000 reasons to tweet. 9,000,000 reasons to blog and 27 billion ways to use Flickr. Give me a minute.

— Dean Shareski (@shareski) December 30, 2011

A little snarky? Perhaps. But it seems to me this type of blogging is become all too prevalent. Maybe it's just a lack of creativity, or maybe it's just not my style. It just seems that that cumulative nature of these posts send a subtle message that answers can be neatly packaged into lists of 10. (actually, I'm seeing more top 12 and 11 lists just to shake it up a bit) Doug Johnson even recommends it. But since Doug often writes with his tongue in his cheek and never takes himself too seriously, I read it with a grain of salt. Ryan Bretag actually nails it pretty well with this quote:

We love to talk about lists. Just recently, I watched another 21st Century skills list get tossed about on Twitter with “oohhs and ahhs”.

And that is just it. These lists are so attractive. They’re easy. They have the instant “wow factor”. But what do they offer beyond that initial “wow” that has a meaningful impact on your organization, department, or you yourself?

Look, if you've written a post or two with a numbered list, relax, I'm not attacking you. Lots of people like list type posts. I just find them slightly lacking in creativity and at times simplifying complex problems. There's a tendency to try and be definitive, to have the answers. Sometimes we do, but I've seen too many "top 50 bloggers to follow" and "the best 20 videos for educators" lists to turn me off of that genre. These lists are far from definitive and even with disclaimers, that's how they are often viewed. I try not to immediately think in terms of ranking or even listing. In education and learning, few things can be ranked and ordered or even listed. Some people love that stuff.  I'm just not a big fan. 

Beauty in a Second

Ben Grey, who despite his poor taste in music and clothes, has a great eye for composition and design. He introduced me to the one second video contest and challenged anyone to create their own version. The way in which we play with media is fascinating. Taking stills and making them move, mashing up content, playing with new formats are emerging storytelling ideas that enable us to share our world in rich and powerful ways. 

This weekend I was on the lookout for moments of beauty inside our house. Having been taking a photo every single day for the past 4 years, I've developed a keener sense of beauty or mindfulness. Trying to capture moments, seeing something special in the way light hits an object or the way two people interact. It's a habit I'm glad I've been developing and will continue to pursue. 

This is what I came up with. 

It's not awesome but it's a story, our story. I can really see taking this format and tweaking it and making it one's own. Ben used his son as the theme of his video. That's a very compelling story and while it's obviously incredibly meaningful to him, he tells it in such a way that we are drawn in as well. As I watch my own, I'm not sure exactly where to critique it. Would a better camera made a difference? What shots would have been more compelling? Was there even an implied storyline? Was the music an appropriate choice? 

I think about my own assessment skills here. I've created enough of these stories to have some sense of what works and what doesn't, and yet I lack the vocabulary or expertise to truly dissect my work in this case. I'm not sure if it's because I'm using a new format or whether art itself is too challenging to always try and deconstruct. Certainly this is the dilemma of assessment in schools when it comes to creative work. As Royan Lee says, "why grade when you can reflect?"

So You’ve Decided to Follow Me on Twitter

I'll notice that during conferences, I'll often get a barrage of new twitter followers as a result of someone giving a presentation or workshop and suggesting to some new folks that I might be worth following. While it's kind and flattering that others might recommend me as someone to follow, I've always had some reservation about that. In workshops, twitter is shown as a powerful and great way for educators to connect with smart and like minded people. In many cases, these are educators new to the social networking particularly for the purposes of learning. The fear I have is that I represent the very reason many people think twitter is ridiculous. 

I frequently optimize the very essence of the banal tweet. 

So when a stranger reads that anticipating they might glean some insight or wonderful resource, they're likely a combination of disappointed, confused or annoyed. Sure, if you're following me, you might now by now this is par for the course. I will post the occasional mundane tweet but hopefully with a dash of humor or cleverness. Not always, but I try. If I bring a smile to someone once in a while, that means as much to me as sharing a great link or insightful remark. For me it's purposeful, in the same way kibitzing in a staff room or with your friends is purposeful. Some call it social grooming. 

The whole notion of the word "social" and education is difficult to grasp when your experience with learning has been anything but social and void of fun. So rather than have people scared off immediately or having them figure it out eventually, I wondered if there was some way to give people a heads up, a twitter trailer if you will, on what they'll get should they decide to follow me. 

So I created this:

Using ifttt, new followers get a direct message asking them to take 90 seconds to preview the goods. I worried a little if it would come across as spammy or invasive. I still wonder that but I've received some great feedback from people saying they really appreciated the heads up. I even had one person say that really only were interested in the educational side of things and if they found my content too out of place for them, they'd unfollow. Fair enough. 

While I could have had a link to my blog, that to me, seemed spammy. The blog isn't a great reflection of my whole self. My blog is much more about my reflection and thinking as well as dumping ground of thoughts. Twitter is the blur of personal and professional. I realize everyone uses it differently and that's fine. The fact that I used a video and people hear my voice and see my face adds another layer of connection. I much prefer people's faces in their avatars. If I've heard them speak, I read their tweets with their voices, accents and all. 

So a month into this little experiment and I'm pleased with the feedback. It's likely a trade off, with a few people put off, thinking it's a little narcissistic, and maybe it is. But the pay off of potentially more informed and even more connected folks is worth it to me. 

The Paradox of Choice

Cross posted at Tech & Learning

Podcast 52: Me and Zac

If you want your brain to hurt you might want to listen. If not, go find another way to spend an hour. 

Zac Chase and I talk about learning. I don't know if that sounds boring to you but Zac makes me think and challenges me about my learning project and some of the things rummaging around his brain.

Yourls

Chris Craft is a smart dude. Actually it's Dr. Craft now. 

2 years ago, he talked to me about a custom url shortener he had installed on his server. Sounded cool but I wasn't ready to invest time into getting it installed. Last year he talked to me about it again, because I asked about it. I thought specifically the ability to track these links and clickthroughs seemed interesting and useful information. Sites like bit.ly do the same but I think anytime you can own your own stuff, whether it's a domain or website, that's good move. D'arcy Norman's taking this idea to its fullest in his latest pursuits of ownership. 

Anyway, I sometimes get in this geeky mood and want to roll up my sleeves and use things like FTP, MySQL and config files. Truth is I barely know what those things are but sometimes force myself to be geeky because it's good for me. 

So I managed to install the thing on my server and short of had it working. What it does is take your existing domain, in my case I chose my shareski.ca domain as opposed to ideasandthoughts.org because it's shorter and also is a little more recognizable. Both domains and sites reside on the same server so it didn't matter which I chose. I created a separate directory for my URLs to live. I thought I had installed it correctly but somehow all my shortened URLs were pointing back to shareski.ca You do that about 3 times and you're officially a spammer. So I left it and got Dr. Craft to take a look at it. (How awesome is that you can give someone full access to your server and he just fixes it?) I think my config file was pooched. (see definition 5) Chris I owe you a breakfast in Philly. 

Whatever he did it now works. What I'm able to do is create bookmarklets to shorten automatically or create custom shortened URLs to share. Great for workshops, twitter and elsewhere. You can tell if your share a link with a specific group, how many may have opened it.  The URLs stay with me and the tracking feature is pretty nice. After a few days using it, here are my overall results:

You can also see where your traffic comes from.

I also am using a WordPress plugin that auto generates a shortened URL and auto posts to twitter. There are probably other features that I'm not aware of yet but I think it's certainly good thing to explore if you have access to a server. 

If you use tweetdeck you can include it as your default shortener. The instructions to do that are here. Lots of other little add ons and tools that you might find useful. 

Guitar Lesson 9: Sometimes Good Enough is Good Enough

I promise I won't endure you to any more of my playing. In some ways it's hard to see much project. I think I put in close to 50 hours. I do like the fact that I now can pick up a guitar and make sounds that are not completely random. I know there are many out there who have a loose relationship with a guitar and desire to step up their playing but for many reasons don't. As a golfer, I know I could do better but actually am quite satisfied with my level of play in that I have no intention of doing anything special to improve other than continuing to play the game. I realize that in order to really improve, I'll need to take lessons and spend lots of time practicing but I'm not prepared to do that and that's okay. 

Kind of reminds me of lots of learning we do. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Say that in schools and someone is bound to scream "Blasphemy!" Shouldn't we always ask our students to excel, to do their best, to aim high? I don't think so. Some of you are reading that right now in horror. I don't think it's that bad. Not every learning is about passion. I'm not passionate about guitar. I like it. I'm glad I learned something about it and will continue to play but for right now, it's good enough. We need to give ourselves permission to tell that to kids sometimes. Not every assignment, every subject needs to involve what we call "their best". For teachers, "their best" is simply about giving it more time. I gave as much time as I wanted to this project. With the time I had I explored many ways to learn. I acknowledge in many episodes I may not have chosen the best, most efficient path to learning. But I was okay with that. That's part of learning too. I think when we ask students to do their best we ought to qualify that to reference time. With the time we have we don't want to waste it but in many cases, teachers are upset because students didn't give something more time. Consider that our students' time and attention is being sought from at least 5 different teachers/subjects, not to mention extracurricular and interests and duties outside of school. 

We all make choices of how and where we'll give our attention. Instead of lamenting about not giving something more time, perhaps we need to accept that sometimes good enough is good enough. And perhaps we need to give our students license to do so as well. 

So with that here's the last episode. It's good enough. 

The Power of Your Voice

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robwall/2802347892

Yesterday  I mused on twitter about how people made their first connection online. 

Reminiscing about how I first made connections with certain people forces me to think about how and why we find people a part of our lives. I'm not talking about loose ties here but more about people that you consider an integral part of your learning community. Friends perhaps, but certainly your teachers. When I do this it's amazing how many of these folks first came to me because I heard their voice. Not voice in the literary sense but their actual vocal chords producing their unique sound. 

Podcasting as  subscribeable audio content has only been around since about 2004. It was the early educational podcasts that really helped me connect with certain individuals. 

Steve Dembo aka Teach42. Steve began podcasting out of his car back in 2005 when I first came across his work. I wish I knew how I found him but my guess is I was searching for education and podcast and found his stuff. This is the first one I think I ever listened to. The fact he was in his car and recording audio to post online later was in itself intriguing in 2005. Steve's relaxed style made you feel like you were riding shot gun. Immediately I was interested and engaged. 

Bud Hunt aka budtheteacher. Bud, like Steve did his podcasts in his car. He still does occasionally but not nearly enough. I remember him as a high school English teacher talking his students to the local bookstore to buy books. (Sorry Bud, I searched your blog for the podcast link but couldn't find it. Would you be so kind as to put it in the comments? I won't update this so folks are forced to read the comments. Sneaky, but hopefully effective)

Bud, like Steve made me feel welcome to join them. It wasn't really a dialoge but an opportunity to have a conversation. I know I left comments on their blogs and their responses let me know I was welcome to learn with them. We've been learning together for almost 7 years now. 

One of my favorite podcasts of which I think there were only 2 episodes was EdTEch Coast to Coast. Actually it appears there are up to 17 but I think only two with the likes of Tim Lauer, Will Richardson, Tim Wilson and Steve Burt. 4 guys sitting around talking about something I was passionate about and learning about was gold for me. Since that time they've become some of my greatest teachers and indeed friends. It started with me hearing their voices. 

I also remember the first time I heard of Chris Lehmann. It was in a podcast by David Warlick who really did a great job in the middle part of the previous decade in interviewing and exposing many to  a wide variety of folks. At the time Chris was an assistant principal in a school in New York City, shortly before his move to SLA. 

There were others too that I felt a connection with because I heard their voice. Video was a bit of a challenge at the time because of bandwidth and encoding challenges. This was pre Youtube. Andy Carvin was exploring the viog but audio was much more doable. 

There was something about the raw, unedited way in which these voices came to me. Full of "umms" and a little fumbling, I felt they were real people. Post production was minimal. I was attracted to blogs because I felt like I was reading people like me. Not professional broadcasters or writers but people with real things to say and offered an authenticity I only could find in face to face encounters. Recently Grant Potter and I discussed why ds106radio is so popular. It's for many reasons but one is that we hear people as they are. Pretenses are put aside and magically it's just people talking. Connections are made, friendships are possible.

I've been podcasting myself since 2005. (In this episode you'll hear me talk about podcasting in general and also the voices of Chris, Bud,Steve and David) Originally it was largely about proof of concept. Could I record audio and put it on the web for people to subscribe? Seems silly now but back then it was a little involved. Shortly after that I began podcasting with some Saskatchewan folks as we called ourselves the EdTech Posse. We might be the longest running educational group podcast on the planet. Whatever that means. 

So this is partly reminiscing, partly reflection, partly lamenting but possibly encouraging people to re-discover or discover for the first time the power of your voice. I remember first learning about digital storytelling and one of the ideas that was shared many times was the power of your voice. Speaking remains our most basic and earliest form of communication. It's been around a lot longer than writing and offers something unique that the written word cannot convey. My itunes account is sorely lacking with educators just talking about learning. Maybe you can add to that playlist. I'd love to hear your voice. Keep writing if that's what you do, writing is great but your voice is really special. For me it creates another level of connection. Try it and let me know how it goes.