Who I Am Makes A Difference...

All I am going to say is watch this video and then pass it on...



Hmmm...

"You Aren't Dumb - You Just Haven't Learned Yet"...

To paraphrase Art Linkletter, teens say the darndest things. I ride the bus to and from work (gave up my car four years ago - that's a whole other story...) and the other day coming home from the College there were two teenage girls of indeterminate age (13-17 or so) behind me carrying on an animated and loud conversation. Other than the fact that they mostly used words that would make a sailor blush, at one point in their conversation one said to the other "you aren't dumb, you just haven't learned yet" - WOW! What an amazing thing to say - talk about your AHA! moments.

As adult educators we deal all the time with earners who bring all sorts of challenges and baggage to their learning environments. One of those challenges is a feeling that they can't learn - someone, somewhere, at some time called them dumb or told them they couldn't learn - that's never true - anyone can learn if given the chance and support - and what a way to tell them - "you aren't dumb, you just haven't learned yet". What a lesson to carry into our learning environments and when dealing with our learners.

Thank you girls, and speaking of learning, about that language...

Notes From The Brier - Of Men and Brooms, and Communities...

Lots to see at the Tim Hortons Brier here in Winnipeg - amazing curling, amazing people and crowds, and men with brooms. It took a sport like curling to even introduce men to brooms, because I don't know about you, but I for one applaud the rights of dust bunnies in their quest to become sentient beings. For all of those housework-challenged males out there (and you know who you are...) you may want to take up curling and ease into that whole wielding a broom at home thing...

The real cool thing at the Brier though is the sense of community or should I say communities - each province and territory has a team - there are communities supporting each of them, there are the pin traders, the curling fanatics, the curling novices, organizations like the Governor General's Curling Club, local clubs and associations, and many, many more - some who have been around for 50 years and longer. Then there is the organizing committee, and the hundreds of volunteers that make the whole show work. A whole series of individual communities that collectively comes together to be the Brier.

I have spent a week listening to perfect strangers talk to each other like life-long friends joined by the sense of community of their sport and the event. There are people who make the annual trek to the Brier - their annual community get together and many have been doing this for scores of years.

Being surrounded by all of this sense of community has gotten me thinking - if we are so good at making and being part of communities in our day to day lives, how can we successfully bring this into learning communities - which for me will be (and are) the future of education - learning has become too complex and there is just too much information out there for learning not to be done collaboratively in a community - the key is how do we do that? we need to take our ability to form and nurture communities and do the same for our faculty, staff, learners, and institutions of learning - learning is a team sport - it works best in a community that will encourage and foster it - I have lots to say about that - stay tuned...

But for now it's back to the Brier - "HURRY HARD!!"

Obama and Clinton - "We" and "I"...

First off let me say that Henry Jenkins is amazing and a must read for all educators. His recent post "Obama and the "We" Generation" has really gotten me thinking about and looking at US politics, not that there is much choice what with all of the 24-hour multi-channel coverage and all.

He starts by noticing that adult leaders were using "I" and "what I can do for you" a lot to describe what they did while younger leaders used "we" and "what are our goals...". Obama is the "We" and Clinton is the "I". As Henry Jenkins puts it - Obama is more of a movement than a campaign. He talks of community and organizes bottom up instead of the traditional top-down campaign model. Hillary Clinton is running very much an "what can I do for you" traditional campaign and now that I am aware of this have I ever noticed a difference,

An article in today's New York Times really brings this difference in the two approaches of the Democratic candidates home - "In Texas, Clinton’s Veterans Test Obama’s Rookies". The article describes the difference between the two campaigns as they set up in Texarkana - the Clinton campaign set up in a big building and handed out phone numbers to campaign workers to start calling. Down the street in a small office, two Obama supporters without any official campaign sanction set up their computers and self-generated activity to get the word out on their candidate.

This describes exactly what Jenkins is saying - Clinton is the controlling "I" candidate and Obama is the open, bottom-up "We" candidate - He is a movement, not a campaign,

My very good friend Randommind described to me an even better analogy from Henry Jenkins (and must blog about it :-)) that brings this diagrammatic difference between the two candidates home - Obama is a Wikipedia stub, and Clinton is the Encyclopedia Britannica - such an amazing analogy I had an AHA! moment when I first heard it. It so accurately describes the fundamental differences between the two campaigns - and for me explains why Obama has been so successful - he is letting the voters participate in the campaign to become a part of his "movement", to build the Wikipedia entry, while Clinton is simply telling everyone that she knows what is best and is ready to do the job Day One - the bound and printed Britannica entry.

There are implications here for educators - we can learn a lot from the differences in these two campaigns. Obama's success to me shows that engagement and participation, the creation of community is something that people understand and want - this leads directly to the creation of learning communities. Clinton is the old "sage on the stage" telling us what we want to hear. Obama is creating a "learning community" (a political community?) where participants engage in the election process - they feel a connection and a sense of belonging, of being part of what Henry Jenkins calls a movement. If this works for a presidential candidate (and it sure seems that it is), then it should work in our classrooms too, don't you think?

I wonder who will win...?

(Photo from "The State Of...")

CIT 2007 - Some Final Thoughts

It's taken me a while to get to this point - my last post about CIT 2007. This has been partially due to returning to a busy job, and partially due to some obvious inertia on my part. But the single biggest reason why it has taken me this long to get there is that there was just so much to absorb and reflect upon.

CIT 2007 was an amazing experience on many levels. I met some very cool people who had some amazing things to share - and that was probably one of the coolest things about the conference - how willing people were to share and talk about what the were doing - there was a great collaborative spirit throughout.

I also learned a lot about myself , the community college "industry" in North America, and about my own institution as well. For myself I confirmed that I am well immersed in all things Web 2.0 and learner and learning-centred, more than I realized - several of the presentations were at the introductory level, discusing isues of implementation and engaging learners. This may explain why in some circles I may be considered "weird".I need to keep an eye on that one...

As for the state of the community college "industry" I found that most colleges have the same issues - retention, engagement and how to reach the current generation of learners. While there were no perfect answers at CIT 2007 for these problems, it was nice to know that we were not alone in going through them and that it appears to be a phenomenon right across North America. The other good thing is that many are trying to find solutions, and the solutions seem to hinge on the following - engagement, collaboration, mobility and openness (much more on these themes in later posts).

And the thrd piece is that here at NSCC we are doing some great things - portfolio learning, education without boundaries, access, service learning, project-based learning, and many other educational innovations. We need to be better and do more on the blended side of things - to move towards what Mark Milliron called "blurring blended" - a model where 15-20% or learners are entirely online, 15-20% are entirely in brick classrooms, and the remainder are blended learners taking a mixture of online and classroom courses. I truly believe that blended learning is the furure - it meets learners where they are - the engagement and mobility pieces, along with the openness. CIT 2007 also confirmed fo me that learning is now a collaborative function - there is simply too much information and too many sources for a learner to successfully navigate their education in anything but a collaborative environment.

So, all in all, CIT was a great opportunity and presented me with several confirmations and challenges. It confirmed that I am on the right track as an educator and challenged me to realize that the journey is just beginning that we as educators must continue to evolve and adapt to provide the learning environments and opportunities that will provide learners with the best possible chances for success. The next few years in adult education are going to be very exciting, and who knows - I may even become less weird,a s others catch on and catch up...

The Future Of Media...

Wednesday night I attended the ITANS (Information Technology Industry Alliance Of Nova Scotia) annual dinner. The guest speaker was Ken Rutkowski, media personality, strategist and consultant. The theme of his talk was on the future of media. A couple of cool things came out - one - it's gonna be a busy future, and two - I'm mostly there now!

Ken started his talk by describing old media (TV, newspapers etc.) and new media (Web, RSS, blogs, YouTube etc.) and their products - old media's product is content, while new media's product is the audience - the customer is the advertiser (makes sense - hits is one of the measures of success for an online presence). This distinction may be a little simplistic, but it allows for an identification f new media.

Mobile devices, in particular cell phones (smart devices) is where it is at for the future of media. By 2010 there will 2 billion Nokia cell phones alone in circulation - cell phone penetration is growing and in some nations is well over 90%. I've talked about this in past posts and it's interesting to here an industry expert say the same thing. In my mind it's mobile devices that are the future of education, allowing learners to learn where, when, what, and how they want to.

Ken went on to talk about RSS and push technology, how RSS is pushing information - the customer is the product. I'm a big fan of RSS - push technology is the only way these days to make sense of the sea of information that we are swimming in. Content is everywhere - podcasts, YouTube etc.

Ken then did something very cool- the rest of his presentation consisted of him using Skype to contact "some of his friends", industry experts and personalities who shared their thoughts with us on the future of media. His friends included:

• Ralph Simon - creator of the ring tone
• Johnathan Wendel - professional gamer (Fatality)
• James Sun - CEO of Zoodango - a social networking site that facilitates both online and F2F social networking
• Scott Page - former member of Pink Floyd and Supertramp, now involved in Web-based technology allowing bands to communicate with their fans

The common thread from each of these incredible people is that it's content and mobility, along with penetration that is going to be the future of social media. Businesses and individuals need to get out there and be active parts of this always on environment - be part of community.

Thanks to ITANS and the organizers for a great evening and a wonderful dinner. I know that the students that we brought along had an amazing time - they saw a glimpse into the future - where they will be working and living, and that is too cool...

Reach Out To Nova Scotia...

I've talked a lot about AHA! moments and transformational learning, but today blew all of that away. Today was Reach Out To Nova Scotia for all learners and staff at the Nova Scotiia Community College (NSCC). I've worked at NSCC for almost five years now, and I love my job and my college - I get to interact on a daily basis with some of the most amazing, passionate, talented people, and the learning and transformations that occur daily are simply amazing. But today outdid them all.

Reach Out To Nova Scotia was a one day service learning opportunity for all staff and learners at NSCC. there were no classes today and over 1600 staff and 10,000 learners went out into their communities around the province and participated in over 300 projects, giving back to province as a way to say thank you for the support the province has given us (over $126 million in development money).

The scope and number of projects was diverse, but all had a common theme - service learning and giving to the community. There was lots of building, painting, scraping, bagging, raking, and picking up and sorting out. Here is one project - gleaning squash fields in the Annapolis valley, producing 5,000 pounds of squash for Feed Nova Scotia - what an amazing accomplishment!

To see more of the kind of projects that we undertook and to see the pride and passion of the people I am so fortunate to hang out with every day, check out the Reach Out To Nova Scotia Flickr site.

I find it hard right now to put in words how I feel about today - it's a mix of pride, well-being, and a feeling that something momentous has happened in my life that will take some time to sink in. I think that may be how many of my colleagues and friends are feeling tonight too - tired, but happy...

It was an amazing day - thank you Nova Scotia!!!