A Pair of Dimes Shift

 Hard to believe that it has been over six years since my last blog post. I stopped because I was concerned about potential conflicts with my job and the college I worked at, not wanting to say anything that might reflect badly on it - this was my choice, not the institution's,

Now that I am retired I face no such restrictions or ethical issues, so here I go!

Let's start with the pair of dimes (paradigm?) shift of retirement. I've been at it for a little over 18 months and I think I'm beginning to get that hang of it. Everyday is Saturday, a lot less meetings and no commute have become luxuries. After a life time of work, it's been an interesting transition to being left to my own designs. The cool thing is I can do pretty much whatever i want to do and it if doesn't get done today, there is always tomorrow. I am able to picj and chose and do things I want. This includes being on the board of Digital Nova Scotia and being a director of the Army Cadet League of Canada (Nova Scotia). It's good to stay engaged.

One of those things I want to do more of is write - here on this blog where I will again look at things that make me go hmmm... and on my professional blog Thoughts From the Field where I will write and talk about education, leadership, change, organizational culture and other issues and topics related to teaching, learning and creating better environments for students and their educators. I have started a consultancy, Birch Hollow Consulting as a way to keep busy, continue my academic research and hopefully give back to the fields of education and leadership. If you need advice or help with what your organizations are up to, let me know.

So here I am, back and ready to go - so many things that make me go hmmm... and now the time post!

Notes From The Brier - Of Haves And Have-Nots

One of the things that I have noticed at the Winnipeg Brier this week (other than the incredibly long lines at Tim Hortons) is that despite there being 12 teams at the Brier (one from each province, Northern Ontario (a men's curling quirk - the women's championship invites back Team Canada, the defending champions), and the Yukon/Northwest Territories), there is in reality only 3 or 4 with even a reasonable shot at actually winning the title. Curling, like most sports is extremely expensive and time-consuming if you want to be the best, and this year the best include teams from Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Newfoundland & Labrador. Of these, the champion will probably be one of either Alberta or Ontario - and both of these rinks are effectively professional curlers who have dedicated the time, money and effort to become the best in the world.

With the top teams, curling becomes a game of inches - with the others a game of feet - there is no comparison. If curling is to maintain itself as a sport, it must find a way to level the playing field so that everyone who gets to the Brier has an opportunity to be successful, or after a while the have-nots will get tired of being cannon-fodder and the Brier will suffer...

Notes From The Brier - Coffee and Curling - I AM Canadian...

One of the joys of living in a culturally mosaic country like Canada is that you are exposed to so many different traditions, events, sights, senses, and sounds that you can lead a very rich life. The downside of living in this culture is when someone asks "what's Canadian?" it's sometimes hard to figure that out - at least until now...

I'm in Winnipeg (or as it is also affectionately know, Winterpeg - when we arrived last week it was -44 C with the wind chill - but it's a "dry cold". Yep - it sure is...cold) with my father attending the Brier - the men's national curling championships - officially know as the Tim Hortons Brier. There are probably no two things more quintessentially Canadian than curling and coffee, particularly in the winter and particularly Tim Hortons coffee. True, coffee did not originate in Canada, nor did curling (like many things it was invented by the Scots which just goes to show you what perpetual bad weather can do for creativity), but we were smart enough to combine the two and turn them into a cultural event of epic proportions.

The line ups this week at the MTS Centre have been longer for the Tim Hortons orders than for the box office and attendance has been great - and it's great for the event - a highly caffeinated audience watching some of the best curling in the world - it's a win win! I've heard as many requests for a "double-double" this week as I've heard "hurry hard" coming from the competitors.

We're having a great time here this week, so the next time someone asks you "what's Canadian?", tell them to get a large double-double at Tim's and head for the local curling club - the essence of Canada. Hmmm...

Convergence Culture and Education...

I've just finished reading Henry Jenkins's book "Convergence Culture", and let me just say that if you have not yet read it that you should. His blog "Confessions of an Aca-Fan" should also be required reading for anyone interested in modern media, culture and their impact on what we do day to day. Essential reading for educators.

The book is full of useful information and insights, and I had several "AHA!" moments while reading it. The central theme of the book is that we are in a new media era where it is the consumer that is dictating the content, style and presentation of media and its content, not the traditional "old media" of large companies and defined media steams (radio, TV, newspapers, etc.) dictating when, where, what, and how we receive our content. Henry Jenkins presents a clear picture of the way our learners look at media as a tool that they can and should control, with them dictating the when, where, what, and how of content. Here are some of the highlights of the book for me (all attribution for excerpts from the book to Henry Jenkins):

1. The distinction between mass culture and popular culture - mass culture is a category of production while popular culture is a category of consumption. Popular culture happens when the materials of mass culture get into the hands of consumers - Henry's example is a song becoming an "our song" for example. I like this definition and in my mind there is a definite shift towards popular culture as consumers take things on board for themselves and have much more creative freedom because of the Web and the tools now available to create and consume culture.
2. How the smart media companies seized on convergence culture and became successful because of it and the best example is probably the "Star Wars" juggernaut. Part of the massive appeal of Star Wars and the mythology that has grown up around it has to do with how George Lucas has allowed consumers to craft their own visions of the legend and to expand upon the legend through the creation of their own movies and stories. the book also cites examples of old media organizations who didn't quite get it right by zealously "protecting" their brand and copyrights (we know who you are, don't we?)
3. How convergence culture, and in particular blogging had an impact on the 2004 US presidential campaign. Blogging changed the dynamic of traditional news and public opinion (anyone could now be a political commentator), and changes to campaign funding rules shifted control of the campaigns from the candidates to independent action groups (remember "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"?). The political scene in the US (and I suspect everywhere in the developed world at least) has been forever changed by the shift to consumer engagement in the use of the media.
4. The biggest "AHA" moment for me was when Henry Jenkins stated that one of his book's central arguments is that the biggest change occurring with media is the shift from individualized and personalized media consumption towards consumption as a networked practice. Boy is this so true! Just listen to a group of learners discussing what they have watched or read, or how the are telling each other about what they found on the Web last night - it's one of the most powerful learning tools we have today - collaborative learning.
5. One of the final thoughts n the book is about education - historically public education in the US (and the same can be said for the education system in Canada) was meant to distribute the skills and knowledge necessary to train informed citizens. This doesn't work anymore - we have a participation gap and citizens today need to be more than informed, they need to be monitorial - not just being able to read and write but being able to participate in the deliberation over what issues matter, what knowledge counts, and what ways of knowing command authority and respect. The ideal of the informed citizen is in trouble because there is simply too much to know. The ideal of monitorial citizenship depends on developing new collaboration skills and a new ethic of knowledge sharing that will allow people to deliberate together. (page 259). This describes for me exactly the issues I am seeing in the classroom with learners - they need these "new literacy" skills of collaboration and information sharing in order to manage the sheer volume of information available today.
6. The problem is that people for the most part are learning these new skills outside of any formal educational institution - they are developing their skills through affinity sites, newsgroups, social networking sites and other new media opportunities - Henry Jenkins actually points out that many schools are openly hostile to these developing skills and go out of their way to stop their development (anyone blocked Facebook recently?). This HAS to stop - it does a disservice to learners - we need to foster and develop these collaborative skills - they are essential to the future of our learners and our educational process.

As you can see Convergence Culture has had an effect on me that I think will improve what I do as an educator - I cannot recommend too highly it or anything else that Henry Jenkins does - if you have an opportunity to read what he writes or listen to what he says, take it...