KNOWERS (Talkers) or DOERS (Implementers)?

Beth Holmes of The 21st Century Centurion wrote Is There Satisfaction in Knowing Without Doing?

She came to this question because

“Bob Sprankle, co-founder of the Seedlings Social Network and author of the Bit by Bit blog and podcasts published a fascinating little survey that posed an intriguing question: Are You Satisfied with the Pace of Change?”

She states:

I know that we continue to "see" traditional schools because our our profession is deeply ensnared in the abyss of the "knowing- doing gap." This common organizational phenomenon is described by J. Pfeffer and R.I. Sutton(1999) in their informative book, The Knowing Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Very simply, the authors confront education's #1 PROBLEM:
"WHY do educators know so much and do so little about the pace of change?"

In a nutshell, the field of education is engorged with knowledge experts - but it is painfully short on doers who implement knowledge and do so to promote organizational change. The authors correctly note that the most destructive aspect of the knowing-doing gap is the substitution of TALKING ACTIVITIES for action.

Until our profession begins full implementation of our collective knowledge, I doubt we will enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

So are you a KNOWER (Talker) or a DOER (Implementer)?

Guess I need to stop blogging so much and Start Doing Something More…

I am trying to get a job, so I can be a DOER! I can be an implementer in my classroom, in my job in education.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: knower,doer,talker,implementer,change,Bob Sprankle,Beth Holmes,21st Century Centurion

21st Century Schools and the Workplace

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.

This video takes about 13 minutes to view.

When you watch it, you should have a piece of paper ready to take down the important parts.  I didn’t the first time I watched it. 

It started out like a travel video of some wonderful 17th century town on the East coast. 

I was wondering why I was watching it, but I had seen it on PHS Principal Blog. That blog is described as a “High school principal blogs about education, technology, student engagement and things that are happening at Paris High School in Illinois”. I am originally and most of my life from IL, so I have an interest in reading what is happening there.

Now, as the writer of the blog states, “only my mom reads it!”  But recently there has been some consolidation of several schools and districts, etc. so I expect there might be more posts to read in the future. Although this blog does not have a great deal of posts (in the past), I usually enjoy each and every post made, so I wanted to look at this video he had posted for us to view. He said these are “videos over the next few days to inspire and challenge those of you here to think about school and what it should be!”

Also the video says… by Alan November. His is a name to be remembered in the education field, so it must be a good video! On the website November Learning, it says about Alan:

"An iconoclast whose common sense we cannot afford to ignore. He is at the heart of the matter regarding student learning and the imperatives of the future."

In this video, Alan November is so subtle in his teaching (to me!) that I had to listen to it more than once to be sure I got what he really was saying.  He lulls you into the words and sometimes, you are not really sure if you just heard a GREAT THOUGHT, or if you just imagined it!

If you just want one sentence paragraph about what the video says (IMHO):

We must shift the paradigm of the way we are teaching from the TEACHER IS THE BOSS Model to the WE ARE ALL LEARNERS Model where there is collaborative, self-directed LIFE LONG learning preparing students for the WORKPLACE of the 21st Century.  (WHOA! I did get it in one LONG sentence.  I hadn’t thought it was possible!)

Alan November gives many examples of “friends of mine” who are teaching and using this approach or that approach.  He certainly is lucky to be able to travel the country and see all these examples and hear about them from special teachers, like Bob Sprankle.

I was going to go back through the video and write down all the IMPORTANT PARTS and review them here, making my own comments on each item, but I think the readers can do that on their own. 

THEN, after viewing and thinking about the video, tell me what you thought were the most important thoughts.  What did you learn from watching the video? 

I am interested in your opinion.

Technorati Tags: Alan November,Bob Sprankle,paradigm,teaching,learning,education,shift,Teacher is BOSS,collaborative learning,self-directed learning,life long learners

COMICS for writing, translating, and learning

From the HOTCHALK site Bob Sprankle wrote this interesting post regarding COMICS and school/learning.

My first thought was to tell Shelly over at Teach Paperless about the first site mentioned, because it says it works with LATIN!  He probably already knows about it.  I know he does lots of interesting things with his LATIN students.  As a matter of fact I think he already uses PIXTON, the second site mentioned.

The first site mentioned is by Bill Zimmerman: MAKE BELIEFS COMIX and it is very simple. Everyone can use this site.

Students of all ages can use it and it might be best for the younger students, fewer bells and whistles to confuse them!

One problem… there is not a really GOOD way to save your comic.

You can print it out, but that wastes paper and ink.

You can e-mail it to your friends, but so far that has taken an unusually long time to happen and I still do not have results

Also it is suggested on the site that you make an electronic copy by doing a screen dump (PRINT SCREEN on Windows); then you paste it into a PAINT or Photo document or even a Word or PowerPoint document.

In this final manner you can then keep a whole Word document or PowerPoint of a continuing saga -- strip by strip… with only 4 panels per event – much like a real comic strip in the newspaper.

I made a comic and wanted to insert it here.  I e-mailed it to my g-mail account, but it has not yet arrived. 

So after losing my first comic, unless it magically appears in my e-mail some day…I tried the PRINT SCREEN option.

Here it is:

I had a little trouble because I wanted to enlarge and decrease the sizes of the talking balloons.  I could not figure out a way to do that.

Also the part that points to the speaker could not be reversed, so the balloon dictates where the speaker will “sit.”  It may be harder for young learners than I thought.

While I was working on this post, I received an e-mail from Bill Zimmerman regarding my queries about the sizes of the text boxes and the orientation of the text boxes.  He says that there is a way to fix that problem.  I will have to play even more to get that to work, because I thought I had tried everything. We’ll see.

Here is his response: “You can change the size of the balloons and also flip them or select a balloon that goes with each character this way: when you click on the balloon icon, you will see it pop up in the Menu Window at the lower left-hand corner of the screen.  Under the window are red arrows; when you click on them, they will give you four balloon sizes to choose from as well as different directions in which the balloons can be placed (the bottom of each balloon will tilt either to the left or to the right and you can choose the one you want).  Click on the size which you want and it will move up to the panel window in which you are working.

CONGRATS to Bill Zimmerman for responding so quickly to a concern.

I couldn’t figure out how to make multiple balloons in the first comic, but as you can see above, I did for the 2nd try.

Here is a screen shot of my comic with all of the “bells and whistles” on the site.

There is a limit of only 4 panels.  That has its good and bad points, but  REMEMBER most newspaper comics are not much more than 4 panels during the week day!

On the site there is a button to find out how other educators have used comics. Take a look.

http://makebeliefscomix.com/How-to-Play/Educators/

Bill Zimmerman has a blog about more uses and more ideas in general – to make people, and children especially, feel wanted in life.

Overall, I am so glad that I examined this site.  Bill Zimmerman has developed lots of materials that are GOOD for the SOUL of the teacher, the student, the parent, and the individual, even if you don’t use his comic creator.

I haven’t had time to look at the other sites.  The second one is PIXTON (see link above) and I think I looked at that one a long time ago.  So far, I have not had an opportunity to use it at this time.  (I am not a permanent, full time teacher in a classroom.) Maybe you can use it. 

The 3rd site, I believe is not free, so I did not try it.

So, go to these sites, play around, have some fun, relax, and enjoy yourself. Even if you don’t use it for your class it is a fun place to play when you have a spare moment.

What do you think about this site and Bob Sprankle’s ideas? What age group do you teach and how would you use them?

Technorati Tags: makebeliefscomix,PIXTON,education,fun,comics,HOTCHALK,Bill Zimmerman,Bob Sprankle,Teach Paperless