StigmergicWeb

I’ve been reading a few blog posts from the Building Learning Communities conference, mostly from Dean, but Will’s post Why is it so Hard for Educators to Focus on Their Own Learning? hit on a topic that I’ve been trying to gain some perspective on for a while. We have a lot of terrific free read-write webbish tools around us - the entire google suite of apps (possibly evil but I still love ‘em), mind mapping tools, blogging tools, wiki tools and so on. I’ve struggled, and sometimes it feels like a real uphill battle, trying to show teachers how useful these can be as tools for their students. Will has a slightly different perspective, and maybe its the way that I should be looking at this:

Weblogg-ed » Why is it so Hard for Educators to Focus on Their Own Learning? And even as I sit in this session with Tim Tyson at Building Learning Communities, one principal says “I want to learn more about these tools so I can help my teachers use them in the classroom.” I want to jump up and say “No! You are missing a step! You want to learn more about these tools for yourself so you can help your teachers learn from them too.” So what’s that all about? Is it just habit? Is it just such a focus on curriculum delivery that “learning” is all about how to do that job better? Is changing the way we do our own business just too darn hard? Or is this such a huge shift, this idea that we can actually learn through the use of technology that most people just don’t think they have to go there, that they can just keep using it as a way to communicate without the surrounding connective tissue where the real learning takes place?

As a teacher, I think I do tend to think about my students’ learning to the exclusion of thinking about my own learning. I have at times been more concerned with pumping out the curriculum - leading the students through their learning journey more than becoming an equal participant in a group learning journey. I think the communication and connection is the key - connecting with other learners who are playing around (isn’t that how all real learning takes place when you think about it?) with some of these tools. But if I’m using these tools to communicate and collaborate, would it be possible for me to avoid the learning that takes place concurrently? I’m not sure about that one. I think that if we are communicating and connecting with others who have some common interests, we can’t help but learn as we share pieces of information. Regardless, thinking of these tools as something for teachers to learn with, not (just) teach with or teach about, is a valuable perspective and one that I’ll keep in mind next school year when I’m working with other teachers.