The Internet Grapevine is still local!

Treat your colleagues as you want to be treated. Don't share information that might let others in your local area recognize them. Gather closely for I tell you a tale of poor choices, a tale of a young teacher whose pride overcame her ethics, a sad tale that must be told. I'm the online observer, and I share her tale.

It seems to me that many who use the internet still believe that they are anonymous....that's just not true. One of the teachers in my Professional Learning Network chose to share information about a colleague that was not appropriate, yet this teacher never did understand that sharing without permission is wrong. As far as I could tell, this teacher was spreading gossip.

In the fall of 2011, my Professinal Learning Network was discussing the merits of an individual teacher's form used to help guide student/teacher learning conferences for mathematics. The teacher who shared this form is highly regarded as a technology teacher in our group, yet readily admitted that math is not their strong suit. The negativism and bias of this teacher towards a local colleague seemed shocking to me. I think it may be difficult to trust someone who takes the work of others, downloads it online, and tears the content to pieces.

The teacher in our PLN decided that a colleague's conferencing sheet was not appropriate and shared a link for this conferencing sheet. The irony is that the teacher in our PLN had no problem stealing another teacher's work and sharing this information all over the internet. What was most amazing to me was the fact that they were colleagues in the same school.

Since I didn't know at first that the teacher in our PLN didn't have permission to share the conferencing sheet, I looked over the document. Other teachers also looked it over, since we all share information with everyone in our PLN. Those of us who like mathematics and teaching mathematics found the conferencing sheet to be appropriate tool for teacher use in monitoring student progress. We learned afterwards that the teacher who shared the document with us didn't have permission to do that. I was concerned and frustrated that someone in our Professional Learning Network would do that, yet there it was.

In my experience, teachers collaborate to make a good idea better, but that was impossible because the teachers' work had been displayed online without their permission. Most of those in our PLN believed that some simple changes to the conferencing sheet could help make this a helpful tool for the student. Others thought the form was not appropriate. I thought the form was a very useful teacher tool, yet it could be easily modified for effective student use.

I was shocked that our colleague would do this to a fellow teacher, especially as the teacher didn't know it was being shared among our online group. Without getting permission from the author, it would be unethical to show a copy of it online.

I think it would be a really great idea, if we could consider that the same ethics that guide us at school also guide us, as teachers, when we collaborate or teach online. Ask for permission before sharing a colleagues OFFLINE work. If the work is online and public, you must still attribute the work to the author. This would be a great lesson for all teachers to follow, so they can feel comfortable when teaching online ethics to their students. As the saying goes,

Don't tell me you will do the right thing, show me!

McTeach and the Map!

It's all about the learning and having fun makes it better. Karen McMillan, @McTeach, develops the research based presentations for teachers wanting to use technology in their classroom to inspire and improve learning. Her presentations are smart, informative and easy to use right away, plus she invites the participants to join our Professional Learning Network (PLN).

When they join our ad hoc network, they have access to teachers and others interested in improving technology use in education from around the world. The participants can refer to their new network for ideas and guidance. Later, as they become comfortable being part of a worlwide network, they can pay it forward by inviting more people to the network.

For her latest presentation, Karen will share ways to use a Google Map to connect to an education network. In her blog, Notes From McTeach: Where Are You My Wonderful PLN?, she asked her Professional Learning Network (PLN) to help out by adding our geographic locations to the Google Map she developed. Each of us entered our name and a bit about ourselves, including our online presence in her PLN.

 If you are interested in following us, you can reach us on Plurk, Twitter and other similar networks.

Winsome Wednesday: Google Friend Connect

What blog roll web application do you use? Do you use a WordPress blog, a Blogspot format, or some other format? Does this make a difference when it comes to choosing a blog roll visual web application?

As I continue the Winsome Wednesday feature, we'll look at a utilitarian web application, Google Friend Connect. Used effectively, it can improve productivity and increase the amount of time you can spend reading blogs of people in your Professional Learning Network.

I've used several blog roll web applications in the past. Now I'm using the Google Friend Connect application that comes with my blogger application. I try to support those who follow my blog by following their blog. I also follow other blogs that I use for reference material.

New additions were added to my blog dashboard. The folks at Blogger added a place called READING LIST where you can read the blogs that you joined through Google Friend Connect, as well as Blogger Buzz and Blogs of Note.

I like the simplicity of the Google Friend Connect function for my blog. Anytime I open my blog, I can go to my dashboard and read the posts written by any of the bloggers I follow. If I want to comment or link to their blogs, I can easily do that.

I would like to recommend Google Friend Connect to my Professional Learning Network (PLN). You may want to consider using the Google Friend Connect in the place of the traditional Blog Roll. There are many advantages, besides saving space in your sidebar. People can still refer to bloggers you would list in your Blog Roll, because these same people are now displayed in your Google Friend Connect web application.

Any reader who wants to follow other bloggers in my PLN can just click on their name in my Google Friend Connect box. Do you use the Google Friend Connect box? If so, please add your name to the Google Friend Connect web application on my blog. If not, please consider adding some type of blog roll web application, like Google Friend Connect to your blog.

I Skype!

the skype payphone project by pt
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Mr. Robbo, The P.E. Geek, a colleague in my PLN (professional learning network) recently posted his teaching experiences with Skype. I agree with the basic premise of his post, Why Skype Is the Most Valuable Tool I Use. Yes, Skype is a great tool.

It seems strange, yet people often resist the most obvious and easiest internet path to use, free online tools. In my own case, I came to Skype recently, but it has revolutionized the way I communicate with my Professional Learning Network (PLN). What finally helped me begin to use Skype was encouragement from my peers.

Since my teen, as part of her official, school web applications, uses Skype in her Project Based Learning Activities, we discussed how she and her peers use Skype. Later, I wrote an article, Anticipate and Skype Your Reaction about a few of the many possible educational ways teachers could use Skype in their classrooms.

It seems to me that the increased communication capacities when using audio and video, as well as sharing links and screenshots make Skype one of the best free web applications to improve student access to teachers and their learning.

I'm Here!

Finally back on Utterli, and wanted to say something funny. Hee! Yup! That's it! That is probably as funny as it gets.

Mobile post sent by n2teaching using Utterli.  Replies.

When I began my serious pursuit of professional development in technology education, I was lucky enough to be guided by a remarkable colleague, Jennifer Jones. She was one of the first people to friend me on Twitter, and she was not just looking for more followers or trying to check out the competition. Jennifer truly believes in the power of collaboration and learning through technology education. She is a remarkable technology educator, and she has a wonderful family who share in her passion for learning and having fun.

Twitter was the first microblogging site I joined, so in the fall of 2007 when Jennifer said she was checking out a microblogging site with video and audio capabilities, I decided that I needed to check it out. That is when I joined UTTERZ. Also, I joined Susan Tsairi another wonderful online colleague, and we began to use Utterz. Also, I put the really cool UTTERLI widget at the bottom of this blog.

This was also about the time that my teen began to see that I now had a significant online presence. I never really knew how that was perceived by my child, but I gathered the word "nerd" and "geek" were synonymously replacing my name whenever the teen and friends would discuss my move to online professional development. Well, no one can say I am not a thorough student.

I was very excited about the possibilities of using UTTERZ, but even dedicated students such as myself can succumb to family relational pressure. I stopped sharing my online professional development experience with the teen when I was asked if I would be using Twitter and Utterz, and it was sadi in such a way that I had to laugh at the interesting, yet nonsensical names of the various educational networks I joined.

Fortunately, UTTERZ changed their name to UTTERLI, and I greatly appreciate it. To utter on paper is so much different than to utter in conversation, and it began to wear on my traditionalist, farm country sensibilities. THANK YOU!

I love UTTERLI, and the people who make it all happen. They have added conferencing capabilities, cross-posting, desktop applications and many other cool services. Try it! This microblogging/podcasting services is UTTERLI fantastic.

Opportunity Revisted: Email Part 2

Ciber Cafe by larskflem
Attribution-NonCommercial License

Email is the opportunity revisited. Let's focus on its positive uses today. In Opportunity Revisited: Email Part 1, the history and types of early forms of email were discussed.

Although a wide range of instant electronic messaging systems flourish today, including IM, Plurk and Skype, email remains a viable option for those with limited connectivity or access to computers. Email also can be used as a more formal mode of electronic communication.

I continue to use email, but my modes of usage have changed over the years. Normally those uses now include:

* Subscriptions
* Group sign up
* official interactions
* personal interactions


Like many in my Professional Learning Network, I maintain an email address used when subscribing to various applications and sign-ups for groups that I have just discovered. Since I don't want to be spammed or attacked, Using this technique, I try to quarantine new subscriptions and other group sign-ups to this email address. If this email address is attacked through a virus, malware or theft of my identity, very few of my personal or long-term professional contacts will be included in the attack. While this may not create a fool-proof response, it is a basic layer of protection that I can maintain myself.

A specific email address for official and personal interactions can also be used. If I want to address an issue with my governmental representatives, work with colleagues or communicate with other businesses and agencies, I can.....because of the very nature of email. Namely, asynchronicity in all its forms.

Since email is considered a legal document, it also becomes a valid method of formal communication. That brings up another point, email is FORMAL communication, just as snail mail is, so I suggest that caution and minimalism should be used when sending email.

How are you using email today?

Opportunity Revisted: Email Part 1

Opportunity is my professional development focus for 2009. I will examine various aspects of opportunity. Today, opportunity revisited is the topic. My first opportunity to revisit is EMAIL. Despite the problems with viruses and spam, it still remains a viable mode of electronic communication.

Email, or electronic mail has existed in various formats, since the mid-1960's, yet many people commonly using the internet today, began regularly sending and receiving emails in the 1990's.

When I took a non-scientific poll of my Professional Learning Network on Plurk, a series of common dates emerged: 1996, 1998 or more generally in the 1990's. Some used the earlier forms of email, as they had access to university or business related email systems. One was called ARPANET, later renamed NSFNET. Others created simple programs that allowed message sharing, sometimes known as email. All were actively using email by the beginning of the 21st Century.

When did you began using email?

Interpreting the PLN

Photo by Sue Waters
Attribution-ShareAlike License

This wikispace, Franklinville: PLN, devoted to understanding the emergence of the Professional Learning Netowrk and its intersection with available web2.0 applications presents a unique perspective that others could easily use or modify for their own discussions. The authors, Tim Clarke and his colleague, Rick Weinberg, have a remarkable repertoire of materials.





Included on the wiki is an excellent video w/a Charles Leadbeater discussion of many of the aspects of various tools and links to those that we can employ to improve our best practice. He also discusses the similarity of thes 21st Century Professional Learning Networks with older more traditional networks.

Who I Am: a Reflection of Who I've Been

Photo by lionelbodilis
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Each semester, Cyndi Danner-Kuhn starts a new .ning network, Kansas Future Teachers for her educational technology students. She is very collaborative and innovative in her work, and I am glad to help by sharing my teaching and learning experiences with these pre-service teachers at Fort Hayes State University. I have included a copy of my introduction essay for this semester's students.

If you are reading this, you are, most likely, part of my PLN (professional learning network). I would like to invite you to join us and share your expertise.

Remember the saying, "What Goes Around Comes Around?" As the years go by, ...that saying [will] reveal itself in action more and more. This an opportunity to put into practice what we call scaffolding, or the spiral of knowledge that Vygotsky suggested in his theoretical studies of learning. As a life-long learner, I have used that spiraling ...[visualization of learning] to make connections in my education, teaching career and life.

Since I began teaching in 1975, I have learned, taught and experienced a multitude of theories, trends and issues as they appear, disappear and reappear.

One thing that I can say with certainty is that my professional teaching life has been healthier and happier when I "go with the flow", when I
* see an opportunity for professional growth in NEW THEORIES that are really old wine wrapped in a new flask
* understand that bad situations make sad communities and you just have to "walk away", kick the dust off your sandals and never look back.

I am healthy and happily working online, building my Professional Learning Network (PLN) and providing professional development resources "...in service to the community".

Having taught many grade and subject levels from Kindergarten to college level students, I enjoy teaching. My areas of expertise began with Microbiology, then elementary, then high school and later, special education K-12. My resume' is quite extensive, yet I have had the privilege to learn, grow, and work with many teachers, parents and other community members who were even more insightful, knowledgeable and collaborative. My career has taken me from the forested region across Lake Ponchetrain in Louisiana to the desert plains of the Llano Estacado in Southeastern New Mexico to continue here in Kansas.

Through living the life of a teacher's child, I always sought the camraderie and professional advice of those who were the most experienced at the schools where I taught. I still do that, yet it is a bit more difficult now because I am frequently the "grand dame" of the school.

Of course, in teaching, it's all about the kids, but you MUST take care of yourself. You must be healthy and happy. If you aren't, if you keep your "nose to the grindstone, you will end up with no nose!" You will become worn out...you will be unable to accept change....you will not GROW as a teacher.

The take-away message here is to remember that you are part of a TEAM of people, including students, parents, teachers, and the larger community of learners. It is my belief that you will be a better teacher when you work in a collaborative, not competitive environment where people's self esteem comes from providing for students, not gathering accolades for all the "stuff" you belong to or control. When you and your community are really teaching and learning, the accolades will follow.

If you have decided to become a teacher, you know you won't make much money, you know you will work long hours and you know that you must live a tightly controlled life, BUT THIS IS ALL WORTH IT, iff you have the OPPORTUNITY to teach kids who learn and develop in your care. That's right! Your care, your guidance, your teaching is the key! That is what it is all about! The pure joy of watching children of various ages and stages learn and grow as you teach.

Who I Am in the Here and Now

Who I Am w/caption
Originally uploaded by n2teaching

This is the mosaic I developed from various pictures from my area and life to share in @bookjewel's excellent idea to help promote and share our PLN (professional learning network) as she detailed in her latest post, ‘PLN Reflections’: sharing ideas and building relationships.

Each person from our PLN who volunteered to share in this presentation, added a slide to a Google presentation file. I selected one of Mahatma Ghandi's inspriational quotes.

Take charge of what you can do to change your world. There is so much potential for professional development and in teaching students in this wonderful project idea. Thanks to @bookjewel.