So EduCon ended Sunday. Today is Wednesday. I am still not home. I am not vacationing, I am stuck. My flight Monday was cancelled. The earliest flight home is tomorrow morning. So I sit in my hotel room with my thoughts and entertainment from my friends.

One conversation from EduCon I have been reflecting on was Alec Couros and Dean Shareski lead about sharing. This is something that I have been dealing with internally and externally lately. One thing has been convincing parents to trust the teachers and allow their children to share online and they other is trying to figure out how to get students to share beyond casual conversation.

One thing that came up when talking with others at my table was how resistant kids can be about sharing ideas, thoughts, work, etc online. It is so natural for children to want to share things. To want to tell a story, yet the minute the medium for doing changes, it’s like they freeze or do the bare minimum.

We have to be patient when teaching them to share in ways they are not used to. Sharing has a huge impact on their learning and on learning of others. They need to know what they should share and what they shouldn’t. It takes them years to learn how to share in their elementary journals in notebooks, so it will take longer for them to learn do it in a public forum.

When I joined twitter over 2 years ago, it and facebook would not have been the first place I would have turned when finding out my flight was cancelled Monday. But it was. I did it again and again as flights were cancelled throughout the week. It took months of learning how to use the medium and months before relationships were formed. Thank goodness I did share, it helped me find a decent hotel (with free food), my friends kept me company through this lonely times, and even offered ways to help get me home or entertain me.

We know as educators the benefits of sharing globally, our students and sometimes their parents do not. We must teach this, we must encourage this, we must foster a desire for this. Most importantly we must be patient and let this skill develop. I need to remind myself of this as I read their first blog post this week.

If you have ideas that have worked, please share 🙂

A

So much in my head right now from Educon this weekend. Only 6 conversations and I’m in overload. I feel like an exploding gummy bear.

Did you know that gummy bears can explode? I learned that yesterday. No I did not make one explode. But yesterday I was in last session, I was tired, my brain hurt, and my lack of caffeine was kicking in. The session was about this great idea but I could tell the others in the room were low on steam as well. I looked like my 7th period usually does. When asked if anyone had comments this sweet SLA student spoke up (I never include the name of kids in my post).

He started talking about the importance of how people learn. We all know this, but it’s refreshing hearing it come from this high school student. He said that it was stupid for teachers to think that everyone is headed to one answer, one way. It is important to have the one answer, but he asked why can’t we take different paths to get there. He said it like telling someone you are football player. He said there is a difference between being a football player and a linebacker. If someone says they are a football player you can’t tell them how to play the game. If you are a linebacker you know their position and their job. (Y’all know I love football analogies!!)

He went on to tell us about his favorite lessons this year, he said in one class they made gummy bears explode. He said that he did not know they exploded but now he know why.

He then went from talking about his experiences to what made a good teacher. Good teachers develop their curriculum to meet their students. He reminded me (this was something I needed reminding about) that each class period is different. You can’t teach the same lesson every period, it’s not fair because lesson with one class may not work with another.

Last reminder was that we needed to ask questions. Ask more questions. Ask questions yet never tell the answer.

This is stuff we (and I) as educators know. It’s the same stuff I remember learning first semester in education school (I went to a college that had a PBL focus so this was everyday) but I have to sit and ask myself do I always do this? No. I do not ask enough questions. I do not vary my lessons enough for each class.

I do not always recognize the linebacker from the quarterback, often I teach them the same thing I am teaching a kicker. With that we would be the one major college in Alabama not to win a BCS title.
Cory Plough reminded me last week “if you go to work each day just to teach you will just be paying your dues.” We need to blow up more gummy bears and we need to remember not to focus on teaching your center to catch the ball.