It Should Be Part of What We Do
By: Karl Fisch
PLP.
Powerful Learning Practice.
I always refer to it as PLP, but sometimes I’m reminded of what those letters actually stand for. One of the great things about PLP is the ability to communicate with other caring educators at schools that are sometimes very similar, and sometimes very different, than our own. Through the conversations that ensue, all of us take away ideas that help us think more deeply about what we’re doing and often help us make our own school better.
I was reminded of how powerful PLP can be in a recent forum post on the ADVIS PLP Ning. In a post about Digital Citizenship, Nica Waters Fleming from The Philadelphia School replied several times throughout the thread and laid out her school’s philosophy:
We recently changed our Appropriate Use Policy to a Responsible Use Policy for our students, and review the entire policy every year with students in grades 4 through 8 through some sort of interactive activity (this year we used an online Jeopardy game) at the beginning of the year. It seemed that asking our students to take on more responsibility in their digital world made more sense than simply telling them what we think is appropriate.
While we have this stand alone “class” on what makes for good digital citizenry at the beginning of the year, I try to embed the ideals whenever I am working with students.
. . . We have decided not to filter content because it limits what students can do. We use this access as opportunities to further stress the concept of digital citizenship. Do things slip through? Certainly. But because this is part of the learning here I like to think we do a good job of using these as teaching opportunities.
. . . Several years ago we debated whether or not to filter. In the end we felt it was our responsibility, not the software, to teach students about what it means to be a good (and safe) digital citizen. And it wasn’t worth keeping students away from a wealth of valuable information. It is constant work, but we feel it should be a part of what we do.
It is constant work, but we feel it should be a part of what we do.
Powerful.
One journey-
By Lani Ritter-Hall
A common journey toward 21st Century learning– 135 Ohio Consortium PLPers –
Each beginning that journey with a single step from whence they were standing— diverse backgrounds and understandings that strengthen and deepen the growth of the community–
And as with all journeys, not without bumps in the road and/or detours—
One journey, an example, from the many–
Tim Breuer from the Milford Exempted Village School District began his PLP trek as an active participant in many and varied discussions during the first month of learning within the virtual learning community. Following the first Elluminate session, where PLPers considered trends shaping the current shifts in learning, he was absent from the community for a number of days. On his return, he related being disturbed, confused and unsettled by what he believed he heard during the session only to spend countless hours sorting his emotions and thoughts to find:
As I thought through this more I realized that Debra had pushed me out of my comfort zone. That is when we truly learn, when we are uncomfortable.
My encouragement to those who are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated is to look past the emotion and see why you feel this way. Use that understanding to drive you to work outside your comfort zone and begin the true learning.
Tim was eager to continue—with assistance from his Fellow, Lynn Ochs from Milford, creating a Moodle site to engage parents of his students in discussions about 21st century learning at his initiative
And then Tim began blogging using the blog feature of Ning, at the suggestion of Lynn – chronicling his journey into 21st Century learning.
One post described an afternoon in his classroom–
I did a science exploration with my fourth graders using our laptop cart. It was amazing! They were looking for answers to any of their questions and looking to generate any new understandings/ questions as well. They were mesmerized. I spent the 3 hours sharing in the excitement of discovery “Hey, Mr. Breuer, come here . . .did you know that . . .” “Mr. Breuer, look at what I found about plants . . .” “Mr. Breuer I bet you didn’t know . . .” It was awesome, exhausting, and absolutely fantastic. One of my most struggling students said to me, “I love being able to watch the video because now I know things too. I have so much trouble reading the books.” One of my autistic students was in and she watched a couple of the plant videos on the laptop with her headphones on and floored with me with the information she was able to share. With the video on their laptop they could pause, rewind, or move on at will. Many times a student came up and said to me “Mr. Breuer, so and so isn’t going in order of the websites. They’re starting with the video.” I told them, “Great, they don’t have to go in order. Explore and tell me what you find.” The amount of information they “owned” was amazing, but more incredibly they were connecting the information in ways I had never imagined.
The lessons this week was not about the technology. It was about creating a learning situation that built community and allowed for exploration. Technology just allowed me to do it in an easier way. I’m in it for good now!
In other posts, his thinking and learning become transparent–
In order to blog something I had to synthesize all of the events and critically look at them as individual pieces and how they fit together as a whole. A new awareness of what I was doing and why began to grow.
I am really learning a lot about myself as a learner while exploring 21st century learning through the Ning experience. With blogging, even if no one responds, I am still putting my thoughts into coherent (as much as I can muster) meaningful ways and I have them down somewhere that I can reread them. I’m interested to see how they change by the end of the PLP experience.
Engaging, pushing back, moving forward, reading, writing, reflecting – other PLPers responding in the blog comments– Everyone learning–
I sit nodding, learning, waiting for his next insight shared with the entire community – And at the same time, I’m encouraging and nudging other PLPers to open a window on the landscapes of their journeys into learning too–
From 0 to Sharing in Less Than a Week
By: Karl Fisch
One of the fascinating things about PLP is how quickly folks start sharing ideas and resources with one another. This year’s ADVIS cohort just started up on September 29th and there is already some great sharing going on. In response to a question about whether anyone was using social networking in their classrooms, Margaret Haviland quickly responded:
We began experimenting with a Ning website last year in our upper level history classes at Westtown. We were looking for a way to get kids talking about current events. Our students are always telling us that living in a boarding school, they are cut off from the rest of the world. We were so happy with the experiment that we have expanded it this year and have 160 students involved. Each teacher has a slightly different approach to what students post as their “original” current event. For instance, students in Latin American History must post stories based in Latin America. Students are encouraged to reply to any post they want within the entire forum. In my own classes, Ancient World History and World History from the late classical period to World War I students have a specific list of news sources to choose from, I want to wean them off of CNN, BBC, NYTimes. Our modern world history students are being asked to focus on issues in the Middle East. We had some great threads this past year. Everything from the place and role of video games in teenage lives, to environmental degradation of the Brazilian rain forests, to modern art trends in China. Right now there is a vibrant thread going related to the Newsweek Magazine cover on whether or not babies are born with a tendency to prejudice.
This is an excellent example of the power of the learning network that PLP facilitates, and of how to use a Ning in an engaging, meaningful and relevant way. It also mirrors my own experience in terms of student work on the web – when we give them the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions both inside and outside of school, they respond.
How have you used tools like Ning in your classroom?
