Learning in our times and discovering curriculum: two reflections from Richardson’s ISTE Ignite presentation

This blog will not hereafter be a list of habits that I’m building; however, I will mention one little habit that I’ve decided to take up: do something with everything.

I attended the Lausanne Laptop Institute in Memphis in mid July.  It shaped up to be a fantastic few days of learning and expanding my PLN.  However, by the end of the first day I was a bit frustrated with the amount of “sit and get” that attendees were subjected to.  Rather than stew, I decided to practice a new habit.  I decided to take at least one thing away from each session.  Sometimes it had little to do with the session.  During one session on do’s and don’t’s of technology, I took one word that was mentioned during the presentation (“habitat”) and tweeted/brainstormed (tweetstormed?) about a potential course that revolves around a student’s habitat.  During another session the presenter quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I wrote down that quote because I thought that my homeroom boys might benefit from hearing it and thinking about it.

Now, one might think that vowing to “do something with everything” might lead to a firehose of “stuff.”  Not really, as long as you’re content that something might include grasping an idea, chewing on it for a few minutes, long enough for it to stick in your memory, dumping it, then going on with your day.  You never know when that little chemical pulse in your bright join another to form a neural network, and idea, an inspiration, a movement…

So, in the spirit of doing something with everything, I came across Will Richardson’s Ignite presentation from ISTE.  There are a whole bunch of somethings in this presentation, but I call dibs on two:

Something #1: “This is an amazing time to be a learner in this world.”

Amen.  We are at a point where technology has caught up with know-how has caught up with technology.  (Not a typo…I’ll explain).  First, there was technology that only few knew about and even fewer were able to use.  Then as knowledge and understanding increased among the laity, technology began an outward ripple to bring user experience to EVERY level of technological comfort.  I think that ripple has now extended to every user that WANTS to use these technologies.  (Hold-outs remain, but you know what they say about horses and water…)

So, TED, MIT, and millions more make compelling content public, connectivity is the default setting for most canonized technologies, and technological easy and embellishment are in a “sweet spot.” (A techno-rube can develop very slick product with a modicum of time and know-how.)

An amazing time to be a learner indeed.  So why is each and every teacher out there NOT actively engaged in making their learning public?  Blog, microblog, wiki, webpage, whatever!  Just get out there, share what you’re learning, what interests you, and make connections.  Who knows how it might affect your teaching, your learning, or your life?

Something #2: “Stop delivering curriculum.  Curriculum is everywhere.  It’s not ours to deliver.”

I just might scrawl this on my desk when I go back to school in August.  If I allowed my students to discover their own reason for speaking a second language, what might that look like?  How might that affect buy-in?  And how might buy-in affect the effectiveness their learning the so-called “important stuff?”  I suspect this will be the subject of a future post.