#clmooc #blogamonth Learning Walk

Gami Link

Sharpen The Saw

Principal Jessica Johnson explains how she will read and attend conferences, reminding us to Sharpen Our Saws by quoting Steven Covey:

Sharpening the saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have – you !

And our #blogamonth topic is to share our sharpenings.

How will I preserve and enhance “me?”

CLMOOC

#clmooc means Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration. That means it’s not a course, but a collaboration. It’s an event to gather educators from around the world to lurk and learn, connect and converse, create and collaborate, remix and reflect. Participants learn as they are able with plenty of support. What do we learn? We follow six week-long “Make Cycles,” taking part as we can, engaging in fun activities  that require mostly our imaginations and conversations with peers. The “Gami” above is my first one, an activity suggested by several of our participants who shared their Gamis.  We connect learning to our own situations, learning how important play is to learning. CLMOOC follows the pedagogy of Connected Learning

connectedlearningpedagogy

From this participation I see the value not only academically oriented goals, but also interest-driven and peer-supported goals that result in products from our shared purpose. That’s a mouthful. But in the first week of our #clmooc, participants have created personal avatars, how to be ‘me’ guides, and interactions among the projects that teach others, inspire others to try something new. Our “shared purpose” of introductions has resulted in peer-supported, interest-powered projects that reflect skills of digital literacy. From pictures of handwritten notes (George Salazar), to Google Presentations, to How to Be a Math Teacher diagrams (Craig Russell), to blogs (Kim Douillard), to How to Launch and Recover a Hot Air Balloon with infographics and Gami (Michael Buist) to YouTube How to Make Grilled Swordfish (David Quinn). Our shared purpose has been accomplished through interest, support, and academics — we have learned about each other in many ways.

Classroom

Imagine this at work in the classroom! Imagine opening up our academic goals to so they can be achieved through student interests with peer support, demonstrated through collaborative projects. My big take-away so far is that we are all learners, and all learners are at different places, each motivated by their own interests, enhanced by peer support. For today’s learners, this is the way to learn; anything else is contrary to the way we learn. Read more at Educator Innovator, powered by the National Writing Project.

Then you too will sharpen your saw on a learning walk: