Not So Distant Future

How are our online conversations part of our own learning?

I’ve been loosely participating in the 31 Day Comment Challenge, (which is an effort to focus on improving blog comments through various activities.)  

It’s been a little bit of a learning curve for me to figure out how to use coComment, which is the tool we are using, but by joining the 31 day challenge group, and then backtracking to blog post’s other participants have been commenting on, I’ve discovered a number of bloggers I had never read before and have been gradually widening my reading circle. 

And some of the activities, like yesterday’s Five on Five,  intrigue me in terms of doing them with students.   (The challenge is to respond to five blog posts in five minutes).  I think this activity would help break through the ice for those teachers or students “shy” about responding to blog posts, somewhat like a writing “fluency” activity that English teachers use.  (Though reasonably, maybe it should be Five in Ten, to be feasible!)  And of course, the point of commenting isn’t generally to comment just to comment, but sometimes it does take some steps to get students or teachers over that hurdle to try making a comment.

A teacher at our campus, Bill Martin, pondered this idea of helping students with commenting during a recent workshop we did.   He wondered how to help students move from commenting that was somewhat “parallel” where they engaged with the blog post, but not with the other comments, and how to help them engage in more of a conversation.   I think creating a challenge like the 31 day Comment Challenge (a simplified version possibly) to help students “practice” and develop their conversational abilities in writing might be a valuable way to ease them into blogging.

Reflections

As for reflections on my own blog, I notice that sometimes my posts aren’t invitational enough to comments, or don’t seem to be.   So I’ve been pondering how the way I write posts might enter into that.  (Although I don’t think this is the entire reason–many excellent bloggers don’t have a wealth of “commenters” but have many readers, of course!)     But I think about posts that sort of challenge an idea, or throw a question out, or challenge the accepted thinking, or generate controversy, and how those posts are written.

Clearly, the point of blogging isn’t purely to “receive” comments, but there is a lot of learning in the discussions and exchange that can happen.  So that is why I’ve been reflecting about this.    And as we start our blog for our new professional learning community, I want our blog to be a place where everyone involved feels like an active part of it and comfortable either posting or commenting, so I’ve been pondering the invitational-ness (is that a word) of the writing I do there.  

So some questions…

Are there particular writing styles that invoke comments?  If you read this blog and don’t comment, is there a reason?  I’d love to hear feedback.  

Is it because you prefer just reading?  Or that you don’t tend to comment on blogs in general?  Or don’t have time, but enjoy reading?  Or is it the style of some posts that don’t seem to require comment?  Or you think that you have nothing to add(though I’m sure each of you does!)     Or other reasons?   Even if you don’t usually comment here, I’d love to have input or reflection on your commenting habits, and perhaps relating to this blog in particular if you feel so moved. 

In a passionate post about school change, Chris Lehmann pondered a speech he gave in Oregon yesterday:

“I want to tell them that we have to question every single system we have in our schools. I want to tell them that everything should be on the table. All of it.”

A number of us watched his presentation via Ustream yesterday and in the chat room there was quite a bit of discussion about how to focus more on the process of learning and less on the bureacracy and status quo. We talked about how we teach the way we were taught, and wondered what it takes to “put everything on the table.”

I’ve been reading Innovation by Curtis Carlson and William Wilmot, which talks about some of the barriers teams face when trying to innovate. While I don’t believe all business-speak fits schools, some of the points the authors make about implementing change are important.

“When faced with significant change, many team members are gripped with FUD–fear, uncertainty, and doubt. . . .It means that people are frightened. They do not yet see their places in the innovative activity. They can’t visualize its success and they are unable to see how their contributions will be valued. People feel disconnected from their strengths and the new vision.”

In reading the book I’ve been pondering how we often don’t approach change in terms of “teams” in schools. Very often it’s top down, not grass-roots. What an incredible environment an administration has created when teachers feel empowered to bring in grass-roots change and propose ideas. But we often neglect to build supportive teams and communicate with those teams throughout the change process, and to be inclusive of all the stakeholders. Sounds simple, but of course in reality, in a large school, it’s highly difficult.

Carlson and Wilmot point out that for leaders, “It helps to view resistance, such as skepticism and FUD, as gifts. . . . Concerns usually have a kernel of truth that must be understood and addressed.”

The authors feel that champions(like Chris) have to listen carefully to the fears, and hear what is behind them in order to reframe the conversation.

Another significant area that Carlson and Wilmot discuss is not only the need to involve key players as I mentioned earlier, but to recognize that people want to achieve and contribute at what they do, and they want the freedom and empowerment to do it. So creating an atmosphere of good communication, respect for the talent in your building, and empowering individuals and teams to carry things forward is important.

As school leaders, librarians, technologists and administrators, how do we put our messages out there to the community in a positive, collaborative, invitational and empowering manner? SLA has provided an excellent model of how that sort of leadership not only helps one individual school and one individual body of students, but helps all of us “put everything on the table” and rethink what we do.

In his keynote “Reinventing School for the 21st Century“, podcast from Goodland Kansas in August (which I’m finally listening to this week during my morning commute), Wes Fryer asked the educators present,

“Why are you here? . . . If you’re here to positively transform the lives of children, if you’re here to make a difference every day, if you want when the children walk out of the room at the end of the day or the class period their brains to be different because of what they’ve done then stay. . . . You can change your mind today. You can choose to empower you and transform them to change the world. . . . You are tremendously powerful.”

We have to empower ourselves and others to “put everything on the table” because most of all–our children deserve the best we can do. Not what we used to do, or what we’re able to do, or what was done “to” us, but the very best we can do–the best we can create–the best we can envision.

So what next? Speak? Publish? Form teams on our campuses? Believe that we can create a grass-roots effort? Talk to our students? Form professional learning communities? Network? So many ways we are getting started!

Image credit–http://www.flickr.com/photos/22983550@N02/2349593475/