While studying this new Web 2.0 language and way of being, someone should study people with certain kinds of mindsets to see how their learning is unfolding. For instance, my husband has an excellent sense of direction. It's always with him. Miraculously, he knows which way to turn, any street corner, any part of town. He knows where to go whatever the situation, even in a city that's brand-new to him.
There's really no "lost" for him; how can you be lost if you know, generally, in which direction things lie?
My mindset does not include this directional tool. Give me a chance to turn the wrong way and I'm likely to, and you can't even say that I got "turned around" in my thinking because I had no directional orientation to begin with.
Mel Levine's article in Educational Leadership, "The Essential Cognitive Backpack," is about the cognitive tools people should ideally have, upon completion of high school. Although I don't see the toolset there that I currently would like to install in my brain, there are clearly plenty of others that make up the essential "stuff of education." They're what we're all about, as teachers.
Equip your kids' minds with thinking skills. Have them move outwards from there. Give them a nudge if they need it, and they probably won't, because when people feel they have the tools, they generally set about to make something.
Ok, I'm running a checklist on my current backpack items. Hmmmm...."Inner direction?" I have that, lots of it. "Instrumentation"? Pretty good. "Interaction"? Good when I'm not too obnoxious--generally I'm ok in that sphere, if a bit klutzy. It's a charming klutziness, surely.
So what am I lacking? Spatial reasoning. That's not too bad, as my cognitive backpack overall is pretty full.
But people should study us, we the people with no directional sense whatsoever. Do people with less well-developed spatial reasoning have trouble with internet navigation, or with Web 2.0 applications?
Not me.
Well,
I just use a batch of alternate tools, and it works out fine. It works out fine because I've got a well-furnished toolkit and am always actively learning. (I have a kind of "shareware" going on pretty regularly, with "free social downloads" that I'm responsive to. So if I bump into someone and spill their coffee--which is likely, given my clumsiness,I just ratchet though my tools and come up with one for the situation, such as profuse apologizing, laughing to lighten things up, or the showing of abject horror and regret on my face while running to get a cleaning cloth. I get the "social download shareware" of a bop on the nose, a look of disdain, or a shared laugh. I learn from it, and move on.)
My toolkit for Web 2.0 work:
don't worry about a lack of direction; pathways reconnect
plunge forth and create pathways
just keep trying
be playful
ask others for help
get out of the state of anxiety
mess around
find the people whose thoughts nourish you, and find their people
whose thoughts nourish them, connect
create networks
keep telling yourself you're not really lost
that the laws of spacial relations are new here
dream of what's possible. It probably is.
keep going.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
Web 2.0: It's a new language. I think my neurology is changing.
The other day, when I actually dreamed in links, it became clear to me that I had arrived. I'm at the door, taking a glimpse at what's beyond. The whole thing about this new read/write web is a bit daunting, but I can't remember any time in my life I've been so thrilled about learning. The resources, the networks, what's possible now--everything is different. It's all about carving paths, then seeing that the paths connect in a three-dimensional network, well beyond current space and time.
There's no going back. I was out running on our country road yesterday, thinking I'll never be in the "now" again, and feeling a bit mournful about this. Being in the now, with kids, or in nature, is really important to me. Then, almost simultaneously, I realized that my "now" is still here, but is qualitatively different.
It's like those stages Piaget talks about. It's not a linear run from one thing to the next, with the next stage being more advanced and "more so"; rather, the new stage is all completely different. "New eyes," as they say. From children's literature, it's like crossing the Tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time, or stepping through the window into another world in The Golden Compass. So my "now" is still here, but my "here" has broadened.
About a quarter mile further in this run down the country road, I heard scarlet tanager. The morning was foggy and thick with spring. The rain has greened everything up, and birds were declaring territory. I wanted my fourth and fifth graders to be there, to do an observation-exercise. It was a precious moment in our Michigan spring. Then, out of my new neurology, Aha! Here's an idea: Eco-pairs. Put a kid in Michigan onto an observational nature study, and connect her up to someone in...Africa? Hawaii? The pair of students could be out in their wireless lands conversing in real time about what's around them, thereby connecting two nature systems through two pairs of human eyes, with questions and answers. Think what this would do for their observational capacities. I'm no longer mournful. This new world, yes, I choose it.
Jane Goodall gets what it's all about. "The Power of Youth is Global" is written across the top of the screen at her Roots and Shoots website. Now kids from all over the world can work together as stewards of the earth...think of the power of this.
I'm starting to get it. The door is open. I want to use this blog as a sharing space, for kids and teachers and parents, all who have that pioneering sense of adventure and awe. This is a new version of the world, one that turns upsidedown and inside out all that we previously thought about education.
There's no going back. I was out running on our country road yesterday, thinking I'll never be in the "now" again, and feeling a bit mournful about this. Being in the now, with kids, or in nature, is really important to me. Then, almost simultaneously, I realized that my "now" is still here, but is qualitatively different.
It's like those stages Piaget talks about. It's not a linear run from one thing to the next, with the next stage being more advanced and "more so"; rather, the new stage is all completely different. "New eyes," as they say. From children's literature, it's like crossing the Tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time, or stepping through the window into another world in The Golden Compass. So my "now" is still here, but my "here" has broadened.
About a quarter mile further in this run down the country road, I heard scarlet tanager. The morning was foggy and thick with spring. The rain has greened everything up, and birds were declaring territory. I wanted my fourth and fifth graders to be there, to do an observation-exercise. It was a precious moment in our Michigan spring. Then, out of my new neurology, Aha! Here's an idea: Eco-pairs. Put a kid in Michigan onto an observational nature study, and connect her up to someone in...Africa? Hawaii? The pair of students could be out in their wireless lands conversing in real time about what's around them, thereby connecting two nature systems through two pairs of human eyes, with questions and answers. Think what this would do for their observational capacities. I'm no longer mournful. This new world, yes, I choose it.
Jane Goodall gets what it's all about. "The Power of Youth is Global" is written across the top of the screen at her Roots and Shoots website. Now kids from all over the world can work together as stewards of the earth...think of the power of this.
I'm starting to get it. The door is open. I want to use this blog as a sharing space, for kids and teachers and parents, all who have that pioneering sense of adventure and awe. This is a new version of the world, one that turns upsidedown and inside out all that we previously thought about education.
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