Want to hear about upcoming webinars?
May 9, 2012 in information, Webinar
by Dixie Good
Webinar on Engaged Teaching — May 15
May 5, 2012 in Uncategorized
Join us Tuesday, May 15, at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain Time) for a conversation about Engaged Teaching. The webinar will be conducted in the CoLearning Network space on AdobeConnect. Mark Wilding, Executive Director of PassageWorks Institute and a postgraduate instructor in leadership and systems thinking, will lead the conversation.
Based on years of teaching, leadership development, and work with thousands of educators, Mark writes that “Engaged Teaching is about re-integrating a fragmented view of education that often separates social and emotional learning from academics, skills from content, heart from mind, inner life from outer life, and student learning outcomes from learning contexts.” The webinar will consider the five dimensions of Engaged Teaching: developing the self-observer, being present, practicing respectful discipline, expanding emotional range, and cultivating an open heart.
Topics the webinar will explore include:
- students’ connections to themselves, to others, and the world;
- the teacher as learner;
- 21st century skills;
- the role of learning in schooling;
- developing communities of learning;
CoLearning Network webinars are conducted on the third Tuesday of every month, at 3:30 p.m. Join the free webinar at http://connect.enetcolorado.org/colearn/ as a guest.
If you have not used Adobe Connect before, we recommend that you link to the webinar site 5 minutes early, so you can dowload and test the connection software.
If you cannot join the webinar, a recording will be posted on the CoLearning site by the next day.
Margaret Wheatley Presentation
April 10, 2012 in Uncategorized
Here’s an opportunity that might interest you: Hearing Margaret Wheatley talk about her latest book (Walk Out Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now). She’s delivering the talk in Denver next Monday evening, April 16.
Margaret Wheatley is an extraordinary thinker, who has for many years been weaving the connections among social, scientific, educational, and cultural strands of thought. Her 2006 book Leadership and the New Science is one of the most interesting and important texts I’ve read. The Library of Congress catalogs it with the following subject headings — Leadership; Organization; Quantum theory; Self-organizing systems; Chaotic behavior in systems.
This presentation costs $32 a ticket (which includes a copy of the new book); neither CLN nor C21L sponsors it or derives any revenue from it. I mention it here simply because I thought you might be interested. If you are, here’s the registration site.
Webinar Announcement – April 17th
April 3, 2012 in Uncategorized
Join us Tuesday, April 17, at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain Time) for a conversation about student presentations of learning. The webinar will be conducted in the CoLearning Network space on AdobeConnect. Sarah Park (Director of Mapleton Early College, Denver, Colorado) and Michael Soguero (Director of Professional Development at Eagle Rock School, Estes Park, Colorado) will lead the conversation.
At Mapleton Early College and Eagle Rock, presentations of learning provide students a powerful opportunity to reflect and report on their growth as learners and members of a community of learners. During their years at these schools, students make multiple presentations to groups of students and teachers (and, at Eagle Rock, to a panels of observers from outside the school community). The presentations serve as benchmarks, thresholds, and celebrations. Followed over the years, they both documents and promote tremendous mental and emotional growth.
Topics the webinar will explore include:
- the purposes and values of assessment;
- the curricular role of student presentations of learning;
- assessment of skills and habits of mind;
- building an intentional positive school culture;
- agonies and ecstasies of communities of learning;
- promoting academic achievement and human potential.
CoLearning Network webinars are conducted on the third Tuesday of every month, at 3:30 p.m. Join the free webinar at http://connect.enetcolorado.org/colearn/ as a guest.
If you have not used Adobe Connect before, we recommend that you link to the webinar site 5 minutes early, so you can dowload and test the connection software.
If you cannot join the webinar, a recording will be posted on the CoLearning site by the next day.
by Nancy White
Thoughts on having an “Information Literacy Class” – Harrison’s 21st Century Program
March 24, 2012 in Reflection
I totally understand the reaction from my librarian friends to the fact that there is an “information literacy” class that is part of the 21st century program at Harrison High School. We have always been told, and indeed, the research supports the fact that this skill (any skill) should not be taught in isolation – in order for the learning to “stick,” it needs to be taught in conjunction with the information need – which translates in a school setting to a class assignment.
Librarians are perhaps more sensitive to this than other educators because of the fact that for many, many years (and actually this is still common practice, particularly in elementary schools) the library has been forced to operate under a fixed schedule, giving librarians no choice but to teach information literacy and library skills in isolation.
The situation at Harrison is really very different. The classes are designed to be cross curricular. Subjects are not taught in silos. Rather, they focus on solving real world problems, applying particular skills set to do so. Along the way, they acquire knowledge, hone their skills, and develop deeper understandings. They have elements of choice in their problem solving, thus increasing the intensity of the “information need” as they follow their own sense of wonder. In this situation, aren’t these students learning information literacy skills at the point of need?
I sensed something else in the reactions to the Information Literacy class. I could be wrong, but I think there were perhaps some thoughts that only the librarian should be teaching information literacy. This is a point I take issue with. I do not believe it is in the best interest of students for librarians to be the sole teachers of information literacy. Absolutely it is our area of expertise. However, for information literacy skills to really take hold in our students, classroom teachers need to continuously model, teach and assess these skills in the classroom, especially as more and more opportunities exist there due to internet connected computers and projectors, Smart Boards, classroom sets of computers, and personal devices in use in the classroom. If we are serious about students learning information literacy at the point of need, then we need to re-think how that looks in a technology rich classroom and what the librarian’s role is in teaching this skill.
I propose that we need to accept that every classroom teacher should be a teacher of information literacy. As experts in this area, school librarians should be providing regular professional development to teachers on how to effectively model good search strategies, how to evaluate information and how to think out loud through the process. Students need to understand the thought processes we go through in deciding on which links to click on – where/how we skim a site to determine if it is worth our time, and how we revise our search strategy if we don’t find what we need. We cannot just teach information literacy to students whose teachers collaborate with us for the one or two big research projects they do during the school year. Too many kids slip through the cracks.
Let’s rethink what information literacy learning looks like in schools. I think the 21st Century Program at Harrison High School is addressing this in a novel way, and from where I am standing, it seems to be working.
March 20 Webinar: Harrison High School 21st Century Program
March 12, 2012 in Uncategorized
UPDATE: If you missed our March 20 webinar (Harrison HIgh School 21st Century Program), you can watch and listen to the webinar’s archived recording. You’ll want to start 1 1/2 minutes into the recording.
Additionally: Here are two of the rubrics they use in the program:
CLN’s March 20 webinar provided a conversation about creating and running a school devoted to learning for the 21st century. Rick Freehling (Critical Thinking & Reasoning/Economics & Globalization Teacher and Department Chair for the 21st Century Program at Harrison High School) led the conversation.
Now in its fifth year, Harrison’s 21st Cenury Program focuses on critical thinking and construction of knowledge in a “global” classroom. Topics the webinar explored include:
· assessment of skills and habits of mind;
· re-thinking the “core” of a curriculum;
· co-learning with students while facilitating their learning;
· issues of creating a school-within-a-school and innovating in a model NCLB district;
· the learning outcomes from thinking and acting globally as well as locally.
CoLearning Network webinars are conducted on the third Tuesday of every month, at 3:30 p.m. Join the free webinar at http://connect.enetcolorado.org/colearn/ as a guest.
by Nancy White
March 20 Upcoming Webinar: Harrison High School 21st Century Program
March 6, 2012 in information, Webinar
Join us Tuesday, March 20, at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain Time) for a conversation about creating and running a school devoted to learning for the 21st century. The webinar will be conducted in the CoLearning Network space on AdobeConnect. Rick Freehling (Critical Thinking & Reasoning/Economics & Globalization Teacher and Department Chair for the 21st Century Program at Harrison High School) will lead the conversation.
Now in its fifth year, Harrison’s 21st Cenury Program focuses on critical thinking and construction of knowledge in a “global” classroom. Topics the webinar will explore include:
· assessment of skills and habits of mind;
· re-thinking the “core” of a curriculum;
· co-learning with students while facilitating their learning;
· issues of creating a school-within-a-school and innovating in a model NCLB district;
· the learning outcomes from thinking and acting globally as well as locally.
CoLearning Network webinars are conducted on the third Tuesday of every month, at 3:30 p.m. Join the free webinar at http://connect.enetcolorado.org/colearn/ as a guest.
If you have not used Adobe Connect before, we recommend that you link to the webinar site 5 minutes early, so you can dowload and test the connection software.
If you cannot join the webinar, a recording will be posted on the CoLearning site by the next day.
CoLearning at the Unconference – 2-25-12
February 27, 2012 in Uncategorized
We hugely appreciate the many CoLearning Unconference participants who attended our session for exploring the uses of CLN. Thank you!
Here are some of the ideas that I am taking from that session:
- We need to think in terms of a participation marketplace. A variety of topics, issues, and activities (the horizontal axis), as well as a variety of modes or levels of engagement (the vertical axis).
Hypothetical matrix of participation marketplace
So folks can find not just their own area of interest but also their own way of being involved. And opportunities to move with relative ease among these options. As Glenn Moses said, “Sometimes, if it’s a dynamic leader or expert; I like sit and get. other times I like having a community and good resource with time to read and share discuss and reflect.” I was really struck by Kiffany Lychock’s suggestion that the monthly webinar could serve as the potential spark and potential recruitment for Learn/Builds or other forms of collective exploration. Kiffany says that Douglas County SD uses this approach to promote more individualized professional learning, and ties that to professional portfolios. Excellent strategy!
- To facilitate participation, the CLN site could feature a bulletin board on which members would post topics and invite collaboration.
- The notion that some degree of geographic container (e.g., Colorado) plus the opportunity to find colleagues across school districts seems to resonate strongly. But what are the connections that bind? What work do we want/need to do with colleagues across multiple districts? I think when we know what that work is, figuring out how to do it won’t be very difficult.
- Making online environments comfortable and effective places to communicate and learn is very much a work in progress. I really appreciated Erin Magley’s comment during the session (which I am sorry I can’t repeat in the eloquent way she said it) about the explosive growth of tools for connecting and our struggle to figure out just how to use those tools. From an emoticon for “I’m hearing you! Keep rockin’ on!” to incorporating reflection and break-out discussions, we need to keep figuring out how to bring the multi-dimensionality of face-to-face communication into online connection. How can Bud bring beer to a webinar?
Meanwhile, about the Unconference as a whole: First of all, hoo-RAY! And thank you, Organizers and Participants. We need each other, and this gathering matters. Second, before the unconference becomes a cult activity (or disappears), let’s find a way to move the conversation away from the T-word. We cannot continue to have gatherings in which tech people say it’s not about technology. What about an assessment unconference? Or a new Colorado standards unconference? Maybe something about the relationships between learning and teaching. Now that would be conferencing as a subversive activity.
Catch the Webinar: Inquiry as Professional Development
February 21, 2012 in Uncategorized
If you missed our webinar on Inquiry as Professional Development, you can see/hear the archived recording of the webinar. The discussion between presenters Michelle Bourgeois and Stevan Kalmon was supplemented by an extensive and excellent back-channel exchange among the webinar “audience”. The record of that exchange, edited and annotated, is available through Google Docs.
CLN webinars are conducted at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain time) on the third Tuesday of every month. Join us in the CoLearning meeting space.
Webinar – Teacher Inquiry – 2/21/12
February 6, 2012 in Uncategorized
Join us Tuesday, February 21, at 3:30 p.m. (Mountain Time) for a conversation about teacher inquiry as a vehicle for professional learning. The webinar will be conducted in the CoLearning Network space on AdobeConnect. Michelle Bourgeois (Co-director of St. Vrain Valley School District’s Digital Learning Community [DLC]) and Stevan Kalmon (Director of the Council on 21st Century Learning) will lead the conversation.
Collaborative inquiry is central to St. Vrain’s DLC process. As the process matures, it not only strengthens the ability of participating teachers to address students’ learning needs, it also lays the foundation for districtwide transformation. Topics the webinar will explore include:
- how teacher inquiry differs from conventional PLC models;
- principles and issues in conducting a program of teacher inquiry;
- strategies for implementing teacher inquiry across a school district;
- examples of inquiry projects in St. Vrain School District;
- how teacher inquiry can create powerful learning for both teachers and students.
CoLearning Network webinars are conducted on the third Tuesday of every month, at 3:30 p.m. Join the free webinar at http://connect.enetcolorado.org/colearn/ as a guest.
If you have not used Adobe Connect before, we recommend that you link to the webinar site 5 minutes early, so you can dowload and test the connection software.
If you cannot join the webinar, a recording will be posted on the CoLearning site by the next day.