Plunging into the River Twitter

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I hate Twitter. The reason why has more to do with who I am, rather than some essential truth about Twitter. It has been said that Twitter is a river of information and that you should not try to swallow everything that comes downriver (to kill the metaphor). You should just, as Will Richardson said today, "dip your toe in" and come up with whatever you find to be of value and then shut the valve. I'm not too good at doing that. I like to do things beginning to end. The middle, the unfinished, frightens me. That's just a personality trait. There is no way I can be done tweeting. I can never read all the tweets. At least in my RSS reader, I can read all the new blog posts and be "done." So, already, the PLP is actually challenging me, because one of my tasks is to join Twitter and follow someone. So, I'm doing it. I'm not liking it but I'm sure that'll be different by the next time I post. When will I ever find the time?!?!

Quote of the Day

"If we're asking questions that can be answered by pulling a phone out of our pocket (via internet or talk), why are we asking those questions?"--Will Richardson, PLP

PLP Kickoff Day One

Here we are, our team of six, at the Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) Cohort kickoff. We're at Garrison Forest School in the Lower School library. Here's the keynote by Will Richardson. We're being told, we get to pick and choose our interests, that we don't have to participate in lessons we don't feel we need. We get to be learners first and foremost. I feel like that most of the time, so letting go of being the "leader" or the "teacher" isn't a challenge for me at all. It seems like my job requires me to be learning almost every minute of every day.

"Lean into your discomfort. Say hello to it." That's what they are telling us. I do hope that I feel some discomfort. It sounds terrible to say, but I have not felt truly uncomfortable learning a new tech tool in a while. That means I am definitely not challenging myself enough. So, I'll look forward to saying hi.

So far, the thing I'm most looking forward to is the asynchronous communication piece. We'll have a Ning for our group and I've always discovered the best ideas in the virtual learning communities.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fenris117/4536603725/sizes/s/in/photostream/ 

Powerful Learning Practice Cohort

This year, six colleagues and I are participating in a year-long professional development course called "Powerful Learning Practice." It's a mostly on-line experience with two days of face-to-face with other local colleagues from our AIMS community. The promise is that it will feature "job-embedded, blended instruction in the use of classroom technology." Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson are the company owners, and a friend who teaches at Garrison Forest sold me on the program at this year's ISTE Conference. She said, "It changed my life." I really like this woman, so I believe her. We shall see. 

The free, open-to-all "pregame" of activities started this week. That means that we receive a daily email with a series of tasks to complete. These are like "23 Things" in nature. For instance, one task is to watch a whole bunch of Web 2.0 videos like "Did You Know?" and "The Networked Student." Then, to make comments upon them. Luckily, they are updated versions from the originals so I'm not repeating things I have seen 15 times. Next day's task is to create a blog post. I think I'm ahead of this game.