I had a two and a half hour layover at Charlotte Douglas Airport yesterday, one of my all-time favorite layovers. Any airport that offers rocking chairs, cares. During yesterday’s visit, I discovered their business center, with desks, ethernet ports, free WiFi, lots of electrical outlets, and quite comfortable chairs. They also offer a more deluxe version with does have a fee (to the right).
Even with the larger desks, more comfortable chairs, and better lighting, these workspaces are fairly sterile. No work here. So where does the work take place. For me, I was responding to suggestions that had been posted by users of Son of Citation Machine, adding the ability to cite multiple authors of electronic journals in the APA format. Someone next to me was on a conference call with his mobile phone. Others were at their computers working, but I suspect that most of us were working inside of some online community. We were working with people, in groups, collaborating from our devices in an airport — responding and contributing. This is what online communities are, and what they are for, and, of course, they are not just about work.
I’m now in my hotel room, on a much less comfortable chair, at a tiny desk, that required me to do some treacherous crawling to find an electrical outlet. I am blogging to a dynamic community of people, up to 17 at last count ;-). Some of them/you may take what I’m saying and add something to it, or take something away — but they will in some way, help me grow these ideas about 21st century teaching and learning.
…and one thing that I know about teaching and learning today, is that it has to come through conversations, and conversations happen in communities, online communities. Let’s teach students children to be safe learners, not toss them out on the streets to learn it for themselves.
David,
I was interested in the last two paragraphs of your post. You wrote:
“I am blogging to a dynamic community of people, up to 17 at last count.”
Your Bloglines listing shows you have over 400 people subscribed to your blog through Bloglines. Are the “17” people who comment, cross post on ideas you discuss, or other? I’m asking the question because you use the phrase “dynamic community.” Can you be part of a community if you read, think, process, but don’t always participate in the discussion?
I don’t know the answer, but I think it merits discussion. I would be that most people only comment on 1 to 5% of the postings they read on blogs.
Jim
“Let’s teach students to be safe learners, not toss them out on the streets to learn it for themselves.”
Amen!
Can we swap the word students for children? Parents need to carry some of the responsibility, here, if they are to fulfill their roles as primary educators.
Jim,
I was being facetious about the 17 readers. I should have put the “winky face” in there. The last time I looked, a couple of months ago, I was getting 9,000 reads a day. But to address your question about community, I think that “Yes!”, people can be a part of the online community without participating in the online discussion. This is what’s missing in our treatment of online community issues, that the online spills out into the physical world. The online is only the conduit. That conduit has become much more clever in how it connects people, but the conversations continue on, outside of the wires and routers.
So, if someone reads our blog discussions, and it affects their teaching, or their policy making, or their voting in some way, then they are part of the community.
Does this make sense?
— dave —
Karyn,
I made your change. A very important distinction.
— dave —
David,
I think you are so very correct about the online being just a conduit.
I do comment on blogs frequently and try very hard to comment to posts on my own blog… but probably more frequently I am sharing the ideas that I read about and have online discussions about with colleagues and friends in person.
More importantly, within the past couple of months, I find myself trying very consciously to promote these ideas and new ways of working/thinking through my actions and not just through words.
Just because many people read blogs but do not comment on them, doesn’t mean that the ideas aren’t flowing out and influencing their thoughts and actions. I agree that if they take something away from these online conversations and make changes to their teaching, policy-making, voting, or thinking… then they too have become a part of the community.
Stephanie
In our disctrict we have had our share of middle school drama episodes with online communities like Xanaga and MySpace. Instead of pretending these sites do not exist, we have made it a priority to teach internet safety to our students and we model those lessons in the classroom. Personally, I have learned so much from blogs and disucssion boards; I can not imagine teaching with out them now.
The same issues are causing debate in the UK right now. I have been asked to blog networking sites at the school where I work, but have so far resisted as I too see them as a teaching resource, and a learning tool. I had a very sucessfull internet safety lesson where I took the role of the “criminal” and showed the pupils just how easy it was to home in on someone.
http://struan.edublogs.org/2006/03/28/to-bebo-or-not-to-bebo/
I am also curious, although you get 9000 read a day how many folks have registed to post comments? As one of your bloglines subscribers, I had previously gont to post, but (shame on me) been put off by the registration process. I wonder how much more of a conversation there might be if it werent for the need for registration?