Fishing and forums

I went fishing with my kids on the weekend. We all learnt something new.

Mr 9and Ms 6 learnt that you can’t catch a crab with a fishing rod but it is fun to try, Ms 14 learnt that fishing involves patience – she nearly gave up and then caught two fish after she decided to have another go.

I learn that fisherman use online forums. The fact that that surprises me says more about my prejudice than my ignorance. Of course fisherman use forums – they need local, reliable, up to date information about what fish are biting where. One guy that stopped for a chat was getting an update from everyone on the wall – then he was going home to tell everyone in the forum what was happening at Hillaries.

My brother was telling me about the online forums he belongs to. (Yes I was surprised again – my brother hates writing – he sends 2 word emails!). He belongs to a Chrysler forum where he brags about his Charger that he races and a VW forum where he talks about his very flash VW beach buggy. (Looks too good to take to the dunes but he does!)

I am not teaching in the classroom now days but I found myself wondering if classroom teachers are using forums. Presumably there are plenty of teachers who belong to forums but what about the average teacher. Would they be chatting about their hobbies online? Do they search for professional ideas in a forum? If they are not even into a hobby forum are they behind the times? (Perhaps they are too busy to have a hobby!) Is sharing teaching ideas suitable to a forum? It is pretty easy to post “Herring are biting in the mornings at Hilaries, use squid and burley”. How easy is it to explain your reading program or your best maths lesson for pre-primary?

I'd love to hear from anyone who is in a forum on teaching. How often to you contribute to it? How does it help you in you job?

What is my problem with blogging?

OMG Who gets time to blog?? I was really hopeful that I would find time to follow the Blogging Corner on edna and discover secret of blogging. But other things have taken priority.

It takes a fair bit of self confidence to blog. Why would any one want to listen to me?

Well here goes.

I am working on a blended learning workshop on designing and facilitating forums. I am having fun pulling together all of the things I have learnt over the past year. Now I have almost too much information to cover. What is my main point I want them to learn? I really want them to experience the crystalization of new ideas that can happen when everyone collaborates online - Gilly Salmon's Level 5! Given we only have 4 weeks we might not reach that point - espcially as we are using a new website. Fingers crossed we get to knowledge sharing.

Gilly Salmon's Website: http://www.atimod.com/

Why Blog???

Time to get the hang of blogging....I have been skulking about reading other peoples blogs and not really getting the point. Then I stumbled across a blog about a scandal here in Perth and I was hooked! Very quickly the blog (which was anonymous) degenerated in to extreme belligerence and name calling.

So is blogging like reading a trashy mag...no surely not. Is it like talking to strangers about your problems...yuck.So here I start an experiment to see if I can reach what seems like a high ideal - networking with interested and knowledge people about building online communities.

At the moment in my workplace consultants are under pressure to provide an increasing amount number of services to teachers who students that have a disability. Collaborating online and building up a body of knowledge via forums or groups could help provide these services to more teachers. We are having difficulty engaging the consultants in online learning. It just seems like more work to them. How to convince them that it will add value to their current role????