23 Things: am Anfang

Week one has gone by for the 23 Things discovery learning project.

It was a hot and busy first week, and many people who were/are very interested didn’t have the time to breathe… much less get going on their 23 Things. (How was your first week this year?) I’m attributing the somewhat slow start to that… I’m still hearing interest in the program. Many asked if they could join in during the second week. Absolutely! So we’ll see how those numbers change in the upcoming week.

This project was publicized for our staff, but I’d love it if we had even more people participating (think Flat Classroom Learning). The learning from the 23 Things project is meaningful and easy (even for beginners), but the collaboration and networking that happens as you cheer each other on in their discovery journey becomes even more meaningful the more voices and perspectives we have.

So if you happened across my website today and are interested (at all), come and join us!

SWC’s 23 Things: A discovery journey in Web 2.0

And so it begins

Today we had our staff meeting where I presented about the 23 Things learning opportunity (join us if you’d like!). It was awesome to see so many people writing down the web address, even though they knew I would send it out to them later via e-mail.

For some reason my jump drive refused to work at all, so my PowerPoint presentation that I toiled over for this presentation was out of the question. It turned out okay, though. My dear friend played along well and asked some questions (in that fun way so it seemed like we planned it out as part of the presentation). Fantastic.

After the meeting, one teacher came up and talked about how she was very excited because she had been meaning to do more with technology and this is the perfect “next step”. Another teacher was so excited and said, “I just feel like… like I can DO it!” This totally made my day. Even one of the administrative assistants e-mailed to say that it was fantastic… I hope that she tries it as well. I think it has application in everyone’s life.

So, after a long day of hauling boxes, unpacking boxes and trying to find some semblance of order in my room again (we had a  huge construction project this summer), I’m tired. I hope you’re all having a good night and a great day of school tomorrow!

Leadership

It’s been a Tipping Point for me this summer (for some reason) and I’m kind of excited about it. I’ve lost some of that quiet anxiety and am looking forward to stepping out to help and serve others as a “real” leader. Okay, I’m not working for “Staff President” or anything like that (why does that title sound odd, yet “class president” is something we just accept as normal?)… instead I stepped into leadership of the technology committee in the middle of last year, and this year I get to start it off (the right way).

So I’ve been contacting members of the committee and talking about things like mini-sessions on various technology-related things… and, of course, the “23 Things“.

Today I read a post from Scott Elias about Leadership, and the quote he used to jump-start everything was one from Ralph Nader: The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

This quote hit my latest concern on the head. I have been reaching out for this “23 Things” project because I want it to be collaborative and give others a chance to take real ownership in our committee and the things we will be doing. I am finding, however, that although some are very interested in “hopping on board” and talking already about ideas for mini-sessions (like effective PowerPoint, Moodle, etc.), others are just ignoring the whole thing (trying to be able to just “pass the time” in their committee choice). Okay. I might be blowing it out of proportion a bit (running up the ladder of inference, if you will) since we haven’t even begun school yet and I haven’t seen any of these people yet (all of this judged purely by e-mail correspondance, or the lack thereof). However, it still comes back to the question:

How can I inspire them to share of themselves and really become a leader in the team instead of just biding their time?

23 Things…

Today I took the first step and started creating the blog for the 23 things for our staff. I haven’t published anything yet because I’m still in the tinkering stage… but I’m still very excited for this fantastic opportunity.

I decided to put it on a weekly schedule… that way people can work ahead if they want, but won’t feel too overwhelmed with so many things to try and do.

I still have to decide who I need to talk to about implementing this as well as the final list of things that people should discover and play around with. The reason I know I need to deviate a little from the original is that our staff showed some real interest in using Moodle, and I would like to get them information on things like Survey sites as well… all things that help them be more productive, effective, and efficient because, after all, that is what good technology does, right?

23 Things…

Wow!! Today I was rolling around in bloggy goodness and ran into a movement that has been going on that sounds pretty fantastic: 23 Things. Minnesota even seems to have its own movement (mostly for librarians, as far as I can find), called 23 Things on a Stick.  Some have even moved forward, gone farther, and done “Learning 2.1: A Master List of Things“.  There is even a Minnesota tech-guy, Michael Walker,  who is looking ahead to doing this for his staff in Edina.

I am very interested in trying this out so that I can share it with my colleagues! I am on the technology committee, and this past spring we found that many people are interested in improving their technological savviness. I think this would be a great program to set up for interested participants.  I want to learn more, and talk to more people so that I can get this in motion.  I’m excited!