Thank you to #YRDSBQuest for streaming keynote presentations and encouraging the sharing of learning on Twitter. It makes it much easier to learn from a distance.
While working near Thunder Bay on Wednesday, I was able to keep in touch with much of the learning.
I also spent time last Sunday and Monday following the Tweets from the OPC event with Dr. Michael Fullan. I found some relevant work like this:
But I also worried that leaders were once again embracing a lot of conceptual information, like this:
This year, I am wondering about how we can move learning forward. I think a lot about Simon Breakspear’s plea for us to get out of the conceptual and into a very clear, specific vision of future practice.
So after reading all the Tweets from Day 1 of #YRDSBQuest and watching the keynotes streamed, I came to this inquiry question:
I feel as though we have spent a lot of time in Ontario working on “building relationships”, building our emotional intelligence, talking about innovation, talking about 21C, reading books about the secrets of change, drivers, instructional core, sticky ideas and mindsets.
Isn’t it time now to take some action?
“We are now better than fifteen years into the 21st Century and educators are still discussing what role technology plays in education.”
Tom Whitby, My Island View, How Do We Stop Illiterate Educators?
Let’s look at the last bullet on the slide above:
“Ultimately you need people to take charge of their own learning…”
What if we invested in putting a simple, reliable mobile device into the hands of every educator (especially leaders), and provided reliable connectivity, then offered some basic instruction into how to self-direct their learning…
…. imagine what would happen if every leader committed to learning and sharing openly, if every educator openly reflected on learning and practice on their own blog/website in a searchable, open way.
Think of the spread of best practice – next practice that could happen if all educators were simply empowered with those simple three things:
- A simple, reliable mobile device
- Reliable connectivity
- Basic instruction on self-directing their learning in open collaborative online environments.
How well would we then understand the critical needs to ensure that our students are able to self-direct their own learning in this world where knowledge is ubiquitous?
Resources:
See how some Ontario Educators are taking the next steps in self-directing learning:
Learning About Learning 
Wow! I am blown away by all of the amazing ideas on the video ‘What’s Your Next Ontario’. It is wonderful to see real tangible ideas, and ideas that are individudalized according to your own needs. I think that this is something that we all need to do as reflective practitioners, and I love that awe are focusing on taking the conceptual and making it practical and real – where the rubber hits the road! I was unable to answer this question myself as I am still thinking about what my next should be. Not because there are not a million things I need to improve on, but because there is simply so much, and I am looking into professional changes.
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