Salutations from Steve
Salutations from Kelowna (BC) to all my fellow ETEC 522 comrades. Currently I am taking 522 and 511, my 6th and 7th courses in the MET program. It seems like just yesterday I was a newbie and terms like scaffolding, digital natives and connectivism were mystifying. If you’re a newbie, please don’t let those words scare you…they will seem “old hat” soon.
I am extremely excited about this course and hope that it can help me bring a venture, near and dear to my heart, to life. Leveraging the affordances of various free or cheap collaborative web 2.0 tools, I hope to create a system of collaboration within a community of teachers. Within this platform, I hope teachers will be able to share and build on resources, knowledge and experiences in order to ease the strain of going it alone. If anyone else is interested in something similar, or has seen something similar that works (it seems that many online teacher communities are like ghost towns), I would love to know. I am trying to figure out what works and why these communities are failing.
Professionally, I am presently teaching Math, Physics and Calculus at George Elliot Secondary, although I have pretty much taught every course except French and Band in my teaching journey, hence my interest in an online system of resource sharing. I started in the private system, which I loved, but have since transferred to the public system.
On a personal note, I love hiking with my wife Elan and dog Sugar, going to the drive-in (went to opening night last week), watching rugby (used to play) and drinking beer….hhhmmm beer.
Cheers, Steve MacKenzie
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Claire Burgoyne 11:02 pm on May 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Steve,
I have the (almost) perfect example of a teacher community for you. Art Ed 2.0 (arted20.ning.com) is an active community of over 11,000 art teachers. Many excellent resource and lots of small groups and sharing.
We love the drive-in too. My husband and I drove by at 7:30 p.m. opening night on our way back from Kelowna and were very tempted. Next time:)
mackenzie 11:24 pm on May 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Claire,
Thanks for the site! It looks very vibrant and I can’t wait to explore once my membership is accepted…still pending. Its great to see a community of teachers sharing ideas and working together. Are you actively involved in the site?
My wife and I are going tomorrow night…The Three Stooges and This Means War are playing. Looks to be a fun night. Maybe we will see you there. We will have the big white dog, its hard to miss us!
Claire Burgoyne 12:38 am on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Steve,
I haven’t posted to discussions or contributed resources since last May when I started taking two MET courses at a time.
Very tempting to take the night off and head for the drive-in. We always go early so we can claim our favourite spot just a few rows back and right in the centre. Maybe we’ll see you there.
mackenzie 1:50 pm on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Claire,
That’s our favorite spot! I wonder if we have shared many a movie, side by side. I look forward to running into you at the drive-in this summer.
mariefrancehetu 12:40 pm on May 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Steve,
Your venture to crate a system of collaboration for teachers sounds like a great project to work on during this course. With fellow MET colleagues we created a course designed to help ESL teachers reflect on their teaching through journaling. I have begun a blog which I hope can become a place where teachers can share their teaching and learning experiences, but I too am not sure how to make it fly . . . honestly there is so much out there that it is difficult for teachers to find a venue that they can relate to and also find the time to be part of a community.
I wish you luck and hope your project works out! I look forward to seeing how your venture progresses during this course.
Marie-France
mackenzie 2:12 pm on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Marie-France.
Journaling is a great idea for personal reflection on teaching and I, myself, have achieved considerable learning through this process. Congrats on your blog! I agree that making these sites fly can be a challenge. I have reviewed a lot of literature on different teacher community sites, and the studies seem to agree that they need to have a strong draw for teachers. They seem to emphasize the need to create a fun, vibrant, supportive and interesting place that teachers want to visit. This is why I was wondering if a social pin board that would link teachers to all sorts of resources posted by peers like humor cartoons, posters, stories, or shared tips and tricks of the trade, to classroom gadgets/technology to more professional sites like blogs and small formal interest groups would create such an environment. It could be a jumping off point to different ideas and resources that would be organized within a highly visual and interactive environment (containing comments, ratings, etc.) allowing teachers to peruse alot of possibilities without going into great depth on any of them….until the teacher was ready to focus their attention on the relevant and personally important sites. If your wondering what I am talking about, try visiting Pinterest.com if you haven’t already. I would love to hear what you think!
gillian 10:53 am on May 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey Mac!
Good to see you again! It does seem like yesterday that you were a newbie :)! You are just motoring through the program … good for you. Looking forward to working and learning with you again.
gillian
mackenzie 2:16 pm on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
sheza 2:15 pm on May 12, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Steve,
I’m also taking ETEC 511 this term so perhaps I will see you there as well 🙂
Interestingly, as part of ETEC 510 last term, my group and I worked on creating an online resource community for teachers like the one you have described. We were also concerned with the fact that most of these ventures tend to end up like ghost towns. It is interesting however, to note that within our ETEC courses, there is such an active group of online collaboraters – people who participate actively in the METs Ning community as well as on certain course project communities such as the ETEC510 Wiki. And looks like this course will be yet another active place where we can all share our expertise and experiences 🙂
Looking forward to working with you,
Sheza
mackenzie 3:35 pm on May 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Sheza,
I haven’t “seen” you in my section ‘A’. You must be in the next section. I agree that we are lucky to be a part of such a vibrant and active community of learners. Unfortunately, I think many of these resource sites have great intentions but fail to motivate teachers to visit or participate. Maybe these ghost town sites are just too serious, is it possible we need to make them more fun and interactive and therefore more appealling? I am hoping to create a social pin board site that would draw teachers into causal sharing of interesting sites on humor, videos and personal blogs while mixed in with more meaningful links to specific resources or study groups. I certainly haven’t perfected my pitch, but I am working on it.
How are you liking the new Connect format. Personally, my head is hurting with the new stream format of posts, although I am sure I will be used to it.
Cheers, Mac