We Shared, We Tweeted, We Conquered

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Well here it is. One final blog post. One last chance to put into words the immensity of my learning journey througout the past three weeks. And, I should add, my learning journey since I started the Teacher Librarian Diploma program. I am now seven courses in. Seven out of ten. 70% finished my learning journey towards teacher-librarianship. Although, since I have already conquered the challenge of being a librarian, I would like to make it clear that this learning journey, and this diploma, is about far more than just learning to be a librarian. It is about continuing to learn and grow as an educator and as a person. It is about making new connections and learning from classmates. It is about sharing ideas with others, listening to their ideas, and together, making all of our ideas better. I am imagining our class as a group of volleyball players. Instead of a ball, we have ideas. Instead of a net dividing us into teams, we have an open space connecting us all. Here, everyone can volley ideas back and forth. And with each volley, with each addition of a new thought, suggestion, criticism, wonder, etc, the ideas become bigger, better, and stronger.

Or…maybe I should just get my felts out and draw a picture:

I know what you’re thinking…why aren’t I an art teacher? Crazy I know. But it is this sense of human connections and collaborations that weeds out the good ideas from the bad and helps us to flourish as educators (and parents, friends, environmentalists, etc).

And speaking of environmentalists…

As you know by now, I have a passion for the environment. Sometimes this passion can get me into trouble (picture it now: roommate’s boyfriend throwing a plastic water bottle in the garbage. True story! I will let you imagine for yourselves my colourful reaction…). But sometimes, and hopefully most of the time, I hope it can inspire others to want to join in and advocate for positive change.

And thus, we arrive at my future vision project. Collaboration, technology, and the environment. The ultimate trio. I can hear the whales now, echolocation-ing each other that the future is looking brighter already, thanks to us. Alright, I jest and exaggerate. But I really do want to create positive environmental changes with the help of my students. Getting out in the environment is of course, great for the environment, but it is also great for our souls. There is a ton of research to support this (Thank you Richard Louv!, Aldo Leopold you rock!, Annie Leonard: life changing ideas), but more importantly, I feel so deeply that this is true. As Anne-Marie touched on today so eloquently, it is the human connections that really matter. Her presentation, more than any other, made me smile and feel inspired. Jenny, your wise words about using technology not as a tool but as a way to enhance learning, are perhaps the source of my biggest learning of the course. As I mentioned way back in my week two summative (ages and miles ago it seems), it was a source of “mega lightbulbage” for me. I was viewing technology as a tool, definitely, and as something I had to master and teach my kids. Now I see it as a great way to enhance learning, create global connections, and foster learning and inquiry explorations in a variety of ways. The possibilities for the future of education are so wide open. If we don’t jump on this, who will?

There are two environmental schools that have opened up in the past couple of years (Environmental School Project, Sea to Sky Outdoor School).  My cousin and I have been hot on their tails – sending emails upon emails, signing up for their online educator groups, and doing anything we can to get connected. BUT…neither of us have heard anything back or received any updates in terms of meetings, professional development, etc. SO, herein lies the problem, I believe. Traditionally, environmentalists, people passionate about the outdoors, are doing just that – spending time outdoors. Sitting at a computer is not a priority. I don’t mean to stereotype, I know that is not the case with everyone. But here is an opportunity for me: a super duper earth lover and avid (well becoming more avid by the minute) social media user, technology user, blogger, tweeter, hashtagger (yes!) to join those two worlds together. And to find others who have the same passion as me to get right on board with me.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I am worried that my precious baby (aka Eco Educators Vancouver) will become a part of the blog graveyard that we all know exists. So, I will attempt to update twice a month (no need for information overload), and to check out what other people are doing/blogging about once a week. Ish…

Jenny, I apologize for being such a wordy gerdy… I love to write (hopefully this will help my blogging pursuit!). Thanks for leading us in an inspiring three weeks. I can’t wait to see what amazing things you do in the future.

And last:

Everyone should be high fiving themselves right about now – for coming out during the summer in the name of bettering the education of our students. Yes!

Avoiding the Blog Graveyard: Challenges of my Future Vision Project

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Lets flash back to a couple of weeks ago. The cool air was whispering through the open door of the LIBE 477 classroom, while chair legs squealed across the floor and students assembled themselves into one large, continuing circle. Time to share our thoughts and ideas for our future vision projects. While listening, I was inspired again and again by my classmates’ wise words. And then it came to my turn: my internal struggle with the challenge of using technology (keeping up with the times), and the importance of real life connections and connections with nature.

My desk: a succinct microcosm of my inner turmoil – an iPad, iPhone, and a sprig of lavender I had picked on the way to class. I feel myself constantly at odds between these two worlds. And here, therein, lies the biggest and most personal challenge that I have come across with this class and this project.

The “mega lightbulbage” (hashtag pending) that occurred for me – hey why not combine the two in order to simultaneously enhance the teaching of both – was great, and inspired me to go in the direction that I have. I have started a blog – yippee! And now I will try my darnedest to continue my blog and not let it drift aimlessly into the School Project Blog Graveyard that I have unfortunately contributed to in the past. And so, with my blog, lies my next couple of challenges:

1. Tech stuff. I already switched from my beautiful Weebly blog (*tear) in search of a more “followable” format – landing me at Blogspot. After coming to terms with my Weebly loss, I am happy with my decision, as it is now simple for me to search and follow the multitude of other education Blogspot blogs out there. I have found both pretty simple to navigate and play around with. Blog post #3 and hopefully a video to come soon!

Last tech thing: posting to WordPress from an iPad. I know I talked about this yesterday, but seriously, it is an experience akin to triple root canals.

2. Posting. I’ve put up one post so far and a lovely little picture. As I just said, hopefully more to come very soon. But there are so many great writers out there in the blogging world – their blogs complete with apt references, witty comments, and examples of their photos, crafts, and hundreds of extra curricular endeavours. I can only hope to join in at some level of this excellence.

Also, with posting, simply keeping up with posts. Once a week would be lovely. Twice a month is maybe more do-able. Anything less than that and I tend to view the blog as a bit of an afterthought for the blogger.

3. Accumulating followers, receiving responses to my posts, gathering a group of teachers willing to share their ideas with me, and cresting a space for real-life live collaboration. As Jenny would say, I want this blog to be a living, breathing, organism of teacher awesomeness. Well, perhaps those wouldn’t be her exact words. But they are mine, and that is what I am hoping for. As I mentioned yesterday as well, I will start sharing the !@*$ out of my blog as soon as I feel I have a good start on it. Perhaps one more blog in. Or perhaps, with the glass of wine that I plan to have tomorrow evening, I will work up the courage to share it on Facebook – to show my friends what I have been doing and what I am passionate about. So I guess this could lead me to a fourth challenge…

4. Confidence in what I am doing. This is integral to its success, I realize. The support of my classmates these past couple weeks has been a great confidence booster. But I can’t help but wonder…will people even care about what I am doing? And what does it say about the fate of our planet if they don’t? Environmental education provokes such a passionate response from somewhere deep in my soul that I cannot imagine other people not caring about it. But I know we are all different, and for good reason! So, I guess my real challenge lies in inspiring others to join the cause, and being confident in my abilities to do so.

Blueprints for Success: My Technology Plan on a Padlet

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My technology plan, made using a technological device that is new to me, padlet!

Technology Plan

P.S.

While we are on the topic of technology: iPads and WordPress are NOT friends. Weebly, Blogspot, and iPads seem to be friends though, thankfully.

And a note on the content of my site – both current and projected:

At the moment I have just one page. This page is where all of my blogs will go. At the top of the page is the title and a little paragraph describing my rationale in creating the blog. On the right hand side of the page you will find a number of “gadgets,” as Blogspot calls them. The gadgets I have chosen are; About Me, Cool Blogs to Follow, Cool Sites to Check Out, My Vision, a cool picture of a peace sign, and importantly, an archive of my blog posts. I think this is an important feature of any blog. One day, I think it would be cool to create one of those Wordle type things based on commonly used words or tags in my posts.

I have only added a couple of things to each gadget. More to come! I am having fun searching out other teachers’ blogs. Although, finding most are from teachers in the USA. Come on Canada!

The Rubies among the Rocks: Ten Minutes of Fame

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*Spoiler alert: don’t read until Thursday*

Why:

Similar to the difference between US Weekly and War and Peace, or One Direction and The Beatles, there exist trashy websites as well as wonderful ones. I am here to tell you about a few of the wonderful ones. Hopefully, there’s at least one amongst these that you haven’t heard of, and I can teach you something new!

These sites are all student friendly. Because we know that students are going to spend time searching the internet, it is a good idea to provide them with some places to do this safely, wisely, and appropriately.

What:

Sweet Search: Kid friendly search engine. All results are pre-reviewed by a research team

DOGO News: Kid friendly news site. Nicely laid out with interesting topics, videos, and links.

Wonderopolis: Ever wondered why the sky is blue? Why skunks smell bad? Why teachers are so cool? Wonderopolis has your answers.

Incredibox: Just for fun. Great for students that enjoy music. Great for learning about different elements of music: beat, rhythm, melody, chorus, etc.

3 Slices: A physics/logic game. Another fun one on the same site: sugar sugar. Much nicer than killing and shooting games. Still totally fun!

 

The Drive for Connectivity: Toes in the Sand and the Rationale for my Blog

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Jenny started today by talking to us about humans and their drive for connectivity. Adults complain about kids having too much screen time, yet don’t provide them with another means of fulfilling their inner need to connect. It is with this drive that we must ignite students’ passion for connecting with the environment – a completely different yet equally meaningful connection as one they may make with a friend online.

With his term “nature deficit disorder,” Richard Louv opened up a can of worms and empowered hopeless environmental educators: now there was a scientific term for this lack of connection with nature that students were sinking farther and farther into. With the exponential rate that technology moves at, even my childhood was much much different than the childhoods that many children are living right now. I played in the woods and in creeks and anywhere that parents and rules didn’t exist. Tutoring a student a few months ago, I was surprised to see her complete and utter horror at the appearance of an ant (I had had to do some major convincing to get her to study outside on a beautiful May day in the first place).

I’ve said it before (and was nowhere near the first to do so), but, if students are to form meaningful connections with nature, they need to have hands on experiences with it. As the wise Rachel Carson tells us, “it is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world” (p. 161 qtd. in Last Child in the Woods). And this brings me to the rationale of my future vision project – to create a place for educators to gather, discuss, and be inspired by ideas, lessons, and projects that support this exact ideal – how to get students out in nature – learning, experiencing, connecting, and loving. And, additionally, how to use technology (which is important and inevitable in today’s world) to enhance,advance, and support environmental education.

In true Jenny fashion, during her ten minute chat with Tess and I today, I completely reworked in my mind how I wanted to develop this blog. I had created a Weebly site (which I showed you all in class), but was brought back to Blogspot (an option I had experimented with last summer). Despite Weebly’s attractive layout and simple usability, I feel that Blogspot better purports sharing, following other blogs, and being a part of an online community. So, off to Blogspot I went. Here is a link to my new and (in some ways) improved, blog:

http://ecoeducatorsvancouver.blogspot.ca/

And lastly, to answer the questions posed in class today:

My learning community consists of teachers and other educators with an interest in environmental education. Whether they have a full out passion or just an inkling of interest, it is my goal to have a blog that is easy to follow and full of great resources, lesson plans, ideas, thoughts, etc that are inspiring and do-able. I want it to be a living, breathing, organism of a blog – where teachers can respond to my posts with posts of their own, and where I can find my way to the blogs of other inspiring teachers. In order to bring people initially to the site, I plan to use the powers that rest quite easily within my hands – the powers of social media. A blog is first. I plan to quickly follow this up with a Facebook site, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, perhaps a Shelfari account – the possibilities are really quite endless.

Regardless of how far I get with this during the next few days, the seed has been planted. Look out world wide web!

Tree-huggers and Bloggers Unite: Project Scope

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Just as a tide pool swirls with new life during high tide, my mind is now swirling with new ideas. I have reached the high tide of LIBE477 and must find the best way possible for those ideas to intermingle, grow, and feed off each other. My brain is screaming out for a visual representation on its tangled web of ideas. Yep, you’ve guessed it… Mindmeister!

I feel this will be a much clearer way for me to outline the projected scope ( or hoped-for scope) of this project. So here it is: the main points sum up what I would like the scope of my project to encompass at some point in its fruitful and successful (yes!) future. The bullets off of those are directions to help me reach those goals.

Enjoy!


Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

I just want to add how excited I am by this assignment. It has really got me thinking and feeling inspired. First blog post to come soon! The tricky part will be where to start. That first one’s got to be really great!

Oh, and feeling inspired by today… I will have to add in an infographic at some point. I have seen some great ones that lay out environmental statistics in a way that draws in people that may not normally be interested enough to read a text-heavy document on the subject.

#hashtags: #wait,isn’tthatjustanumbersign? #amisupposedtobeusingpunctuationinthese?

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I’ve gone a little hashtag crazy. I use Instagram often with friends, and it is a chance for us to be a little silly and make comments on each others’ pictures. Sometimes, yes, it gets carried away, but it’s all in fun! Not sure if there are a set of rules on how to hashtag and not to. Maybe I should create one from my own experience:

Do

  • have fun with it
  • poke fun at your friends (in a nice way!)
  • get creative
  • realize that hashtags aren’t meant for every form of social media. If you can’t click on the hashtag then I don’t think you are supposed to be writing one

Don’t

  • add 20 hashtags at the end of your post or picture
  • in fact, 5 sounds like a good limit
  • hashtag everything (honestly people!)
  • poke fun at your friends (in a mean way)

There we go, hashtag etiquette 101. If you don’t trust mine, here is a real one: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Hashtags-With-Twitter

Two final thoughts:

1. Today was really inspiring! Way to go everyone.

2. This is real: wine called #yolo

 

Oh, Hello Summative Presentation!

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learningWith today’s sudden change in presentation schedule came a suddenly influx of ideas. Turns out, I was more than ready to give you eight minutes of insight into the learning journey of Kate. Here’s what it looks like:

Past:

  • I have always been passionate about the environment and about incorporating environmental education into my practice.
  • When it comes to using technology in the classroom though, I was viewing it as more of “it is my duty to keep up with this and teach it” rather than “I wonder what sorts of innovative ways I can incorporate technology into my classroom?”
  • Never was there any thought to combining the two.

Guilty!

 

 

 

But that was the PAST (as in two weeks ago, before this class started)

 

 

 

Present:

  • Mega lightbulbage going off these past couple of weeks: why not combine the two to get the most out of each?!
  • Environmental education and technology can have a symbiotic relationship, just as technology and learning can/should. Let’s use technology to enhance the efficacy/impact of meaningful environmental educatIon.

And how you say? Oh I’m so glad you asked! Read ahead to the future section for some ideas.

** One more thought about my present learning journey before we get there: how cool is the concept of autopoesis? That’s a whole other summative presentation in the making. But I feel so strongly about the fact that students ( and people in general) need to genuinely respect the environment and feel themselves as part of it and not above it if they are going to be environmentally responsible citizens.

Future:

(or, where I hope my learning journey will lead me next):

My work in progress project, which is being fuelled by two main ideas:

  1. Using social media to foster positive change in the community/environment  (both in terms of student and teacher involvement). Check out my cool blog! ://ecoeducatorsvancouver.weebly.com
  2. Focussing on the power of their symbiotic relationship: using technology to enhance environmental education. This means not using either in a superficial way.

** Also, melding my idea with Jenny’s idea with the mountain of ideas Tess and I came up with in class today.

And a big question: is there an online presence for environmental educators or teachers passionate about including environmental education in their practice?

Answer…well, yes and no.

And finally, here are some awesome resources I have come across throughout my learning journey (some from before this class, many from during)

1. Green Teacher – this is both a book, and, as I just discovered, a great website: http://greenteacher.com

2. http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/index.cfm – both for students and teachers

3. http://theworldinagarden.com – workshops for all ages and levels. Local!

4. http://stanleyparkecology.ca – resources, field trips, news

5. http://www.walkingthetalk.bc.ca – my membership is now pending…seems the most similar to what I was looking for

6. http://www.dearmrharper.com – kinda funny. What are the odds he actually reads those letters?

Autopoewhatsis?

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As a student, whether in elementary, secondary, post secondary, or post degree, I have always thrived with the old fashioned model of teaching. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t have thrived to a greater degree – and to a more meaningful degree – with a more personal and self-directed style of schooling. There is, however, one common thread to my success – the more interested I am in the subject matter, the more I am able to focus, process, and reflect on my learning (well, duh!). So, in getting to my point here, today’s lecture was difficult, wordy, and intellectual – but I was so interested and inspired by the subject matter, so I yet again furrowed my brow, scrunched up my eyes, clicked on my brain, and soaked in as much new knowledge as I could.

Lets start with the term autopoesis. Thank you Jenny for explaining it to us in a way that we could relate to as teachers. I did a little research online to further my understanding, but found my eyes glazing over. Instead, I reached both for my class notes and the posts that everyone madly wrote on the online forum during the discussion. Re-reading both of these, I was reinvigorated. Just as I did today in class, I found myself nodding my head over and over.

This notion of us being superior to the environment, anthropocentrism, is one of the major reasons for the destruction that we find ourselves in today. The man who introduced the opposing term, ecocentrism, is a legendary and important environmentalist – Aldo Leopold.

http://academia.edu/1476524/Environmental_Ethics_Between_Anthropocentrism_and_Ecocentrism

Believe it or not, I posted about him just yesterday for my other class blog – discussing the concept of autopoesis, (although I did not know at the time that it was autopoesis) and its’ relation to children’s literature. Talk about an awesome coincidence, proving that yes, we are all part of this cycle of life, this living organism that grows and moves together, and connects itself in the most mysterious and wonderful ways. Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly the best example of that, but there are so many things in nature that prove this time and time again. How about the Monarch Butterflies that migrate up and down the length of North and South America, taking seven generations to complete their journey.

While I have been playing a bit of a devil’s advocate during this class, it is with the best of intentions in mind. When I am discussing the importance of students getting out and connecting with nature, it is so that they may respect nature and all its’ fabulous parts, and out of this respect, come to a place where they will work hard to keep it safe and healthy. With a recent class, I asked them to think about a favourite possession. We talked about how much care they take with these possessions – keeping them clean, safe, out of harm’s way. I then related this to how we need to look at Mother Nature – plants, animals, ocean, sky, and everything in between. Again, Aldo Leopold has wise words to say about this: many years ago, he created a document about land ethics.

http://www.aldoleopold.org/AldoLeopold/landethic.shtml

The trees cannot speak for themselves, nor the whales in the oceans or the eagles in the sky. They are victim to our actions, carried out mostly from a place of anthropocentrism. I have, however, been reading a hopeful book about our environmental efforts (most are quite bleak). It is Jane Goodall’s Hope for Animals and Their World: How Animals are Being Rescued from the Brink.

And now, for the second time in two days (yes), I will quote Dr. Seuss’s character, the Lorax: “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”

Let us all take a page from the Lorax.