Mr. Romard’s 4th grade Blog

9 Comments

•   Barbara Boyer
  October 5th, 2008 at 1:57 PM

  Wonderful ideas and a great legacy..I hope to be part of your history making! Thank you for making it somewhat easier. I hear all that you are saying, but am still struggling with the “how much”. Not the whys…I agree that we need to be sharing with our colleagues…If we shared half as much as we mooched (ideas, plans, etc), education would be a lot richer!
  So it sounds like we need to set aside daily time to do this…so what goes out? For me, I need to set a realistic goal of trying to blog once a week and possibly limiting myself to 30 minutes for reading and 30 minutes for writing. Doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t have an empty plate now (as my daughter is begging me to take them to the pool)!
  Last week, I was told how someone has all the RSS feeders coming in for this, that, etc…my question is, Do you read them? How do they help you do your job better.
  I am interested in the 21st century ideas of pushing, pulling, & sharing of information…the picture of pulling taffy as a child comes to mind…then again…does anyone know what taffy is….I guess you can live vicariously through You.tube and see it action!

•   mromard
  October 6th, 2008 at 10:16 AM

  Great questions – honestly – it depends on the individual. For me, I go in spurts. I’m a young parent like you and you just can’t ’set’ aside time with them, so unpredictable. But, I can say from my own experiences that it’s addictive (remember you are following what you want, not what you are required to follow).

  Also, I didn’t mention in my original blog entry – but this is empowering teachers because they become directly involved in their own professional development. Hopefully administrators realize this and harness it’s power. The first step which we will take the whole year to do is just learning what is out there – dipping our toes into the Internet waters. Next year, the followup may have teachers having two times in the year where they share with the staff things they are reading/doing – taking say 2 minutes to do so. The mighty positive circle of learning will be intoxicating and powerful. I foresee some amazing PLNs at the end of next year and given we are a transient community, our networks will only grow exponentially as our colleagues leave to new assignments. Mike

•   Kim Cofino
  October 11th, 2008 at 3:20 PM

  I love the idea of leaving your staff empowered with a Personal Learning Network! Thank you for including my blog as one of the “must haves” in your RSS reader! I’m quite flattered to be among such illustrious company

  Here’s the thing I’m struggling with, and I’d love to hear your thoughts: While I completely agree that this is the only way to help teachers become independent learners in such a rapidly changing world, I’m not sure how much is reasonable to expect your average teacher to take on board. I have a strong group of willing and engaged teachers that I’m working with at ISB and I’m not sure any of them would be ready for all 12 steps you list right now.

  Is this something we should really break down for them – get them started with RSS first and then help them build along the way? Or do they have to find their own way in? What got me started was reading Will Richardson’s book. If I hadn’t read that, I don’t think I would have jumped in feet first, so how do we find that hook for each and every teacher we work with, when I’m pretty sure it will be different for each individual?

  I’m not sure my “gateway” drug to my PLN will be the same for everyone else, but I’m thinking that everyone needs something.

  What do you think?

•   mromard
  October 11th, 2008 at 6:20 PM

  Thank you for your comments Kim. I like how you make me think. That’s the main reason I picked you for my short list of folks to follow. You are in education for all the right reasons.

  Now, you raise some great questions. Maybe easy is too light a word and perhaps I should have fewer steps. I think when I wrote this article, I was thinking what would be ideal for a year’s work. Plus, I was envisioning introduction, not mastery of these steps. Best to leave a high bar to follow.

  If I had to make a ‘Lite’ version that I hope all my staff can attain this year (we are into the ‘leave no child behind’ benchmark kind of teaching) I think I would suggest steps #1-7 and #12. In the last step, I’d suggest Diigo and only a few hours work (creating an account, uploading some bookmarks without comments, yet including tags; and joining 1-2 Diigo education groups.

  Also, my staff have gone from 15% blogging to 90% blogging and I think we’ll hit a full 100% shortly – this year we have offered several hours a week in help. Sure, the blogs are just getting started but we are at the beginning of a great wave and I stand back and feel very proud to be part of it. The in-direct effect is teachers want to record great things in their rooms and they are taking bold steps with their students. It’s great to see.

  If someone said they could do either reading blogs or writing blogs – I’d tell them to read blogs with an RSS reader. The day will come when they will want to share what they are thinking. And as you alude to – I think each person has their catalyst to jump on the Net 2.0 highway. For me, it was Jeff Utecht and Twitter.

  My question(s) back to you – what do you hope staff will achieve in and with their RSS reading? Does your staff have a regular opportunity to share what they are learning as they read? When I prepared for this blog, I read about a school that spent five minutes each staff meeting where two teachers would share something they discovered. For me that would be a year two step, but I’m curious if you have bridged that earlier.

•   Tech Talk Toe » Blog Archive » 7 Easy Steps to build your Personal Learning Network
  October 20th, 2008 at 7:09 PM

  [...] a discussion with Kim Cofino, I have shortened it to seven that can certainly be achieved. For the full twelve step article, please visit my school professional [...]

•   Brian Lockwood
  October 29th, 2008 at 10:45 AM

  Mike, you’re very kind, but I do have to say I have been guilty of putting in lame posting especially when I first started using twitter. These days, I like posting interesting items found on the Internet, showing Brian’s version of Japan, helping anyone with Mac question and other odd stuff I might be doing.

  I’ve attempted to use every one of those tools and I think everyone will find a niche they’re more comfortable with. It’s quite obvious twitter is my niche but commenting on other people blogs is a new past time for myself. Here, right now, I’m on vacation posting this comment.

  My new favorite tool http://www.posterous.com/ allows blogging through email. We could build a huge blogging adoption rate for our learning communities. As all one has to do in maintaining their blogs is write an email. If you think about it, there really is no learning curve.

•   Sue Waters
  October 29th, 2008 at 11:36 AM

  Thanks for including me on your twitter list although even I have to admit that perhaps I do some usual tweets (can anyone else say they tweeted their adventures with a house of blocked toilets and plumber troubles for a week) — although many of my followers do like these tweets (I hope ).

  I normally recommend setting up the gmail account first and then setting up the iGoogle page. RSS is probably one of the most important concepts that people have to understand and yet the most difficult to come to term with. This post on RSS may be helpful for new people.

  I’d probably recommend they visit the wiki site with the list of Edubloggers rather than Technorati — struggling to remember the link hopefully someone can help me out?

  Always hard with new people to recommend how to get started — what is too much or too little. I think your list is good and would add that just do it baby steps at a time — as much or as little as you like. But I would also recommend they find people who will mentor and nuture their development — that was really important for me when I started out.

•   Jenny Luca
  October 30th, 2008 at 7:59 PM

  Thanks for including me on your list of people to follow on Twitter. I’m honoured to be included in such esteemed company. Great advice for staff who are yet to discover the advantages a PLN can bring. We are doing a similar thing at my school with our involvement in Powerful Learning Practice. Even if just a few come along it can help to bring about change. I wish you the best of luck with your efforts Mike.

•   Creating Learning Communities in the Classroom and Online ::
  March 20th, 2009 at 7:58 AM

  [...] Mike Romard’s 12 Easy steps to build your Personal Learning Network and Personal Learning Networks are Virtual Lockers for Schoolkids by Vicki Davis for more details [...]

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