Fully engaged and feeling connected!

I woke up this morning to check my email and found many posts by fellow peers who have been actively engaging with the discussions, even referring to my posts (Yeah!) and provided links for me to check out! Thank you Anne. A link by Anne is of an educator who consults through her practice called Learning 4 Learning Professionals. I found the blog to be amazing, with entire sections devoted to my area of interest - consulting! :D

What this experience highlights for me is the importance of interaction for me. David expresses how the blog is a "space to make random thinking a little more explicit," and I agree with this, as it helps me conceptualise my ideas and gain further understanding and even insight. This is invaluable and something that I will persist with indefinitely. It also means I am already a "writer" rather than waiting to be magically bestowed with the label, which I was doing for a long time.

However, what I feel I know to be true is that disposition, how one interprets the world, definitely influences his or her interaction in the blogosphere. I love the "comments" and "input from others." I thrive on it. What this means is that I do "care" whether I am engaging with my audience. Maybe this is the teacher in me, with many years of writing things that did directly engage with my audience. Even using Edmodo was a way to do this. I loved that students used the comment section to directly engage with the ideas. My Year 12s found it the most useful, as it was a safeplace to do this.

The discussion on Edmodo has been interesting. Anne commented on how, although she can see some "limitations to working with Edmodo" she finds it to be a "useful tool in developing learning community within [her] class." She highlights how although much of the learning is "task-based" the use of Edmodo has been great for creating "professional groups" at her school. I also had the same experience. I was just leaving high school teaching when other teachers came on board but it was my involvement in workshops, showing colleagues how I had used the tool in my classes that made a change. At first I was looked at as a "technology" junkie, probably due to the influence of my teenage sons, both prolific in their use of ICT, but then teachers slowly began asking questions and using the tool themselves.

In using Edmodo I did have many teething problems, but unlike the problems that David highlights with LMS. As Edmodo is a platform that is modelled on the Facebook platform, it is very user-friendly and a "safe" option for students. I had some parental concern but I issued them with the advice provided for parents on the Edmodo help page. The parents even had access to the content as I was totally transparent with how I taught, and this is a value that I still hold deeply.

The issues with technology within the schools I worked was the main issue that prevented the most effective utilisation of Edmodo and other online learning platforms that I used to engage students actively with content. This included laptop and connectivity issues, with many occasions having to revert to more traditional methods of teaching as the Internet was down or too slow, or many students had problems with their laptops, either connecting to the Internet, or even just functioning. It made me annoyed with the laptops as I felt they were heavy, cumbersome and unreliable.

In using Edmodo and Moodle to deliver course materials I found them both to be the most effective way to deliver learning materials and to actively engage my students. However, I also found a lot of resistance, and not only from some fellow teachers but also, most surprisingly, from some of my students. I emphasise some as there were many who actively embraced it and believed it to be much more convenient (they could access their learning from anywhere) and accessible (it was all in the same spot in the cloud). This is how I promoted the use of Edmodo, I would say that if they went for a holiday in Russia, they would still be able to access their learning materials and connect directly with me, as I would receive notifications on my mobile that they have asked a question or made a comment.

I could totally relate with Anne's experience of being informed that the use of Edmodo "did not meet with the Technology Committee's vision for the school." There was a "Technology Committee" at my last school and I found it ironic that the people on the board were not the most active users of digital technologies. I think it is like in politics, where you have people as a minister of a department but they have limited experience, or sometimes none, in that area.

What Anne is experiencing is very much an institutional issue where you to feel, for very valid reasons, like you are not "consulted" or given any "choice." So, no Anne, you're right, your situation is definitely not "an isolated one." It is also true that the people that work in schools do have the best intentions and "genuinely believe they are making the right decisions for the right reasons." I'm going to right a future post about the misconception that I think exists about teachers and their engagement with technology.

It certainly does feel great to be fully engaged and feeling connected though. :)