We Are What We Share or Web 2.0 Educator Community Proposal

In March I had an idea. Actually, the idea has been percolating since July, but it began to take its current shape in March at the national convention for ASCD in New Orleans, 2008. A great experience, but it lacked something. Technology was not represented by the latest thinking in the education profession. So I decided to do something about it.

Valerie Truesdale, ASCD president mentioned to me that the 2009 annual conference in Orlando was "Learning Beyond Boundaries." I created a wiki and invited my online colleagues to work with me to submit a collaborative proposal to ASCD. Many people showed interest and several contributed to the wiki. I used the content that people contributed to develop...

A Proposal for Collaboration between ASCD and the Web 2.0 Educator Community for ASCD’s 2009 Annual Conference: Learning Beyond Boundaries

The proposal is worth reading, but the process we went through is just as interesting.

First there were the "tweets" that went out through Twitter.com inviting those in my online Network to the conversation. You can read the conversation that started it all here. Then I created a page for drafting the proposal which you can see here. Finally, this week we finished the proposal and you can see that here.

I want to thank all who joined the Learning Beyond Boundaries wiki and others who visited and expressed interest and support for the effort. Earlier tonight I emailed the proposal page link to three leaders within ASCD. I hope we are successful. If we are, I hope you will contribute to this effort by joining the wiki and helping us as we work with the ASCD 2009 annual conference program committee to follow through on the proposal.

Nothing worth doing is ever done in vain. (I said that.)

Web 2.0 Birthday ~ BLC July 2007

November Learning ~ Building Learning Communities 2007

I am new to blogging, but I'm willing to learn. In fact, learning for me and the adults and students I work with is at the heart of what we do each day. Our school system's mission, for example, is

... to educate students so they are engaged in their education in a way which develops their capacity to pursue their goals and fosters life-long learning.

Our core beliefs are enthusiasm, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach was kind enough to spend a long time with me yesterday on Skype answering my questions about web 2.0 and filling me in on her incredibly exciting work with schools in Alabama. Thank you to Sheryl for leading the way.

In my simple minded way, among other things, I learned that a blog is not a wiki. That is obvious to most of you reading this, but it was a useful insight for me. I won a wiki, a pbwiki, at a BLC07 workshop offered by Darren Kuropatwa and thanks to the generosity of the folks at PBwiki.com. I titled it www.innovation3.pbwiki.com and jumped in feet first to use it and learn it along the way. Three months later, I have posted to it a respectable number of times and I am using it it as a vehicle in my work. Very helpful, I would say. The problem for me is community is lacking at the site. I post, people may read, people go on their wiki way. Now what?

I need a blog to share my personality and point of view. As I understand it (you can help me with this),

• a blog is a place visible on the internet where I can share a point of view on the world and invite people to comment;
• A wiki is a platform for collaborative work.

So now I have www.innovation3.blogspot.com!

I posted an excerpt from a poetry site I visit from time to time sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

I'd appreciate hearing from you about these comments, the excerpt or other thoughts I post in the future or themes related to the posts.

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch." GK