Kent Manning :: Blog

We'd rise at 3:30 am, and I remember the rice cooker had been on a timer and we'd make our lunch in the plantation house kitchen. Our lunch consisted of various levels of rice with vegetables. This was no small plantation house. The manager's house in 1975 was quite something to see. We'd be in the cane fields covering sugar cane seed by 5:30 am. Good, hard, honest work. Just the thing for a teen.

We'd finish by 2:30 pm and be at Punalu'u Beach by 3:00 pm usually each day. Not many tourists had discovered Punalu'u back then so the beach was mostly locals. And one Canadian in a speedo.

What I remember most about the two months I spent on the Big Island are the people. The kids I hung around with during the summer. I learned how to listen and understand Pidgin English in

about 2 weeks. I had no idea what the kids were saying for the longest time. My biggest compliment was from one of the other summer students when he said, "Hey, you sound like a local, brau".

But most importantly it was how the local teens socialized.

Back home in small town Ontario, the idea of a good time at 16 years old, at least in my town, was to head over to someone's home, usually when the parents were not in and have a party. Not the case in Hawaii. The teens would all head over to someone's home and a spread of food was laid on and the 10 or 20 kids would talk, listen to music, laugh and eat some of the most amazing food I have ever eaten. This was very different from the way Ontario teens, at least the ones I knew, were conducting themselves.

Well here we are 35 years later and I have my own teens. Just about the same age as I was in 1975. So guess what? I'm not putting my son or daughter on a jet all by themselves, we're going as a family! Yes, that's right, next month we're all heading to the Big Island.

There will be swimming with sea turtles, black and green sand beaches, and of course the Mahalo of the people to look forward to.

Maybe a trip to Hawai'i will be a defining moment in life for my teens.

I know it was for me.

Auditory Receivers | Visual Producers

Visual Receivers | Kinesthetic Producers

In only a minute's time, Marco Torres explains that in order to empower our students they need to create not just receive. How many of us live by this each and every day as we work with staff and students?

I'd like to say that each and every day I try to find ways to use open ended creativity software and web environments to encourage and support the creation of original content by teachers and students.

Let's take this past week for example:

Student Blogging Project

On Wednesday of this week for an entire morning a team of teacher blogging "guides" led about 20 middle school students through the steps required to create student blogs. Producers? Check. The students started with a "blank screen" by default the blue banner in Wordpress. About three hours later each and every student had created an original welcome message, personalized her or his blog with a template and changed the banner title and image with either an original photograph or one from a creative commons website. The students were quite proud of their morning's work.

On Friday of this week I worked with a music teacher. Her goal was to have her students use a creative commons licensed piece of music. The assignment is to use the tools in Audacity to change the mood of the particular cut. Brilliant! Producers? Check. The students will need to explain both the reasons why the particular modified track conveys to the listener a particular mood and expression. As well they will be required to explain the functions and tools used to create the modified track.

So does this mean all classroom work needs to be on the production side? Not quite. In both examples above many hours of instruction have taken place in order for students to create the skills necessary to produce. In the case of the bloggers the students spent the better part of four months commenting on the teacher's blog and learning to be a good global citizen when using on-line environments. And in the case of the music students hours of instruction have taken place to learn about the musical terms tempo, beat, rhythm, genre, etc.

I do, however, believe that to maintain student engagement and motivation the creation side of things in the classroom is very important and cannot be omitted. It would be like traveling to the science centre and just listening to lectures all day and not being able to mess around and create.

Until next time.

My window seat assignment was next to an older english gentlemen who immediately after I sat down started to begin a conversation. Well, I was tired, I'd just missed my train and I hadn't had time to get my book out just yet. Opening a book is a common signal to your seatmate that you'd rather just be by yourself. So I engaged in what I thought was small talk. Little did I know.

After a little sharing back and forth the questions usually get around to "What do you do?". I use the word "educator" because when I say teacher most folks ask, "Oh, which grade?" and I'm not in a classroom in my current assignment.

Once he knew I was a teacher, the conversation seemed to change. He started to share with me facts about history and wine making. Just facts really, not much about the people in the facts or their stories. Just the facts. It felt a little like Dragnet, "Just the facts, Ma'am." - Joe Friday.

Then came the question which began, "So, you're a teacher, you should know this."

!~~> Arggh, I dislike pop-quizzes after a long day and just because I'm a teacher. The question: "Do you know which year people could travel from Montreal to Toronto by rail?".

Well, I paused, and thought about when I had read Pierre Burton's "The Last Spike" years ago. I thought it might be in the 1850's some time. My seatmate's answer: 1855. He was thrilled that he knew the exact date.

I sat quietly for a moment and thought, I'd like to read more about that time period. So I fished for my handheld internet device and searched with the question: "What year did rail service begin from Montreal to Toronto?" And this website popped up. I scrolled down and noticed that it was actually 1856. My seatmate had been off by a year. I showed him my tiny screen and he asked, "Oh, did you get if from Google"? "The Via Rail site", I replied.

Well, the journey continued. I tried my best to weave in stories and anecdotes, you know, the stuff people mostly talk about rather than facts and figures. Then I remembered what the gentleman did for a living. He's a banker. Facts and figures are important to him.

So when I was watching Marco Torres today and he got to this topic, I made a connection. What is an expert? Well, definitions may vary. But as Marco mentions in this clip, don't ask a question you can look up, especially when facts and figures can be retrieved in a moment's notice.

Note: I marvel at the people we meet in our travels. There are so many people to meet and so little time. I enjoyed my time with my train companion this trip. But it really didn't dawn on me that I had enjoyed it until today.

The NMC video clip in this post, has a Creative Commons 2.5 License.

First it was the people I met. Second, they all had laptops.
Since then, I've had the opportunity to work and network with the usual suspects at two or three more BYOL events.

I know that all PD events can't be BYOL, I get that, but it is what goes along with the laptops and gagetry I can't do without. Let me explain.

At our usual suspects events there is a synergy, a connectedness, that is hard (for me) to put in to words - I just experience it. It is as if we are speaking the same language, nod heads at similar things, agree to disagree sometimes and generally we all "get one another". There is laughter, mostly at ourselves, and fun. We try not to take ourselves too seriously as we troubleshoot or find a new nifty technology integration.

Yesterday was different. I had the opportunity to attend a Media Literacy event in a local city. I thought great, super topic, should be fun. Perhaps I would start a discussion with few folks at my table and maybe even start a backchannel. I did have a wonderful conversation with the person sitting next to me. A person who gets it. And I did end up having a back channel conversation with two of the usual suspects.

@mikemcilveen put it all in perspective for me mid-way through yesterday's session. He chimed in with "History of media technology - retrospective" and that was the hook for me. You see, I thoroughly enjoy watching film and video. In fact probably too much. And if "history of media" was yesterday's topic, I was quite enjoying myself watching film clips from the 50s, 60s and 70s shown on a small screen VCR and DVD player attached to an LCD projector. Don't get me wrong, I like all that stuff. But, in my humble opinion, that was not yesterday's topic. The topic was billed as "Media Literacy" I suppose this is a general topic but my thoughts and ideas on "What is Media Literacy?" did not have the "usual suspects connectedness" that I am used to.

As has become our custom (many of the usual suspects anyway) we have a backchannel going during most of the events we think others might be interested in. So I thought I'd share a few of the discussion points from the session with my PLN.

I had no idea so many from my PLN would chime in. There were some witty and clever comments from @timisusually @danikabarker @zbpibe @barbaram @digitalnative @dbeylerian @mikemcilveen @windsordi @ron_mill during the backchannel and later on Ron and Diane and I had a continued conversation about a question Ron had asked: "How do we break the "sphere" or "bubble" that surrounds these staff developments that ignore the power of technology? Diane offered a few suggestions.

So, I have to ask myself what did I learn from yesterday? Well, I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon. Again, I like film. Older film too. I managed to have meaningful discussions with the folks at my table. The conversation was extended to the folks from the province and resulted in a very interesting "after school" discussion.

So what is Media Literacy? Was this question answered at yesterday's session? I think so, but not in the traditional sense perhaps.

I think I have a new topic for my Spotlight Session at ECOO 2010. Now if I can just think of a title? How about: "Extending the Conversation with the Usual Suspects"

Until next time...

I've just finished viewing Kim Cofino's K12 On-line Conference Opening Keynote.

Kim suggests sharing her presentation with others so I've posted Kim's 3 and a half minute clip on how to create your own international personal learning network in 6 steps.

Kim's clear sequential explanation of how to create a PLN will be helpful to anyone wishing to create a learning network.

1. RSS - Learning by lurking.

2. Social networking - Join the conversation.

3. Start a Blog - Express yourself.

4. Use VOIP connections to continue the conversation.

5. On-line conferences - Virtually there.

6. Twitter - Constant connection.

If you have a spare 4:24 on your hands, Mr. Tapscott's story about Joe O'Shea is one that every teacher should hear. He introduces us to Florida's only Rhodes Scholar, who doesn't read books.

I remember when Don Tapscott was a guest speaker in my 1998 OISE On-Line ABQ then called Computers in the Classroom.

Our assignment was to invite a guest speaker in on our threaded discourse. I didn't know who Mr. Tapscott was back then. Most Ed-Tech types know who he is now. I think Alec Couros and Ian Jukes quote Mr. Tapscott's research in their presentations when they speak about networked learners.

I blogged about Joe O'Shea a year ago just after I had heard the story on the CBC.

Get ready to be inspired.