Reflections of Ripples

This morning, back in my bed, I awoke to the sound of the rooster's crow.  (We really do have a rooster in the neighborhood - I have no idea why!)  Immediately, my mind was awash in the sense making it began on the long ride home from the DAU and GMU's 8th Annual Innovations in eLearning Symposium.  As with any well-planned, fabulously run conference the intellectual candy was in abundance, allowing us to savor and extend learning's pleasures.


Like Phil Libin, CEO Evernote, I strive to surround myself with folks smarter than me.  Check.  Everyone was friendly, so willing to share, and o' so smart.  Together, we looked at teaching and learning from a myriad of perspectives, through jet propulsion - jerkily (O'Driscoll), anthropologically (Oehlert), analytically (Siemans) while sitting in the Lotus position (Kapor).  I know I'm leaving some unmentioned.


To make sense of it all will take awhile and will require me to stay in contact with some of the free agents I had the pleasure of meeting.  They are now more than nodes on a network - they are nodes on my extended professional learning network.


So now, as I take more control of the bike I ride, I enjoy thinking about the destination - that place where true learning occurs, as defined by me. (C4LPT)  What about other learners? 


Part of my sense making requires establishing some goals.  Writing this blog is one of them.


My other goals place my focus on changing the learning landscape for others; to continue the dream others started long ago - to create learning spaces in which well planned learning activities allow learners to remove their own training wheels and TAKE OFF!  


So here's some thinking - please comment if you could add to my sense making.  I believe any one person is only as good as their feedback.


Kapor spoke to a few things, one of which was how to assess mastery and he mentioned Khan Academy.  My thinking is that Khan is good for a very specific task.  That task is allowing learners to see how he or his team thinks about and solves a problem.  That the learner can watch it as many times as necessary is a bonus.


I find one of the best ways to assess mastery is to have one teach the skill/task/content.  We know that whoever teaches; learns.  When one prepares to teach something, he or she goes much more deeply than simply learning.


Therefore, I think the Khan platform would be extraordinarily useful in terms of assessment.  To display mastery, the learner would create a video of his or herself teaching the concept.  These videos could then become teaching tools for others.  As Eric Mazur, physics Havard, discovered - students learn best from one another.


I will work tirelessly with you to create places of learning to which folks want to belong.