What is Wisdom?

Jim Burke got me thinking with his post this week about wisdom. I made me look back to Chris Lehmann’s 5 min talk which he ended with the statement about teaching wisdom. Chris’ final point had been with me for awhile. Wow can I teach wisdom. Sounds cool but can it be done?

Jim’s link to this YouTube clip not only is it a great piece to watch but it made me think that maybe the “undefined wisdom” would not be that easy to teach after all.  No really! But as we are having to look at what we need to be teaching for 21st century learners are we not trying to move to teach less specific content and more thinking and problem solving skills.

Will this lead us to a wiser crowd in the long run? Or as Jim Burke ask can a crowd have wisdom? and or does an online crowd have wisdom?

Chris Lehmann in 5 mins.

Wisdom

Enjoy these and think about it!

It is such a pleasure to have access to this resource, to hear and see what these marvelous educators are working on, and to to it when it works for us!  Now that is progress.

The first few weeks of the month have been filled with other events and activities so it was nice to begin yesterday with a number of offerings. You can’t beat it.

Here are a few that I have enjoyed today.
K12 Online Conference schedule

The following are examples of some of those Maine teachers that are mentioned on my latest blog post.

Kern Kelly Talks about Google goodies.

Sharon Betts Talks about applications for early elementary
Sprankle,Oakes, Barr Talking on a porch with video cameras

A great talk on leadership and changes at the top!
Chris Lehmann’s Leading change talk.

There is so much there. I encourage you to check it out and find something of interest for you.

The second is from the ACTEM conference where Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach spoke about the gaps in our learners knowledge and how to address it. I left the conference with her point on my mind and since then I have found that it has influenced decisions that I have made around my teaching. Reading Ben Wildeboer’s post reminded me what was influencing those decisions. It allowed for some reflection on my work and behavior. He clearly gets to Nussubaum-Beach’s point and shares it with all who care to read it. He was not even there but listened to it thanks to Bob Sprankle’s Podcast. That is how this thing works! Enjoy and read blogs for your health!

Just finished up sitting in on Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s keynote address. For me her discussion of the personal learning network and the importance of it validates my goals on getting this network established for myself.

To follow up on this point I have ventured down the hall to Sharon Betts‘ talk on 21st centuring networking. She introduces uStream, Twitter, Ning, Social Bookmarking with Delicious and Diigo, and RSS.

Shows the ease with which you can become a broadcaster using uStream. Get an account and a camera and off you go.

Next is a Twitter talk. Explaining how and why one would want to get into twitter.

Social sites began with Ning. She recommended Classroom 2.0 ning.

Ran out of time and ended with the k12Online conference plug.

Intermission check out the coffee and the vendors. Who needs a pair of Google Sketchup socks?

Next, a presentation with Dr. Tim Tyson.  Putting your class on the Grid.

Using blogs with your classrooms. This tool allows you to share everything that you are doing in your classroom.  How to get teachers started on a blog. Fried Chicken and a quick demo.

Gets homework home, gets class news home, and allows that communication to get started.

So blogs are easy to set up and then one can use RSS feed for blogs that you want to read.

I am keeping a blog not to give me more work but to give you the parent some work to do. The parents are then responsible for reviewing with their day with their child.

Mabry Middle School an illustration of how they used a blog in their school.

Teachers each had a blog and needed to post at least once a week. Also hosted field trip blogs, and podcasts blogs.

He then demoed the use of ScreenFlow. Looks like an amazing way to get material from class out on the web.

(ECTO, ScreenFlow, wireless mic)

Lunch on the fly and a visit to Doug Snow sharing the latest from Noteshare.

Workshop of wiki use with Terri Dawson.   http://tdawson.wikispaces.com

Easy, Collaborative, Global connections

Terri uses and recommends wikispaces. The discussion, history tabs look like a nice feature that I need to investigate in PBwiki.

Interesting comment was that it is easier for students to do comments in a blog rather than a wiki. Something I will need to think about with the staff wiki that we set up.

And so that was the day in a nut shell! Now time to answer my new questions and start putting some of this new information to work in my teaching.