My Workshop Reflections

I was going to write about this last night when everything was fresh in my mind, but I spent time fussing over and organizing my slide presentation for this morning's joint Presentation with Al Upton. I've come to the conclusion that I create slideshows to clarify in my mind what I want to say. I deliberately tried to keep text down to key phrases and use my own diagrams, screen dumps and Flickr Creative Commons images. So that took all of the time I had set aside and now I'm sitting here in the second keynote of the day, indulging in a bit of multi-tasking. I had about 12 participants following on from Al's Workshop which was focused on classroom blogging. That was very cool and he gave us a good overview of his classroom blog and the how-to's of getting a class blogging. He showed us Dylan's blog as a great example of how kids can use these connected spaces. Anyway, he set a high standard for me to follow but I was primed and ready to go.

Al and I had originally used a SeedWiki to prepare for both our presentation and both of our workshops. There were five parts to my workshop and I had put up the notes for two of those sections previously and was going to finish up on Wednesday evening just prior to the CEGSA conference. However, SeedWiki was down for the entire evening which threw a very large spanner in the works. I very quickly (within 90 mins) threw my notes and diagrams into a new space at Wikispaces which has never been down when I've needed it with the bonus being that I am very familiar with their interface. So I had a Powerpoint presentation which I talked to, expanding my points and pausing to allow the participants time to browse for some blogs and to set up their own Bloglines account. A 90 minute workshop goes really quickly and I had a mixed bunch of participants ranging from practicing bloggers (Jason Plunkett was one participant) to others who had never dabbled in blogs. I think they all got my point that blogs can be a fantastic tool for Professional Learning. I divided the workshop into five sections - The Global Conversation,
The Edublogger Community, Finding And Reading Blogs, The Power Of Comments and Centring The Conversation.

I got really good feedback from many of the participants and even had one teacher, Hank, come up to me and tell me about his new blog that he got up and running that evening at home. I must go and drop him a comment. Hopefully, the participants glimpsed the potential that blogging can have for developing their own Learning Network.
network.gifnetworkblog.gif
Click the thumbnails above to view two key images from the workshop (a) a TouchGraph screengrab showing my Learning Network and (b) a self constructed flow chart of how to get comments up and going on an edublog.

Download Blogging For Professional Learning slideshow. (2.5mb) PDF File Blogging As Professional Learning (Thanks, Leigh for the conversion.)
Notes and resources at the CEGSA06 wiki here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

7 thoughts on “My Workshop Reflections

  1. Derek

    Great presentation at the conference, Graeme. I liked the clarity you provided with the very thoughtful summaries that reflected your personal journey and decision-making through this process. You provided plenty of food for thought, as well as practical tips for teachers who may be thinking about beginning their own journey into the blogosphere!

  2. Bill Kerr

    With reference to your second diagram, my strategic view is that teacher bloggers ought to step outside of the edu pool into the bigger pool offered by the whole internet.

    There is so much to learn about education from non edu blogs

    little-fish-in-big-pond

  3. Miguel Guhlin

    Graham, nice job on the presentation! Aside from how you presented this, I picked up on two blog search services I wasn’t aware of (blogpulse,blogdigger)!

    Of course, I do have ONE complaint. You need a higher resolution photo of me. You can find it here at http://www.mguhlin.net

    hehe
    8->

    Seriously, nice job! Mind if I steal some of it, especially the awesome web you have about blogging and comments and all that?

    Miguel Guhlin
    http://www.mguhlin.net/blog

  4. Dean Shareski

    Enjoyed your wiki and presentation. I would have been nice to provide a podcast or audio with your stuff.

    At any rate, I think you made some excellent interesting points in your presentation. My favourite being:

    What you think is everyday work or mundane, may be interesting and inspiring to others.

    Paraphrased but you get the idea. I’ll likely be using the line in my stuff.

  5. Graham Wegner

    Thanks for all of your encouraging comments – I will make an audio support for both slideshows a new side project and use it as a prod to learn some new audio recording skills. It’s one area I have yet to dabble in. Miguel, you can take your pdf down, I’ve downloaded it but when I tested my original links, they both worked. Not sure if there was some other reason. I can also e-mail you a larger higher resolution of the Comments diagram if you want.
    Dean, the original source of that quote was Karyn Romeis who left a comment on one of my more popular blog posts Blog On who reflected that humble old Adelaide can seem an exciting place if you’re from the UK or even Moose Jaw! So if I’m stealing Karyn’s ideas, any part of those presentation can be re-used freely – the CC label isn’t just for decoration.
    Bill, I expanded on your comment back over at your blog.

  6. Karyn Romeis

    Thanks for the credit, Graham, and I’m not that precious about my ideas that I would consider this one “stolen”. I’m just glad to have been able to provide useful perspective. After all (with reference back to my original comment about the exotic fruit), you might think that being a pineapple is a very ordinary thing, but there are many who think, “Wow, I wonder what it’s like to be a strange and exotic pineapple, rather than a boring old lingonberry!”

Comments are closed.