Eventually People Pay Attention

I received a staff email today that linked to the "Pay Attention" video created back in early 2007 by Darren Draper, passed down from the higher offices of our department. It seems that his message has eventually seeped upwards to some of the decision makers and policy writers in our education system here in South Australia. I know my staff viewed Darren's work early in its viral rise but it may not have made the impact then as it seems to doing a year and a half later. I replied back to my staff with the following:

Thanks for the link - it is a very good video with a good message created by a very innovative educator. It is interesting that the internet allows anyone to reach out and make connections with that innovation - http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2007/04/pay-attention-people-its-global.html I'm not sending this link to "big note" but to point out that this is the power of Web 2.0 and that we can leverage this discussion with other educators around the world about the future of education for the benefit of not just our students, but ourselves.
Cheers, Graham.

I think that sometimes the hardest idea to sell to my colleagues is the fact that they themselves could be giving someone like Darren feedback and tossing out their own ideas for the connected education community to bounce around. Maybe, getting Darren Draper out for a CEGSA Conference Keynote might be the way to go!

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5 thoughts on “Eventually People Pay Attention

  1. Chris Harbeck

    I had a chance to meet Ewan Macintosh on Monday and he raised an interesting point. Email is one of the best ways to pass messages on. If our fellow staff will not enter the blogosphere by emailing them a video or 2 throughout the year we might instigate a small babystep towards them embracing change. I can remember receiving many emails months and Years after Karl’s “Did you Know” Shift Happens video came out. I graciously smiled and said Yes this is a great message Now what are you going to do with it….. Small changes happened. Baby steps. Thanks for writing Graham.

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  2. Tony Searl

    Our staff viewed Daren’s presentation at a small part of last Monday’s Just In Time Learning Team. Interesting observations from quizzical looks to outright denial to been there done that. It worked as intended but was somewhat scary.

    Thats why the just in time model of individual need in PD is powerful. Email is our tech tool of comfort, so daily follow ups to support our beginners PBL will encourage even more engagement. Already 3 new subject wikis this week, these early adopters just needed support and 5 minutes of guidance.

    Individual staff are at diverse stages of readiness and this too will be exponential. Our college aim is to ensure a self defeating chasm does not develop between the autonomous expert digital academises who race off individually and our current reality of trying to work in a det system of controlled change.

    We are convinced baby steps are good steps and suit our needs because the people are good and will change with support.
    Graham, see your nomination over at http://tsearl.edublogs.org/2008/08/30/web20-is-real-people/, thanks for the learning so far. Top stuff indeed.

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