The Value of Time

I have been thinking about time. We always complain that we don't have enough time for collaboration. There is not enough time in the day to get together and work with other teachers.  We are to busy teaching. Administrators need to give us more time for collaboration. We need time to have those meaningful conversations with our peers. (complain, complain, complain)  Yes, I am part of that crowd.

I think I have found an hour a day of regularly uninterrupted collaboration time. Nobody is really going to like the answer.

It came to me when I thought about this past year in teaching. It had been my busiest yet. I am always feeling rushed. The only real reason I could come up with was the fact that I switched carpools. My new carpool always wants to leave right after school. Always. In fact they often call me on the intercom to hurry up. I knew this when I joined but I am too frugal (cheap) to drive myself every day.

I am sure you can see where I am going with this. How many of us are out the door shortly after the bell? We all use similar excuses - I need to get home to my family, I have prior engagements, I am to burnt out at the end of the day. How many other jobs do you get to put in 6 hour workdays? Oh but I do my work at home. Ya, so much for your argument about family.  Add in the fact that it is harder to collaborate with others from a distance.

One hour at the end of the day would give us lots of time to get things done (both together and alone). Think how much better we would do if we were not trying to squeeze in collaboration during time we are supposed to be focusing on actually teaching.

Articles Worth Spilling Soup For

Well just as always - too much coffee and some late night driving leave me winding down when I should be going to sleep. At least I am using the time constructively.

Did you know that you can put a clip on your blog of your most recently shared articles from Google Reader? I just found it. It is even easy to do - the tools are built right in to Google Reader. You can find some of the articles I find that are worth sharing on the right hand side of this blog (you may need to scroll down a little bit). Look for the title Articles Worth Spilling Soup for.

If you read my blog in a reader then this won't help you. Actually, if you read this blog in Google Reader then why aren't you on my friends list? Email me so we can easily share what we find worth reading.

Warm and Fuzzy Sharing

Well, I finally got around to it. This blog is officially licensced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. I mean that I had always operated under that kind of sharing philosophy but I guess that I never told anyone else. Okay - for the record - I am sharing.

Oh, and since I haven't made any money off of this blog please don't show me up by finding a way (unless you ask nicely).

We Think

Here is a video I just came across from CharlesLeadBeater. (Thanks to Scott McLeod for posting up this video).

In the past we were what we owned, now we are what we share.

That is one of my favorite quotes from the video.

This video once again touches on what I think is the most important thing about the internet today. The internet is NOT AN ENCYCLOPEDIA! It is a communication tool. It is a way for us to communicate with each other. We create a web of contacts. Donna Desroches put it quite well.

One of the most interesting questions that came from the audience after my
presentation was, “can you give a specific example of how information literacy
has changed”? My response was to share how little I now use a search engine
since the growth of my personal learning network - my twitter friends, my del.icio.us network and the
blogs that I read via my bloglines account. Information can now come to me - and I need
the skills to be able to create the PLN that will bring me the information I
need and the ability to filter the information.

PLN - Personal Learning Network. We also need to remember that we should give back. A network implies a give and take. Information and ideas flow both ways - especially with Web 2.0. Don't just be a leech. Share. Give back to the community and your peers. Dean Shareski talked about sharing in this well written post.

Gestalt - The whole is more and different than the sum of its parts. Gestalt describes Web 2.0 quite well. Our network is more than my part plus your part plus the next persons part. It grows and becomes something bigger when we all join together as a PLN. The mathemetition in me has a real problem with this idea but it is true. We are something more when we truely collaborate.

P.S. This video is awesome because it make reference to World of Warcraft. I will write about it in an upcoming post. We could really learn about using Web 2.0 from WarCrack players.