Category: 28 Days of Writing

The Future of #28daysofwriting – your ideas wanted

28 Days of Writing, BloggingPublished on7 Comments on The Future of #28daysofwriting – your ideas wanted

Fast forward another 22 days and we will be looking back on a solid month of writing, giving out fingers a well earned rest and wondering how we made it through. But what comes next.

I started the idea to get back into a writing habit and be much more consistent with my blog and the act of reflective writing which I enjoy so much. I don’t know about you but even after just 6 days things are different and I am loving the challenge. Of course having over 100 other educators, bloggers and companions for the journey is making it extra special and I am staggered by the response from everyone involved. There is even a bunch of Grade 5/6’s having a go which, by all accounts, is going down a storm.

So what happens next, the group simply disbands and we go our separate ways, warm and fuzzy inside from the companionship, the new writing connections we made across our network and in our own habit? We find a mountain cabin and spend the rest of the year reading the posts. Or can we continue to develop this idea further.

BadgeHere are some ideas that have been shared around already:

  • 28 Days of Writing occurs again at some point in the future allowing a new cohort of colleagues the chance to enjoy the journey together.
  • 28 Days of Commenting – a fading part of our community in my opinion and something we all should do as much as writing our own content. Perhaps such a clear focus on it will help. Maybe a new group could be writing whilst another is commenting 😉
  • A classroom ready version of the challenge – something that is perhaps shorter and gamified for the classroom to get kids enjoying the experience. As I mentioned above it would be lovely to have classes taking part, perhaps looping into #classblogs and the like.
  • Developing some strong aggregation tools to help people enjoy the growing number of posts – after all if 100 people write and publish for 28 days that is a significant amount of reading. Any stylish, functional aggregated lists will help. I am thinking a Flipboard magazine or Feedly collections etc
  • How might we celebrate the achievement or even the milestones along the way? Writing and publishing for just 7 days straight is a pretty great achievement and that is just 25% of the way through!
  • What fun badges could we make for the different types of writing, content and experiences we have along the way?

For this to continue and become an enduring feature of our writing community it will pay to consider some new ideas to take it forward. At the heart of it is a simple idea which no doubt will continue but I would love to see what more we can do to refine it.

What would you like to see next? Please share you own thoughts, ideas and reactions in the comments below.

As ever good luck with your own 28 minutes!

8 Reasons You Should Have A Professional Blog

28 Days of Writing, BloggingPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on 8 Reasons You Should Have A Professional Blog

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The way we share our thinking and reflections nowadays has burgeoned with so many different creative platforms. Blogging is one of the original social networks and has been a cornerstone in my professional life for many years now. Take a look through these reasons for reflective posts on your blog and commit to the future of your writing space.

1 – Make Room for Yourself

A blog or publishing platform serves as a wonderful personal space for you to retreat to, the digital version of a shaded tree, the tranquil spot for us to ponder and work through our thoughts and ideas. Preening this space is a common behaviour, with widgets and sidebars tweaked and themes tested. A blog becomes a personal / professional thinking space.

2 – Catharsis

One of the major reasons for writing regularly that I hear is that it is a deep thinking process that is becalming. When you have to communicate your ideas to others, to an audience, whether real or projected, it forces you to tie off the loose ends and to work towards greater clarity. Personally this is a hugely important process for my own thinking. The scattered threads of ideas and concepts come together through the act of writing and the satisfying synthesis of my thoughts is often cleansing.

3 – Model a Growth Mindset

Pretty much everyday in the workplace or in places of learning we ask others to reflect and share what they are thinking. This is especially true in schools and places where learning happens. The last few years has seen a huge shift towards reflective portfolios and gathering personal evidence of thinking and learning. But we need to model this too. We will be better placed when we deeply understand what it takes to regularly reflect and make written records of that thinking. We need to model this behaviour and we need to better understand what we are asking of others – writing your own blog helps with this.

4 – A Space to Reflect

As reflective practices go the writing process is a unique one in that the output is so tangible. It is nothing like just thinking through your coffee break about what occurred in that last lesson or making mental notes about how a project went. When we reflect and write that reflection we are being deliberately meta-cognitive as the process forces us to make language choices in how we are going to record our thinking. Such a deep meta-cognitive task means that writing is a strong reflective activity.

5 – Ship Your Ideas

Get them out there. Use your blog to craft them over time or post them up quickly in their raw, nascent glory. But get them out there, share your ideas. Ship. When we take the disposition that we are going to share our ideas and thinking we begin to open up to how others can help us. When you begin blog posts with: “So I have had this idea…” you extend an invitation for people to come along with you and to perhaps build something together.

6 – Gain Perspective

When we are open to comments and thinking from others we are much more likely to gain a richer perspective on the issues we may have originally shared. Writing and sharing a blog post on an issue or idea we are working on allows us to see it from the reaction and perspective of those who read it. From those connections and comments we gain valuable insight – “I am not the only one”, “There is a different solution I have not thought about”, “I want to find out how they worked through this.” Gaining perspective on our own issues and challenges is huge benefit from sharing our own blog posts.

7 – Build a Community

Without question one of the core motivations for my own writing is to participate and engage with a community and to gather like minded others (and those who think differently) around the blog posts I share. The discussions that spring up and unfold underneath our blog posts often offer rich ideas and resources. It is a social platform after all and it is about making connections with others – I remember the days of the Blogroll (lists of other blogs you read) and the Pingback (adding a link to someone’s blog post) being currency in an exchange that strengthened the ties amidst bloggers. Don’t forget the community of other writers too, read and comment on their blogs, message them via Twitter, learn about them. After all the connections I made through blogging changed my career.

8 – Build a Professional Thinking Archive

As somebody once said to me “Nobody else is going to tell your story” – your blog becomes a powerful archive of your thinking, ideas, projects, successes and professional reflections. When consistently added to over years it forms a strong part of your professional existence and clear way to communicate what you are about. Reminiscing on old post, especially during periods of your life that were rewarding or deeply challenging is a privilege – it offers you a way to peer back into the mind of your former self. Not simply to look at the old photos and groan about the haircuts, but to be able to reflect on the way your thinking has changed, grown and adapted over the years. Blogging gives us this privileged chance to speak to our future self.

How Worthwhile Is The Learning You Are Designing?

28 Days of Writing, CurriculumPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on How Worthwhile Is The Learning You Are Designing?

We have all seen the likes of these documents before, a system-level framework for effective teaching, a document that states the fundamental principles of what is expected of teachers in a particular region. The Canadian Teacher Association paper titled “What did you do in school today? Teaching Effectiveness: A Framework and Rubric” is no different in that regard. It is a multi-year research piece about the effectiveness of teaching.

However, what is particularly arresting about this piece is the plain-speaking language used. Often the weight of unhelpful language and Edu-jargon causes us the poor reader to get lost in sometimes and the true meaning is lost most of the time. So it was refreshing to read such simply stated principles in the document about teacher effectiveness:

  1. Effective teaching practice begins with the thoughtful and intentional design of learning that engages students intellectually and academically.
  2. The work that students are asked to undertake is worthy of their time and attention, is personally relevant, and deeply connected to the world in which they live.
  3. Assessment practices are clearly focused on improving student learning and guiding teaching decisions and actions.
  4. Teachers foster a variety of interdependent relationships in classrooms that promote learning and create a strong culture around learning.
  5. Teachers improve their practice in the company of peers.

For each element they expand on the principle with some clear justification for example in the first principle – Teachers As Designers, the authors refer to crafting opportunities for learning that:

…awakens the human spirit’s desire to know. The result is a deep, personal commitment on the part of learners to explore and investigate ideas, issues, problems or questions for a sustained period of time.

This speaks to my passion for the craft of what we do and emphasises the design skills and dispositions needed to do our work so creatively.

The other principles are just straight forward and make great sense to me – however, there is one stand out phrase for me. Principle number two:

The work that students are asked to undertake is worthy of their time and attention, is personally relevant, and deeply connected to the world in which they live.

That one sentence delivers such a challenge and provocation to what we do that it almost leapt off of the page at me when I read it. If you read further into the rationale for this principle you will quickly find a reference to the design of learning that is authentic to those individuals we are with, even providing a useful rubric as a guide, reference and starting point.

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How is the learning we are designing worthy of the time we all put into it? How might we ensure we make every learning moment count with our students and still leave room to take opportunities when they arise?

The worthiness of learning is a measure that may reveal real challenges for some and most certainly will lead to rich conversations for those that care.

In A World of Their Own – the features of immersive play

28 Days of Writing, CreativityPublished on3 Comments on In A World of Their Own – the features of immersive play

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If you ever have the opportunity just to observe some of the youngest learners in school playing together, make sure you take it. It remains a constant source of fascination and wonder for me to see children immersed in play.

I was lucky enough to work with Reception or Foundation classes in my second year of teaching, when I was planning and teaching ICT lessons across the full primary range – and when some of these youngsters used to think I lived in the computer suite. (Ha! “computer suite” – showing my age!) I was also providing cover for staff and so might be in Year 6 in the morning and then doing phonics sessions with Foundation in the afternoon.

A good few years later I took up a new role as Deputy Principal in a school and taught for a while in the Foundation 2 class. I still recall the experiences and smiles I had during those times with great fondness. And I got to witness that immersive play that is so wonderful.

Nowadays I see George, my 8 year old son, immersed in his play, either with his friends or simply on his own. It is a wonder to behold and something that we slowly see less of. The reason I think that I find it so interesting is that it flies in the face of what adult life is so typically about, immersive play doesn’t happen within those rules and challenges the typical constraints adults might see or hold.

The Edges

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of constraint, and healthy constraint at that, in our design of learning. I described how some resources create an artificial line that children don’t go over or how time might restrict what we do. When children are truly immersed in play the edges of their play seem invisible.

It is not simply the timeless nature of immersive play but also the way that physical barriers, and even the rules of physics, become non-existent. They are changed, thwarted and ignored. Superpowers ON! Groups of toys suddenly are thrust together and the props of the play become varied and limitless – the play things even become augmented themselves changing in the mind of the young authors of this new reality.

Presenteeism

When you observe this powerful type of play, a total immersion takes hold. Children get caught up in their play, they lose track of time. They don’t worry about what has gone before or what is next – they don’t think about the to-do list or their worries. When children are safe and immersed in their play, they are wholly present. (There is lots to read about this type of Flow state and the positive impact it can have on learning or the creative process.)

Social

One other curious feature of immersive play is when play overlaps with others. A complete imaginary state bumps into another, children play together seamlessly co-constructing something that is completely imaginary. They negotiate and choose and build together under what seem to be a silent set of rules encoded deep inside them. The social aspect of immersive physical play just feeds the imaginations at work and you see worlds evolve and collapse, characters develop and disappear in quick succession.

All of these beautiful, natural instinctive behaviours might be summed up in this lovely quote:

Children have neither past nor future, they enjoy the present, which very few of us do.

– Jean de la Bruyere

Now of course immersive play is not simply the bastion of the young learner, but perhaps we have to try just that little bit harder to build and collapse those worlds as easily.

What do you see as the signals of immersive play? When do older students and adults get the opportunity for such wholly present experiences?

Finding the edges of your page

28 Days of Writing, Design ThinkingPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on Finding the edges of your page

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Not to be confused with restraint which is much more about self-control, constraint is about finding the edges of the page before you begin, it is about knowing what limits you have in terms of resources. It is about must haves and must nots. And to be honest not something I previously worried too much about, but now I see constraint in lots of work that I do and inevitably seek them out if they are not so explicit.

In many ways the 28 Days of Writing project is built around the concept of healthy constraint, about creating an edge where often there isn’t one. A rule to stick to and enjoy the creative challenge. 28 days of writing with a time constraint on how long you can spend every day.

Twitter was such an interesting medium to write through. The constraint of writing within a specific character limit is just second nature now – I always try not to abbreviate or shorten words unnecessarily too. Back when the education community didn’t know it’s tweet from it’s blog it was a fascinating challenge to share your thoughts with such brevity. In many ways this is the most enduring feature of the Twitter platform and certainly something I still enjoy.

Another time when I observed the impact of constraint in a rather unexpected place was a Year 3 classroom in London. The class were all set to build some versions or prototypes of their new house/dwelling ideas they had been intricately designing on paper. Detailed diagrams and rough drafts overlapped on the tables as the class clamoured to discover what was next for their ideas. LEGO makes a similar introduction when used in most classroom, eyes light up and ideas roll over in the mind. However something unexpected happened once construction of the next prototypes commenced. Constraint.

Boys and girls grabbed LEGO baseboards to build on and suddenly fell into a steady rhythm of stacking bricks around the edges, the cuboid house once again asserted it’s dominance. It was a fascinating thing to reflect upon for Meshendia (the classteacher) and I once all was said and done. The LEGO had in fact imposed its own constraint to the process and those baseboards even more so. What were dreamy, intricate designs on paper soon became cookie-cutter boxes in LEGO.

I think this happens a great deal once we are up to our armpits in the making process, the standard classroom doesn’t quite cater for the resources our ideas truly need. Why would they? After all if we are not given enough signals of the constraints in the early stages of a process when we are encouraging new ideas, those ideas will grow and expand without an edge to them.

I was with a school in Perth last week and the very same thinking task for one group of 3 teachers produced completely different results compared with another. The reason. Simply the size of the paper they chose to work on. One group had a large sheet of flipchart paper and their ideas were more numerous, sprawling and often tangential. The other had an A4 piece of paper, the group’s ideas were fewer, focused, more potent. Same task, just a different piece of paper. For one the edges were tighter, closer and more constrained – for the other much more open and freer. The constraint, or lack of, impacted on the type of thinking the group achieved.