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Finishing Up Connected Educator Month, or Is It the Beginning?!

As I've mentioned in a previous post, October is Connected Educator Month. Yesterday, I had an experience that reminded me of the power of sharing, making connections, and opening up the door to possibilities.

For the last two years, my district has been involved in looking at what our schools will look like in the years to come. We have done studies at the Birth-Grade 5 and Secondary level, and have some pretty cool projects underway.
Yesterday, the Communications department sent out a link to a video they created to share one of the shifts in learning, personalizing learning.

I decided to ask for some feedback on the video from Will Richardson, who was the keynote speaker at our district kickoff a few years ago, and someone whose opinion I respect. What followed, was a good back and forth conversation that I captured in Storify below:



So I went and checked out what Michael Schneider had shared about the "Mosaic Collective." Talk about student centered learning! Check out the video below:


Pretty amazing! And done in a public school. I think this is one of the more innovative programs I've seen. I quickly shared that site with some of our administrators, to help form some of the work we are doing.

Then I took a look at what Jake shared about the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. A private model, but similar philosophy.

I loved how my reaching out to Will led to connections with Michael and Jake. By being a connected learner, I have been able to gain some new insights into what is possible, and share that with others. While Connected Educator Month may be coming to an end, my hope is that last night's conversation will be the beginning of some successful connection and collaboration with Michael and Jake in the future.

On Tuesday, we had the first meeting of our Edina-Hopkins Teaching and Technology cohort. The first class is titled Collaboration for Community with a Global Perspective. One of the goals of the class is to help the students develop connections with other educators around the world, and to grow their personal learning network. I hope this serves as a model to the possibilities as they move forward in their work.

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