Clicking, Connecting, and Crisscrossing

One experience I love, which is now ubiquitous but still perhaps somewhat taken for granted and unexamined, is the experience of finding something new through a series of haphazard clicks and connections. You know what I mean… It all started today when I finally got back to reading my Twitter feed again. Something to do with comps prep/work got me signing up to follow a bunch of new people and then fairly quickly dropping out altogether, as I could no longer take in new info for a while. I’m still in resting mode, but took a peek this morning.

At the bottom of the first set of tweets, a post from gsiemens caught my attention: “Prepare to feel old: http://bit.ly/7uHXrP.” Maybe it seemed like it might be funny and not require my brains to work. At any rate, I CLICKED THE LINK, and was taken to a blog post about outdated technology terms and phrases. Not really learning for me—more like reinforcing my experience. Somewhat amusing to an old-timer like me, who frequently finds herself explaining “historic” terms like carbon copy or floppy disk in an effort to shed light on the impact of current technology on education, and on our culture in general. Really, how do you get across the magic of Web 2.0 to those whose introduction to the Internet was through Facebook? “Yeah, so we can post. That’s what you do on the web--what’s the big deal?” But I digress…

I read through the “Prepare to Feel Old” post and the comments, and then scrolled back up and CLICKED THE LINK to the blog post that had prompted this blog post. I read through that post, titled Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History, and was reading through the comments there also when I came across a reply about the listing of “pen pal” as an outdated term. The poster, Douglas Armendone, referenced www.postcrossing.com, an updated pen-pal-type site.

So I CLICKED THE LINK, and began reviewing and learning about the site. At Postcrossing, you register and agree to send one or more postcards to other randomly chosen participants. Once those participants have received and registered your postcards, you are in line to receive postcards from other participants. The site looks to be well organized and thought out, with a comprehensive FAQ and a straightforward process for participating. Launched in July of 2005, the site has quickly grown in popularity. By September of 2009, three million postcards had been registered as received.

This site, in its beautiful simplicity, supports my love of postcards, travel, and helping the world shrink by connecting with unknown others. In addition, it is sure to be a hit with my teacher-students and their own students in K12. So, of course, I CLICKED THE LINK to register and request an address for sending my first postcard through the site. Though you can send postcards right from where you live, I will be traveling in a few days and will be able to send a few from elsewhere also. The site also connects to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, so your activity there is shared with your networks.

Learner-Friendly

Just spent a few days with Ben, a friend of my brother’s from New Zealand. Despite the somewhat dreary weather these days in Chicago, we had a great time chatting, riding bikes, eating cake, drinking Margaritas, and just working side-by-side together at the kitchen table, each of us glued to our own laptop. I mention this here because spending time with someone new is a great way to learn. Ben is a smart and self-aware guy who is taking life by the horns. We shared books, ideas, and experiences over four days of face-to-face time—really quite a luxury for me in these days of staying home working in my pjs, being an online teacher and student.

New Tricks

I heart my iPhone. Today I used the Google app to do a voice search for the first time. Works great. Learn faster! There is so much to learn.

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Diagram From The Early Stages

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Learning To Post From My iPhone

That's it!

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A Little Example of Learning

Online learning means a lot of different things depending on whom you ask. My example for the week is how I learned to make one of those tiny site icons that show up in the favorites list in your browser.)

The first thing I learned is what those little thingies are called: Fav(orite) + icon = favicon. How did I learn this? Well, I had to use my already learned skill of how to figure out the right keywords to use in a browser search. I learned/developed that skill mostly by trial and error, though I would say my software skills (honed through training others) and writing skills (based on a good general education, language facility, and, well, lots of writing) helped considerably.

I used Google (of course) and came up with the term "mini-icon." I started with little or small icon, but my brain told me to make it more like one word to focus the search. I also typed "how do I make a mini-icon" rather than just "mini-icon." Perhaps not the official "right way" to search, using unnecessary words. Another thingy I've learned--perhaps a life lesson--is that sometimes you just say what you need. Just "mini-icon" would have produced sites that wanted to sell me favicons, but the question resulted in sites that offered help in learning about them.

Once I did that, I hit some "how to" sites for favicons right away. How did I know which one to look at? Any good Internet crawler will review the list, then click in and out of a few likely candidates before spending any time on a specific site. Experience taught me that one. I found a site that succinctly walked me through the process and gave me just enough information. Did it help that I had previously learned Photoshop? Heck, yes. Did it help that I had prior knowledge of pixels? You bet. I found a site that helped me at the level where I was ready to be helped.

This is Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) at work. Sorry to throw the whole theory thing in so suddenly, but I couldn't help myself. With all learning, but with online learning specifically, it's all about the ZPD. If I'm off on the net looking for distraction, my tendency is to follow what I already know about and understand. The familiar, we call it. AKA The Comfort Zone. However, if I'm looking to learn, I'm going to look for content that's new to me but that I can relate back to what I already know. I want to build on my existing knowledge with new knowledge; I don't want to jump into the middle of something I know nothing about. That's the place of learning that we learners (great and small) are always looking to find; the point where we can use what we know to learn something we don't. When learning in person with a good teacher, s/he can adjust the level of the topic to fit our needs. On the net, we mostly meander about searching for that point for ourselves. I'd venture to say that most of us know it when we see it, and the more practiced we are, the better we get at zeroing in.

So I whipped through the making of my new favicon and the posting of said favicon on my website. And it worked brilliantly...in Firefox. Sadly, Internet Explorer does not like it, not one little bit. But I learned about the fickleness of browsers way back in web design class, so I am not discouraged. I just look at it as something else I have to learn.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Oof. Been off working hard at being an online student and a face2face one as well (blended learning, you know). But haven’t forgotten about my quest here. Have some new sources to write about in my next posts, and a fun experience also for today. After reading The Synchronous Trainer’s Survival Guide, discussed last time, I visited the author’s site and signed up for a free session called “Learn How to Learn Online.” Just attended last week and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My current learning experience, which is my first time with synchronous online learning, is strictly chat, and free chat at that. Don’t get me wrong, it does the job. It just doesn’t compare to the delightful WebEx (which I may be the last person in the universe to try). Attendees were introduced to signaling tools for raising one’s hand, taking a break, responding to a polling question, and so forth. We could also view slides, point at slide content, write or type on slides for collaborative activities, and use chat when we didn’t feel like talking. Combined with teleconferencing, it was as if a world of options had opened up. The very attentive instructor, Jacqueline, recommended allowing 1 ½ hours for a session that would run 1 hour face2face; learners apparently can become very involved when given opportunity and encouragement. Classroom facilitators should be jealous. Of course, all those bells and whistles could get a bit distracting at times. We had a pretty light topic to cover; much of the point of the session was to get a chance to play and get familiar with the software. A trainer would need to be ready for the challenge of keeping it all focused. Would love a chance to do more with it myself, as learner and facilitator both. Overall, it opens up wild possibilities for active learning experiences.