The purpose of this post is to advise my readers of an important writing style transition in some of my upcoming blog posts. In past, I have struggled “behind the scenes” drafting, editing, and proof-reading each blog post before I felt it was “ready for prime time” and could finally be published. Perhaps some might say that the published posts or articles were finally “polished” (albeit too long, which is a curse that I continue to struggle with).
Perhaps my “polished” blog posts are similar to the traditional “polished” appearance that many teachers display in their classrooms. For example, have your students ever asked you a question about the subject matter that you teach and failed to get a correct answer? Do you ever make mistakes in front of your students and acknowledge such errors? In other words do your students think that you know “everything”? Are you “too polished”? Perhaps we, as teachers, need to be more transparent in our learning.
I must admit that when I first taught Grade 7 & 8 Mathematics, I prided myself on the fact that no students could ask me a math-related question or problem that I could not solve or explain how I arrived at the correct answer. Furthermore I, somewhat naively, thought that all students arrived at the correct answer following the same algorithm or process-path that I used. It was not until I started teaching Computer Science that I realized that there were many different ways to write a computer program albeit some were more efficient than others. However, it was the diversity of student programming solutions that started me to appreciate the variety and ingenuity in my students’ creative thinking. It was then that I started engaging in what I will call “transparent problem solving” with my students. I would often share a puzzle or problem and have students work in pairs or triads to come up with a solution. Knowing there were a variety of ways to solve such problems, I wanted the participants in small groups to learn that their colleagues perhaps didn’t approach the problem or its solution in the same way they did. Furthermore, I started asking students to verbalize or think “out loud” so that others could appreciate and learn to solve problems in different ways. I recently shared with my readers one of my favourite problems in an earlier post entitled “Problem Solving: Where does the ‘F’ go?“.
“DS106″ tag is the key
In a recent post, I stated that I have enrolled in a free, 15 week digital storytelling MOOC (massive, open online course) known as DS106. Participants are expected to engage in the learning process through reaction, reflection and construction of creative assignments. One of the most critical parts of the entire learning process is for participants to document their ideas and struggles as they work through this online course. These reflections and solutions are to be shared on one’s blog. So readers of my blog are going to be exposed to additional posts where I document my DS106 learning journey in a much more transparent manner. Such DS106-related posts will have a “DS106″ tag displayed at the bottom of the post (as illustrated below). For example, my last post on January 4th, in which I shared information about the “hieroglyphic typewriter”, was created for my traditional audience of K-12 educators. As such, there was no “DS106″ included in the seven tags associated with this post. On the other hand, the January 3rd post describing “My new learning adventure” included “DS106″ as the third tag at the bottom. The news aggregator software, used by the facilitators of the DS106 course, simply scans all the blogs of all student participants in this course. Only those articles or posts that include the “DS106″ tag will be filtered and shared within the community of learners at Mary Washington University which facilitates the DS106 online course
I encourage readers of my blog to peruse all my posts but if some future content seems to be somewhat unusual or different from my standard format, I trust that the post will have a “DS106″ tag associated with it.
So please consider this to be fair warning faithful reader. Some of my upcoming posts may be somewhat technical (as my next DS106 post); a few may expose my frustration or difficulties that I encounter; some may be quite reflective; while hopefully others may share my successes. However, I can assure you that some of my future blog posts will, like a diary, become somewhat personal. No doubt you will see me with less polish and more tarnish, as you witness and share my transparent DS106 learning journey.
Take care & keep smiling 
Credits:
- Flickr – Creative Commons image
“When we make our learning transparent, we become teachers”
by langwitches – http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/3500044331/
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