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Click here to find the project and consider sharing a pic of yourself everyday for the next 365!

This would be a great project for a class. They could make their own group on Flickr and take a photo of themselves and a thought about one thing they learned about a particular subject that day. It could be a great digital portfolio of sorts. Students could be encouraged to take a photo with an expression on their face that communicated how they were feeling that day or holding up a word written on a piece of paper that was important to their learning that day. Many possibilities. Got any other ideas?

One of the unconference sessions I went to at the Learning 2.008 conference in Shanghai was a discussion on Best Practice and if there really is such a thing. I don’t have all the answers of course, just plenty more questions!

For me, best practice (if one needs to use that term) would be something that takes my teaching and my students learning further. Something that pushes boundaries because for me, that is one of the best things you can do in a classroom. Much of the description that came out of this session about what ‘best practice’ actually is to me sounded like common sense teaching. Saying that of course, then just begs the question as to what common sense teaching actually is. So, I’m not sure if I should use that phrase. What do you think? It’s not a simple conversation to have!

‘Best practice’ is not going to look the same for everyone, as we all have different classrooms and kids, different ideas and different curriculum. Best practice then has to be the thing that is then best for those particular students in that particular context. How then can you write book saying what it is?

There is value, however, in learning for others who have done the trials and found methods that work successfully all or most of the time. Is this not best practice?

One thing we have to be careful of is getting all caught up in labeling things and saying that one thing or way is better than another. It is so easy for everyone to make judgments of others and say that things aren’t up to standard, or best practice. In order to be able to implement a form of best practice effectively, you have to have a good relationship with your students and be able to engage them or the rest is a waste of time.

Have I missed the point? What is best practice for you?

My tweets from the session – please read from the bottom up!

best practice as something that engenders the values and competenciesthat are valued by society (great comment from participant to end on!)01:30 PM September 20, 2008from twhirl

Here are some notes on what we asked them and what they answered:

When asked if they would or do put more effort into blog posts because they have a global audience they said they would and that blogging is a way of communicating to everyone.

There was a great conversation about exams and their relevance. The kids were saying that they wanted an overall grade about how they progressed – not final exams. They didn’t feel that this showed what they could really do.

“There has to be a point in me learning it
When am I going to need this in life?”

We asked how do you know that the information you find on the internet is correct? – well, that’s where teachers will come in. Teachers having blogs will help a lot. The kids were saying that they need to know how to search and need to know the real life applications. These students were saying how they make sure they comparing resources – as it is much easier to get more information from several resources

Some advice from the kids on how to encourage kids to engage with technology outside of class -
Film making and blogging are good places to start.

How would you like to be assessed? –

This was my favourite part of the conversation. Being as into technology as we are, all us teachers were expecting something like ‘get us to make movies’ or ‘get us to blog’ or anything like that. But no, the kids came up with the most simple answer that really does make a lot of sense:

“Just have a chat to us.”
We said “Oh you mean like IM?”
“No, just face to face. Just have a chat to us to see what we know.”

Who’ve thought?! They just want us to talk to them!

Having real conversations as assessment tasks – how on earth do you assess this?! Jabiz had a great idea – record a converation with the students, then get them to edit the conversation and hand in an ‘audio essay’ for their final record of learning and assessment for a unit. Great idea!

I really appreciated having a chat to these kids. They had a lot to tell us – not that there weren’t things we didn’t already know about what many kids thought, but it was great to be reminded of those perspectives in the middle of a conference about education. After all, the kids are what we are all about.

The tweets I was sending out during this session (in reverse chronological order!):

kids: in class if there is something you want to hear – you will listen
02:24 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: class need to be relaxed – silence invites talking!
02:23 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: class need to be relaxed – silence invites talking!
02:23 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: exams not real – you write your answers then it’s given to someone who doesn’t know you
02:19 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids emphasising the point that there has to be a point to what they are learning! imagine that!
02:19 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

assesing kids via f2f conversation or with IM
02:18 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids saying that real conversation would be great assessment task
02:17 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

@israelgreg if something is not effective then is it really innovative?
02:17 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl
in reply to israelgreg

damn – typing too quickly! interactiVe
01:53 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: the biggest thing you can do is make it interactice
01:53 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: do something that is interactive – anyone got any questions for 3 international kids about techn in classrooms?
01:48 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: most boring lessons are when you are told to read pages and do questions – make it interactice
01:48 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: sending private messages through games – something that accessible at home
01:48 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

kids: making class more interactive with games please!
01:47 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

this session is asking kids about what really does engage them…
01:46 PM September 20, 2008
from twhirl

question to 3 kids about how overwhelmed they feel – talk about homework timetables
<a class=”entry-date” rel=”bookmark” href=”http://twitter.com/jessmcculloch/statuses

jessmcculloch would really appreciate some tactics for dealing with high level attention seeker, very disruptive, very low skills, hates everthing grade 5 about 4 hours ago from twhirl

and got these really helpful responses that I really really appreciate:

	Steve_Collis @jessmcculloch I love that you’ve had to put complex situation into 140 characters & now we’re gamely replying with such necessarily brevity about 2 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	Steve_Collis @jessmcculloch I *overwhelm* attention-seekers with crazy amounts of attention, from me & from the class (put them in charge of much stuff). about 2 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	helenotway @jessmcculloch Have you seen the welfare publication – Calmer Classrooms? http://www.ocsc.vic.gov.au/… You can order free. about 3 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	efreeman @jessmcculloch Is the attention seeking a strategy to avoid work because of low ability? Have you used ICTs to engage? (probably but…) about 3 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	efreeman @jessmcculloch Def get to know interests and use those to engage them. How do they handle positive praise? about 3 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	helenotway @jessmcculloch 1:1 works well with me. Usually yard duty or before school allows me to build relationships with these kids… about 3 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	mrpbps @jessmcculloch If you can engage on his interests then you can move to others you can also withdraw that engagement when things go awray about 3 hours ago from Snitter in reply to jessmcculloch
	mrpbps @jessmcculloch agree with Tom especially with praise Also try to identify his likes and engage with him around them eg sport TV about 3 hours ago from Snitter in reply to jessmcculloch
	tombarrett @jessmcculloch Re: tactics – keeping praising those positive behaviours around that child and draw attention to those when you talk 1 to 1 about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to jessmcculloch
	tombarrett @jessmcculloch Re: tactics – take a really tough approach, make your expectations crystal clear, engage with responsibility where possible about 3 hours ago from twhirl in reply to jessmcculloch
	shazzandrob @jessmcculloch wait for the perfect opportunity to look him/her in the eye and come up with extremely clever put down, make sure its audible about 4 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	billgx @jessmcculloch A page about how to turn your words into gold: http://www.loveandlogic.com… is a good place to start. about 4 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch
	billgx @jessmcculloch Check the teacher resources at this site: http://www.loveandlogic.com/ I’m a firm believer in L&L techniques. about 4 hours ago from web in reply to jessmcculloch

Online personal learning networks are incredibly powerful. All this advice, expertise and willingness to share at my fingertips!

My personal learning network is made up of Twitter, Skype, various ning networks, my blog, commenting on other blogs and participating in conversations in all of these places. There are so many people out there to learn from. Thank you all of you.

I’ve been out of the loop for the past three weeks or so and consequently feel fairly disconnected. Ah, this happens every now and again through those stages of insane life busy-ness that we all undoubtedly have at some point. While trying to reconnect myself though I started thinking about what makes someone a valuable member for their social networks (even if they drop off the face of cyberspace for a while!). It’s challenging to keep up with all the things that are going on – joining this that or the other new application/tool only to then discover that, as valuable as it is, it’s another account to keep up to date.

I am a member of quite a few different things, but I know I don’t use them all to my full potential or the network’s full potential. I do contribute, but I’m sure I could do more. Although, that’s a dangerous way to think sometimes, as there is always more that can be done, or something that can be improved.

I can’t possibly contribute to every network that I’m part of everyday or else I would never have time to plan for school, cook a meal (even though I try to avoid doing that anyway) or simply sit and chat with my husband.

What does it mean to be a valuable network member? Some of my ideas follow. Please leave your own in a comment!

• regular contribution of quality material (blog posts or useful links)
• regular direct contact with key people in your network. You can’t build effective relationships by relying solely on a profile page or a few blog posts
• regular reading of and commenting on other members’ contributions

How to be an effective network member and still have time to sleep:

There really is no secret. For me, it’s about focus. It’s the same when facing a reader full of feeds and feeling overwhelmed. It’s about deciding what I want to get out of a particular network for a given session and focusing on that. I think of it this way:

Problem: Haven’t written on my blogs for a while. Need to write better quality posts

Solution: Decide that for this afternoon or whenever that my aim is to write however many blog posts. Do that. Don’t have Twitter on. Email is No Go Zone.

Problem: Haven’t had an good conversations on Twitter lately. Feeling out of the loop. Watching too many good conversations with interesting people who aren’t following me!

Solution: Ignore my blogs. Don’t visit anyone elses. Don’t worry about commenting for a while. Just focus on putting up some good thoughts in Twitter, posting some good links and maybe follow a couple of new people.

Problem: Delicious links a mess and don’t even know how to use Diigo yet.

Solution: Ignore blogging. Forget my podcast. Maybe leave Twitter on though cause undoubtedly there will be someone there who can help me out.

Problem: Have not even logged into many ning networks!

Solution: Question whether I really need to be part of them all? If I don’t have time to contribute, should I even be there? Probably not. Then, get cup of tea. Take laptop into bedroom. Climb back into bed. Stay there until important ones have been chosen and contributed to. Maybe add something to them once a week or fortnight. Can only do what I can do.
I think the key thing for me to remember is that in this age of mass amounts of (digital and very easy to access) information I cannot possibly know, be part of or absorb everything. I don’t really want to be a ‘jack of all trades and a master of none.’ I want my main blog, technoLOTE (language teaching and technology) to grow, so that will be my main focus.

Oh to be a Master…