Celebrating Failure

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."
- Winston Churchill

After thirty-five years in education, I have learned to walk away briskly from failure.

Anyone who tries new things will make mistakes, and if you are my age, you realize that you are wasting precious time if you A) invest more of it in a losing cause B) brood over "ingenious" ideas that do not catch fire with others.

So, I am going to now officially categorize The Blog Squad as an official dud. Last May, I envisioned the Squad this way:

What I would like to establish is something like a "Blog Squad" which would offer message board help to students who are having specific challenges with wikis, web sites, podcasts, blogs in our classes. Believe me, tons of little issues arise with projects using Web 2.0 apps, and they occur when class is not in session. Usually the problems are easy to solve and do not warrant tying up valuable tech department or class time. I envision that the "club" would initially recruit kids who are adept at Audacity, WikiSpaces, Google Sites, and/or Blogger and give them "genius" (apologies to Apple) status as problem solvers.

But I also promised . . . .

I am also not afraid to declare that I have failed. The plan will die a quick death if a critical mass of users is not achieved by mid-semester. . . .

Well, here is the declaration: I failed.

I tried to run the Squad through a Ning . Faculty and students signed up in droves. . . .But they did not return. I was pretty much the only active participant on the Ning. (No surprise on that score!). But I also realize two other factors. 1) Face-to- face meetings are probably necessary to fire up enthusiasm for a virtual project like this. 2) Students need or expect immediate help for their tech frustrations, and on-the-spot assistance is simply not feasible within a conventional school schedule.

Before bidding adieu to the Squad, let this be noted: when I sent out the call, fellow staff members actually came to my classroom to offer hands on technical help (Ann, Will, Cheryl -- you were awesome). And I have since learned that the best way for students to get on-the-spot help is to place them into groups during project launches and let them teach each other.

Thus, by no means was the Blog Squad a total loss. But instead of trying to pump life into this inert Ning, I'm going to walk away from it and try to apply the lessons learned to my new passion: The Knowledge Hub Project: Unlike Blog Squad, I am evangelizing M-Hub through face-to-face gatherings and identifying student leaders who will hopefully keep our momentum going through next year and beyond.

I'm giving this my best shot. But . . . . If next spring, we are dead in the water, I will abandon ship and venture off in a new direction in a different virtual vessel.

-------------------------------------------

"lydney cannon festival" Flickr Creative Commons photo by the longhairedgit.

MHS In Service Materials

Planning the MHS In-Service was a career highlight. I loved pulling together the different elements and working with all those who pitched in. Other highlights from the experience would include :

* Launching so many folks on Twitter and reading through our hashtags after the event

*The energy level during the group collaboration session. The majority groups were really buzzing.

*The good humor that greeted me at the beginning. Most folks had logged Sunday work hours at Open House the day before, but were troopers at 8:30 A.M on Monday.

*There were some great questions through the day and also some impressive problem solving.

I had no major regrets but I was sorry that I frustrated many by going so fast through the social media. Perhaps adding Diigo put us on overload. I assumed more familiarity with the wiki. I also was surprised by the few I encountered who are really dug into an "I can't" position on tech. (This is certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy). I also was surprised that some folks took the group collaboration as an assignment rather than an opportunity. This was my fault to a degree not explaining the process more clearly. I also apologize if I used jargon or made references casually techie things that were not common knowledge. That is annoying.

Overall, a very cool experience for me. (And kind of glad I do not have a big presentation scheduled until March). It reminded me how very much I like the problem solving involved with using social media to meet teaching or communication goals.


I am happy to make the various presentation elements available by link for thirty days. All the original work is licensed with Creative Commons, non-commercial attribution.

Social Media (PLN, part 1)

Building a Network (PLN, part 2)

Collaborating with Collections (PLN, part 3)

An Old Dog Learning. . . .New Tricks

A "Chapter" of Baker's Digital Anthology

ITunes U Sampler

Apple Learning Interchange

Digital Anthology Movie

The Networked Student

Music Playlists

Web Warriors

Diigo Tour Videos

Free Apple Resources (including Apps).

I hope you feel free to add your own comments about the In Service or the materials.

-----------------------------------
In Service slide created by Cheryl Corte

Larry's Queries

Just in case, I seem to have grown to cocky while away from my students, I want to lay out some issues that are simmering away over the summer, unresolved. I’m hoping that my readership may have some ideas about my assorted challenges. Feel free to comment publicly or correspond privately.

Trickle Down Wikinomics

I teach an elective Advanced Placement U.S. Government to seniors and a required America Government class to sophomores. The former is a college political science class and the latter is more comparable to basic civics.

I usually require some kind of project from the AP class during the first semester. This time, I was thinking of assigning some wiki projects around different portions of the Constitution. I would like to give the seniors the aim of building a helpful resource for the sophomores. I’m comfortable assigning the wiki project. I’ve done that before with other classes. But I am not sure how to utilize this kind of resource with the younger students. Any ideas?

Blog Squad

I am very excited about the impending launch of the Blog Squad. The general aim would be to provide a way for students to help students when teachers launched tech projects. This will be a pilot involving a small circle The participating adults (six or seven) have helped me identify thirty prospective student participants. I have decided to try a Ning for facilitating this project. I am relatively inexperienced with Nings. Any suggestions?

Group Work

As I move forward into challenge based learning I still remain puzzled about achieving accountability with the groups. I can reflect on a number of great things that came out of the wiki projects I tried last year, but complaints about group members not following through dogged these enterprises. Any input will be welcomed.