Will Richardson on Connective Writing (TCEA 2007)

I attended will Richardson’s presentation today at TCEA in Austin. Here are my “lecture notes”. Will has posted his presentation notes here.

Click below for my notes…

Technorati Tags: blogging, edtech, edublogosphere, education, instructional+technology, Connective+Writing, TCEA, Will+Richardson

This is a very challenging time to be an educator – lots of friction points
What are our roles in our classrooms?

Students know a lot more than we do about these technologies – they are out there playing and figuring out how to use them… but they aren’t always using them in safe or healthy ways

They are publishing more
They are connecting more – with peers and collaborators
They are often doing this without us – we block it

Another challenge – knowledge is changing

Refers to printed dictionaries and encyclopedias that are out of date because of changes in knowledge

Now – we can go tto wikipedia or other online resources…

Pace of change – lightspeed

Shows clip of Jeff Han touch-screen video clip

Talks about the iPhone

Examples of how quickly things are changing and how hard it is to keep up with the changes

Learning in this world (web 2.0) is passion-based – we can converse with others who have similar passions
I can become a part of my world in a way that I’ve never been able to before

This is not a world where knowledge is scarce anymore

MIT OpenSourceware
–all class notes /l lecture notes
–course videos
– No credit – but the knowledge and learning is available

This is very different from how we have traditionally thought of the classroom
But we still deliver things in this way

If there is an accident outside of this convention center – I can run out there and take a photo and post the news online faster than an reporter can

The dynamics of creating and consuming media/content has changed

What is it like to have a business in a world where everyone can talk about the products you create?

It’s a different world – a different situation that we are living in

We, as educators, cannot escape it

Writing – today – means much more than text… it means audio, video, text, and more…

Gives stats on how many blog posts are written per day… how many videos posted to YouTube each day…

This trickles down to our students… they are posting videos… writing blogs…

Tells us – go back to your districts and your schools and ask your administrators – how often do you check Youtube for our school or our district?
Go back – you should check YouTube everyday and search on your school’s name…

There are many educators out there who are catching on to this – and they are using the web 2.0 very safely and very efficiently…

Shows us his blog…
Has gotten over 4500 comments back from people all over the world over the past few years of blogging
Talks about his post “Dear Kids, You Don’t Have to go to College”

Compares his learning in college to his learning during blogging – much more powerful learning during blogging period than during college

Educators – tend to think in terms of “tools”
How have you grown your own network?
How have you grown your own learning?
How do these technologies change your own learning?

Says “I am fortunate… I am very clickable” (google search on own name) – means you are findable by people on the web

Talks about example – his kids blog on “The Secret Life of Bees” – comes up first in google search ABOVE the links to the author’s website
Author of the book commented on his students’ blog – a very transformative experience for the students

Says – Kids are already doing this
Gives example of fanfiction.net

This is “connective writing”

Very little of this is done in the context of the classroom… and still… the fans – the kids – keep writing additional chapters about their favorite stories or characters

A great example of how writing connects in this environment

Gives another example – a student blog from a student in Manitoba (a student of Clarence Fisher)

Another example – G-Town Talks (principal blog)

All of these – opportunities for people to connect – people who otherwise would not have connected

In this environment – our kids can publish and share in ways never before possible

MySpace – about identity
Profiles are about develpping and sharing identity
Opportunities for adults to model and create identity on MySpace
It is a way to form networks and form connections – and it’s done through writing and the creation of identity

In this world – writing can also be collaborative
In fact, many would argue that it is imperative that writing be collaborative
And – that our students learn to write collaboratively because this will be required in those “jobs that do not yet exist”
Wikipedia – the negotiated creation of “truth” – although there are still some issues with this
We can debate the merits of wikipedia… but we can’t debate the nature/value of the discussion/writing that occurs here.

Can we do this? Can our students do this? Are we getting practice on this “negotiated writing”?

This is something that our students need to do.

In the last 2 minutes there have been 500 edits to wikipedia… there is A LOT of content creation going on there.

CIA is now turning to social media

There is an understanding that the collaborative efforts mean much more than people working on long

Shows live example of collaborating using Google docs – calls a friend via Skype and they edit a document together

We can be active collaborators (using Google Docs, Skype, and similar technologies)

Shows example from Flat Classroom (Vicki Davis – Cool Cat Teacher)

In this environment — if we are passing sheets of paper back and forth in our classrooms… we are missing a huge opportunity… it is crucial that we start looking at things differently

Now shows example of Marco Torres students… work can’t be just about assessment

How can we begin to connect our kids to work and ideas that we want them to learn…

How can we make learning about more than just “grades” and “test scores”?

Begins to talk about Podcasting… elementary school teachers seem to love podcasting…

Shows us Willow Web — 1st graders blogging! (about ants… yuck!)

It’s really easy now to publish to the web… blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more…

Lulu.com — will allow anyone to publish real books and sell them through Amazon.com

Asks us — who are your teachers? Who is your network? Find the people who share your passions and begin engaging with them — those people are your teachers.

How do you get started?
Start a blog… go to blogger.com and get a free blog and just start writing…
Start recording and create a podcast…

Where do you find time?
At some point — you just have to make a choice to not do something that you normally do in order to make room/time… it is imperative that you jump in and understand the power of this

How do we prepare our kids for 2020? When alot of what they are learning in our classrooms right now won’t serve them in 2020? We prepare them by teaching them how to learn.

He finishes up with the following (directly from his wiki):

Connective Writing Is…

1. Writing that is inspired by reading and is therefore a response to an idea or a set of ideas or conversations.
2. Writing that synthesizes those ideas and remixes them in some way to make them our own and is published to potentially wide audiences.
3. Writing that then becomes a part of a larger negotiation of a truth or knowledge that is evolving in the larger network.
4. Writing that is written with the expectation that it too will be taken and remixed by others into their own truths by this continuous process of reading, thinking, writing (and linking), publishing and reading some more.

Questions for Educators

Who are your teachers?
How are you writing?
How are you modeling your learning for your students?

Change Agency by Stephanie Sandifer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You may copy, distribute, transmit and/or remix this content for noncommercial uses as long as you attribute the work to Stephanie Sandifer (with link back to the original post) and agree to license the work under the same or similar license.