I have been growing all week—through Alec Couros’ Introduction to Connected Learning on Monday, the many blogs I have read all week (Sue Waters on smart blogging, Alyson Indrunas on teacher as agitator, Rodd Lucifer on the 7 Degrees of Connectedness-reprised, Ben Wilkoff on neighbourhoods, Wiltwhatman on self-efficacy, Alan Levine on self and voice in blogging), Dean Shareski’s message on the responsibility of sharing, and participating in the lipdub video on Friday.

Now I don’t know much about Dave Cormier’s Rhizomatic Learning, but I happened upon (I have been told I can no longer use stumbled upon, unless, of course, I mean Stumbled Upon) Dave’s post where he does a nice job (in 300 words) of summarizing Rhizomatic Learning. I am a gardener and I do grow rhizome plants—asparagus, irises, lily of the valley, and Cannas—so, I know how they grow, their lateral spread, and that they are resilient.

Lateral spread.

Collaborate, Twitter chat, etmooc blogs all stretching me across the ideas of connected learning, and pulling me with such tantalizing strength to unknown places of brilliance.

I found myself at DS106. Not sure how I got there, but since I was in the neighbourhood, I listened in on Week 1 Episode of the DS106 show. I heard about how Alan connects to his students, how they connect to each other, about blogging, about participating, about contributing, about learning. I met Haley Campbell there. Her words about her learning should shake us to the bone.

“I am so much better at learning than I ever thought that I could be. I just needed a little bit more space to learn my own way.”

She’s talking about choice. Choice in the way she can demonstrate her learning. Such a simple thing and yet, she is only recently found herself in the environment where she could make that discovery.

I met Daniel Zimmerman, too. He took DS106 twice, and is now back to model and mentor new students. Or maybe, he knows there is more learning here that he can and wants to do.

Self-efficacy.

But this post isn’t just about my learning—Dean and I are on the same page here—sharing is all, and I absolutely love that he provides a way for me to give myself permission to share –that it is my responsibility.

Lateral spread.

Consider the real work of this past week on the ground in a school system readying itself to spring into the 21st century, scared as all get-out, but wanting to believe that the risk is worth it.

January 19—First time ever that teachers attend a Saturday Classroom 2.0 Live event to listen to Ontario educator Heidi Siwak speak about student inquiry.

January 23—First time ever that teachers participate in an online evening workshop via Adobe Connects: Choice Literacy’s The Tech Savvy Literacy Teacher by Franki Sibberson (They have to post on a ning and learn how to connect to each other!)

January 24—First time ever scheduled Google Hangout with Heidi Siwak to plan First Nations Inquiry Project

January 24—Heidi couldn’t make the meeting, so teachers decided to have Twitter boot camp instead resulting in 5 teachers joining Twitter and a weekly Twitter chat time is established (We now have 8 of 50 teachers/admin on Twitter!!!)

January 25—My colleague who is on Twitter, but has not tweeted …yet…joins me in our first ever lipdub.