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I’m not saying there isn’t a place and a time for strategic thinking, what I’m saying is that the edublogosphere is loaded to the freakin’ gills with it. How many ways can you discuss the innate digital skills of middle school students before realizing it’s worth more to talk about what works and doesn’t work with them. In this case the why is truly “academic”. We’ve twittered, blogged, bookmarked, tagged, forwarded, and flogged this horse to an amazing degree. What I don’t see is the same amount of energy in capturing what’s been done with the students, the successes and failures, in anything longer than 140 characters. If we want our teachers to learn to fish, we have to show them how to bait the hook and cast the line…not wonder if the fish are truly hungry.

voicethread.com used in first grade classroom so students are participating in asynchronous conversation and everyone gets to share on topic chosen by teacher. Combined with short recordings from audio enhancement classroom system help the teacher quickly post new content from class to the site.

Conversational Search

• Online networks help to define us. My Blog, My Flickr, My Space, My Facebook, My Friends, My Profile, My Second Life, My del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, My Ning Network, My Twitter, My-Whole-Life-Connected-and-On-Display-For-Anyone-And-Everyone-To-See…

On many levels, ‘access issues’ are key obstacles. Yet, opportunities abound! The web lets us collaborate in many different ways! So now I have to wonder: Do we want our discussions to be around what we can’t do? It isn’t so much about ‘New Boundaries‘ as it is about removing boundaries. There were holes in the Berlin wall for years… innovative teachers today are escapees from behind similar walls. It is time to tear the old ideological walls down. Teachers and students need access granted!

I’ve seen a real shift in my own thinking recently. Forget whining about access, never mind the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.

If you fail to connect to the network of learners, you miss out on a global conversation about what you are passionate about. And missing out is a darn shame because it can save you time, energy, and increase your reach, no matter how brilliant (or not) you are. That’s a powerful idea. Smart people get smarter because they have access to the network of learners. People who are just starting out are able to learn as fast as they can to accomplish what they need to do. When I meet folks who are just becoming aware of the global conversation — usually because I push them over the edge in a workshop — I like to share several tools with them.

Over 35,000 spelling words and eight spelling games!- A REAL person who says each word and sentence- Thousands of free spelling lists. Or save your own!- A free forum and newsletter with more resources!