The Innovator's Mindset MOOC Posts

Published September 11, 2016 by

Join the #IMMOOC Voxer Group

As we want this space to be participant driven, Emily Clare has already started a Voxer group!  Here is a guest post from her on how to get started.

If you are interested in taking your #IMMOOC conversation deeper or you just enjoy connecting with educators around the globe, please join me and many other educators for “The Innovator’s Mindset Voxer Chat”.  We will discuss one chapter from the book each week, and our conversations will begin with the reflection questions published at the end of each chapter.  The book chat is meant for anyone passionate about creating learning environments for students that are full of wonder and joy!  I hope that classroom teachers, building and district-level school leaders, educators in informal learning organizations, and pretty much anyone that has an impact on student learning will join us for this Voxer book chat.  voxer

If you are already using Voxer and want to join the book chat, send a side vox to eclare_ahs.  If that last sentence was like reading a foreign language, no problem – using Voxer is super easy.  Go to www.voxer.com and create a free account by clicking on “Start Chatting.”  Once you have created a profile, send your Voxer username to Emily Clare by email at eclare@avonworth.k12.pa.us or by Tweet at @EClare_AHS.  

The Voxer app, described as a walkie-talkie app for team communication, allows the user to send audio, text or image files to a closed group of people, so the book chat happens anytime, anywhere that is convenient for you.  We would LOVE to have some of you be a part of the book chat.  It officially begins on Monday, September 26, 2016.  Already, there are educators from Pittsburgh, Oregon, Illinois, California , and Australia committed to the chat.  We hope that the diversity of the group will only continue to grow.  George Couros has also agreed to jump in on the conversation a few times 🙂  

What are you waiting for? Order the book now and let’s get Voxing!  

Participant Posts Platforms

#IMMOOC emily clare voxer

Published September 9, 2016 by

Quick Tips for Blogging with #IMMOOC

As people are joining #IMOOC, many of them are starting their first blog, are starting to blog again, or are using their space to blog for this learning opportunity.  If you are starting your first blog, I would suggest something like wordpress.com or edublogs.org.  Both are free, but the paid options are definitely worth it in my opinion.  I am also a big fan of edublogs as you can tweet @SueWaters or @edublogs at any point if you need help, and they seem to show up like Batman in the night.  Blogger and other options are great, but I am personally partial to blogs that are wordpress based.

Here are some quick ideas for when you are blogging for #IMMOOC:

  1. Put the hashtag #IMMOOC in the title. This way, when others share your post, it is shared to the hashtag.
  2. Do not feel you have to write a college thesis.  Short posts and reflections can just be as valuable as long ones.
  3. Using media is awesome…Embedding things like YouTube, images from Instagram, or compiled tweets from storify, can also tell a powerful story. You do not need to be a “writer” to share your thoughts.
  4. When you tag your posts, use your own name in the tags.  This will help bump your blog up in the google results when people search your name.  The more you blog and tag your own name in the blog, the more likely when people search for your name later, they will find your space.  You will thank me later 🙂

Here is the last tip that I have, and it is an important one…

Read each other’s blogs and find time to comment.  There are some reasons behind this:

  1. It makes everyone smarter.
  2. It encourages people to keep going…many stop because they feel no one is reading their blog posts.
  3. It builds community.

I was asked the question today…How do you blog so much?  Quick answer is because I read a ton of other people’s blogs.  Personally I need to get better at commenting more, but I definitely try to share all of the great blogs that I read on a daily basis.

Hope that helps!!!  Looking forward to adding YOUR blogs to my feed!

P.S.  If you have a blog or are about to start a blog, add it to this google form.  I will take the spreadsheet and share it publicly on this space so that others have access as well.

Tips for the MOOC

#IMMOOC #InnovatorsMindset blogging edublogs sue waters

Published September 9, 2016 by

Using Inoreader to Follow Blogs for #IMMOOC

With about 700 people signed up for the #IMMOOC, there is definitely the threat of information overload! To help find what others are writing, I use the site inoreader.com to aggregate any posts coming from participants. Instead of trying to keep up with 700 different spaces, I will have all of them come to me. The ability to curate information is a skill critical to not only this process, but education and innovation itself.

Here is a short tutorial to help you with the process.

#InnovatorsMindsetMOOC

#IMMOOC innovation in education Innovative teaching and learning inoreader rss feed the innovator's mindset

Published September 8, 2016 by

The #InnovatorsMindset MOOC Starting Soon! #IMMOOC

Thank you for signing up for “The Innovator’s Mindset” MOOC, happening over a six week period.  We will begin on September 17, 2016 and finish at the end of October (although the learning will continue long after that).  Currently, we are planning some YouTube Live sessions that will happen on the weekends (either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday), but if you miss it, do not worry, as they will all be recorded and posted on the #IMMOOC Blog.  We will talk to diverse educators and hear about their experiences, thoughts on innovation and the book, as well as how they learn, lead and inspire students.  The goal of the MOOC and the book is to not only give practical advice, but to also inspire and develop leadership.

Facilitating this process will be the great Katie Martin (follow her on Twitter at @KatieMTLC) who is a leader in the area of innovation.  Although there will be some great educators to learn from, the point of this process is to amplify YOUR voices. We want our participants to share their learning and connect with this group and other educators.

We invite you to share your learning in a variety of ways:

 

 

We have created these spaces, yet we do not want you to be limited to only these platforms. You are more than welcome to create your own spaces that support the MOOC and your own learning. We want groups developed within the groups that serve your needs. Google Plus groups, Voxer groups, Myspace pages (is that a thing?); whatever works best for you.  We want to inspire you to create, build, learn and innovate within these communities.

Here are the things that we suggest you do to participate:

 

If you have all of these things already, awesome!

Every week there will be some discussion and specific prompts for your deepen your thinking and explore new ideas and opportunities based on topics shared in the book.

So what are the benefits of this?

There are no badges or credit for this program.  This is for your growth and will hopefully help you develop a network of like-minded innovators that can take your learning, teaching and leadership to the next level.  Isn’t that why we are all here? To become better at what we do?

 

Here is the tentative schedule:

Dates Topic
September 17-24 Introduction
September 24-October 1 Part 1: Innovation in Education
October 1 -8 Part 2:  Laying the Groundwork
October 8-15 Part 3: Unleashing Talent
October 15-22 Part 4: Concluding Thoughts
October 22-29 Project Presentations

Each week, we will send out a reminder to participants of when we will have the YouTube Live event, but as stated earlier, you do not have to attend live.

So to get you started before we do anything, here is a quick prompt for you:

Why is “innovation” so crucial in education? What impact do you see it having on our students and ourselves long term?

Share your blogs, podcasts, videos, artwork, whatever, to the hashtag #IMMOOC and the Facebook group, as well as any other community spaces.

Thank you for your participation! If you have any ideas or suggestions, please write them in the comments of this blog post.

We look forward to having you join us!

(P.S. If you are reading this blog and haven’t signed up for this yet, please do so here.)

#InnovatorsMindsetMOOC

#IMMOOC Innovator's Mindset katie martin professional learning opportunity

Published July 24, 2016 by

“The Innovator’s Mindset” MOOC (September 2016) #IMMooc

This is an idea that I have been passing around in my head…One of my goals is to develop “The Innovator’s Mindset” as the norm in our schools, but that can mean different things to different people.  By bringing people together, pushing our thinking, and creating something with what we learn, I hope that this is a chance for people to go “beyond the book”.  

Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 1.26.50 PM

The #InnovatorsMindsetMOOC (Coming September 2016)

This is a rough draft of a project that I want to run starting in the middle of September.  This would be centred around the book, “The Innovator’s Mindset”, but would go beyond simply a book study.  The hope of this project is the following:

  • Help to further innovation and the notion of “The Innovator’s Mindset” in schools across the world.
  • Build a global community that can support the pursuit of innovation in education.
  • Encourage participants to go beyond reading the book, and creating something because of it.
  • Develop communities within your own school

Initial Plan

The initial plan is to have a weekly Google Hangout that will be available both live and after the fact, with different guests to discuss “innovation in education”, while also taking participant questions.  During each week, participants would be encouraged to blog their own reflection either using prompts that are provided, or going into their own spaces.  This creates a great opportunity for people to share their own reflections in different formats.  Always wanted to create a blog? This is the time.  Want to start a YouTube channel or podcast?  Here is a great opportunity to not only create it, but share it with a global audience.

At the end of the time of the project, participants will be encouraged to share some type of final “project” or “reflection” based on something that they have done because of the book.  These will be collected and shared with others as well.

Spaces Used

A Facebook group, Twitter hashtag (used for a slow chat), will be spaces that will be led by the moderators.  Other spaces can be developed and shared by participants (Voxer groups, Google Plus Communities, etc.) to use that are most beneficial to their own learning, but we still want to develop the initial spaces.

Dates:

Dates Topic
September 17-24 Introduction
September 24-October 1 Part 1: Innovation in Education
October 1 -8 Part 2:  Laying the Groundwork
October 8-15 Part 3: Unleashing Talent
October 15-22 Part 4: Concluding Thoughts
October 22-29 Project Presentation

What you will need to participate:

  1. A copy of the book.
  2. A blog or space to share longer thoughts.  This could be, but not limited to, a YouTube Channel, collection of Google Docs, Medium Page.
  3. Suggested that you can connect on both Facebook or Twitter, although one is sufficient if it becomes overwhelming.

Sign-Up

As this idea is still in “beta”, I am interested in how many people would be interested in signing up, and where you are from.  The hope is to make this a truly global opportunity.  

If interested, please sign up here, and we will send an email notification when the group is officially about to begin.

Moving Forward

Participants are encouraged to share with administrators and colleagues in order to aid in creating innovative environments within their own schools.  This can help in creating a space both online and offline to further discussions within your own context.

The more of the opportunity that participants get to connect both globally and locally, the more beneficial it is for our students.

Thanks for your interest! The document is open to comments so please feel free to add any suggestions to make this a great experience for yourself and others.

#InnovatorsMindsetMOOC

#InnovatorsMindsetMOOC Innovative teaching and learning Innovator's Mindset