Illya said that Patricia had suggested she post some of the questions from her blog to the YG so everyone could join in the discussion.

Her questions are:

  1. How much of the wheel will need re-inventing? Is teaching for the 21st
    century different than teaching before? Will we need to teach different skills?
    Will the others prevail?
  2. How will we overcome the great fear we encounter when we try to get others to
    see that the world and the way our kids get information is changing? (is it
    really changing?)
  3. Any more questions out there? Are there any answers?

Illya says “ I perhaps focus on teaching because learning is so vague – we really don’t know how and why certain things are learned and others are not. Maybe learning will also change.”

I have to admit that I was intrigued first by the questions (but didn’t have time to answer immediately) and secondly and more importantly I was intrigued to see these questions posted on our YG discussion list (prompted by moderator). This was a clear move away from the open aggregated space we have spent a few weeks setting up and back to the
closed forum type style of a yahoo group.(the somewhat different style of this
EVO session apparent to us all)

But before I had time to write to find out why or if there was indeed a reason, Bee stepped in with “Patricia and Illya, Thanks for putting up the questions. I think they are an excellent topic for discussion. However, there are also a number of readings to do and questions we have asked you to consider and reflect on for this week before you move into podcasting next week.”

I completely agree that this and all EVO sessions have to be carefully moderated and it’s up to Bee, Patricia, Graham, Nick etc to steer the dialogue and ensure participants aren’t overwhelmed. I take this opportunity to raise my hat to you all. I know (first hand) what sort of demands it takes and you are not only extremely committed and helpful but
such rich and wonderful people.

I was just a little puzzled by this “stalling” of the flow of ideas. OK it’s week 3 and slow time, open space and food for thought.

I must admit that I am behind with reading too, too busy comparing public OPMLing features and obviously like everyone tied up with f2f work – university end of semester
exams, so maybe all will be revealed soon when I finish my “homework” but in the meantime can I ask:

  • Can we reply to Illya?
  • Should we record our ideas in audio format?
  • Or add just add text comments to Illya’s
    blog if we feel that’s appropriate?
  • or Send a message to here
  • or just simply wait …..
  • will everyone be able to male the synchronous session?

On the subject of OPEN and CLOSED from last week and moving on to teaching styles this week I thought this illustrated a point and carries on from my own notes over the past few days?

  • How does the flow of information change?
  • Just how much of a group is created between commenters and how much overlap is
    there of generating similar info?

I can see in these few weeks there are central strands and a lot of experiential staged
learning. But if we are coming or were sort of prompted to come together to discuss main issues on the YG instead of (or as well as) on our blogs was this to draw more participants in?

  • Would Illya’s questions sparked discussions elsewhere?
  • Would that have been more dispersive but less intrusive?

We are all teachers and quite involved (time permitting) but with learners this is a real big issue.

  • Were we cleverly slowed by Bee in order for discussion to be deeper and
    more participative later?
  • Will this alienate some learning styles but guarantee
    that “lurkers” and “late comers” have a chance to come forward?

My personal feeling is that the range of tools for this EVO session are well thought out. Moderation communication on chat schedules, welcome messages is well served by YG, for a bank of easily accessible and updatable resources the wiki is great and for the creation of individual but connected and developing ideas and discussions our aggregated
blogs are wonderful.

So I would suggest I feel we should psot our responses direct to our own blogs or as comments to others’, to say in this case Illya’s great set of questions direct to her blog (as some have already) and those who are not ready to take part catch up later when they are. Is that what we are “supposed” to be doing? This is what I would encourage with learners so that those personal spaces can grow with a little moderator watering but without drying out the flow of ideas because there are other tasks to be achieved, or have I missed a point here?

Valentina

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