I recently read Bill Buxton's article on How To Keep Innovating and came away enthused and refreshed. I won't summarize the whole article here, but two big things I came away with was Life is too short to waste on bad teachers and inefficient learning, and Always be bad at something you are passionate about.
I love the idea that life is too short to be inundated with bad teaching and this isn't a critique of teachers in general, but more of learning styles and immediate needs. If I can learn something form someone then it would benefit me to absorb as much as I can from them, but if that learning is coming at me in convoluted and inefficient ways I need to seek out a better source and not be afraid to ask. I'm in the minority on this one, but I don't want 500 followers on twitter or to follow 500 people, so I sought out advice (or teaching) from someone with 2500 followers Alec Couros, and asked "what's up, am I crazy?" I didn't expect to hear back immediately or maybe even at all, but when I did I was glad I asked and I appreciated the information, the answer was not whatI expected, but it gave me insight and perspective when I needed it. This is what learning is to me, seek out the advice or information form a source you deem credible and absorb the knowledge gained. Even if that knowledge is from a source that you don't think has the time, energy or resources to help, try, you may be surprised with the result. People in general want to help This was a tiny example but it spoke to me.
I also took something away from always be bad at something you're passionate about and golf is a great example of this, no matter how awful I am, there I am in April hacking away and setting unrealistic goals of just how good I'm going to get this summer. :) I think teaching can be like this in some ways, whether it's tweaking my Lit block to try something that feels foreign and awkward or if it's learning new programming or HTML tips and codes. I want to be good and i have a passion for it, so =my learning curve is more tolerable. :)
1 comment:
# of followers is certainly a personal choice, and really relates to how one uses Twitter for their teaching and learning. Perhaps if our roles were reversed, we'd use Twitter differently. I think it has much to do with time, lifestyle, career, etc.
Thanks for the mention, always great to connect.
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