My Edublog Challenge
As soon as I saw my colleague/friends’ Edublogs, I thought, “I want this!”
I signed up and started in…trying to begin my Edublog. Well, it wasn’t quite as intuitive, FOR ME, as I thought and others had described.
At first, I thought, “OK! I can do this!” I write several other blogs, develop databases, transform images, etc ,so I should be able to get a handle on this blog.
After a few weeks of searching, reading and following directions, I decided that I must be doing something wrong. I decided to let the information dump begin, as I made all the Edublog information become part of my long term memory. I took time away from the whole process.
On the surface, my Edublog pool (blog) probably looked very still. That stillness most likely made it SEEM that I was not participating in Edublogs, yet I was still reading, looking and refining my search parameters. All in a conscious effort to bring my mind closer to finding the right information. The information I needed to perform seemingly simple tasks on Edublogs.
My take-away lesson in this struggle to learn, even when no one in my “World of Matter” is motivated to discover, is that I have to learn to float, before I can learn to swim. If I don’t, I might start flailing about in a most unbecoming manner, so to float is to relax, allow the opportunity to learn flow over me. There is no such thing as right or wrong in my Personal Learning Network, and time is definitely relative.
These lessons have been reassuring and a bit intimidating. On the one hand, I have been happily enlarging and enhancing my Personal Learning Network, yet on the other hand, I often find myself in a quagmire trying to find a long stick or vine to pull myself out on my own.
Why is that? Well, mostly because I am very private, yet I am also very social. I am a teacher. As long as I am teaching (helping others learn) I achieve my purpose. On the other hand, I am a teacher, so not being able to solve my own problems (in public) is sometimes difficult to accept. I am working on that!
Happily and thankfully, I have learned that I am not alone in choosing this “Pull Yourself Up by the Bootsraps” approach to learning that teachers sometimes acquire. Really, it is quite paradoxical.
Most teachers would cross a desert to help someone who needs information or knowledge, yet we forget (or are forced to hide) that feeling of vulnerability that sometimes comes with the act of “asking for help”.
Needing or accepting help from a teacher [insert any other person who shares knowledge: parent, boss, friend, etc.] can be an overwhelming, yet here I am…writing my first real Edublog entry. Discovering and remembering tips that my friend/colleagues have told me to enhance my blogging opportunities and experiences.
How about you? What do you think about this paradox of teacher as teacher yet student?
