Nocking the Arrow

Did you know  General Mills , as part of a contest, is giving away 10,000 boxes of Lucky Charms? Marshmallows only ! My middle-aged common sense says I need to resist this temptation, but a little space deep in my reptilian brain is screaming, " Gotta have it! " Some of you may have noticed my posts have become a bit infrequent. Where are my words going? Where am I sharing perspective? Where am I asking profound questions?  I have been spending more time in the comments section of your blogs. You may be asking, " what's Schuetz's angle here? " If you believe in the theory and math behind Reed's Law , (  2 N  −  N  − 1 ) then y ou know that the potential utility of social networks depends on all members contributing to the network. As Dean Shareski says, "It's about the sharing." Those who have mapped their web usage, inspired by David White , know resident behavior in digital places is based on interaction and deeper levels...

How old do you have to be to have a " Domain of One's Own "? This was the intriguing question that awaited me on Twitter when I woke up early Saturday morning. Appreciation to Aaron Davis for including me in the conversation. He knows me well enough to know that I would jump on the " open for all " cookie. Truthfully, this question presents a significant dilemma for me. On the one hand, I have personally experienced the tremendous learning advantages to building a functional presence within one's own web domain. On the contrary, much to the chagrin of some of my PLN mates, I've seen the benefits a learning management system can provide in helping learners gain confidence and competence with their online experiences. Domain of One's Own - an open, user-created space on the web for documenting, interacting, sharing, and learning.  Originating at the University of Mary Washington , the initiative helps students and faculty register a domain name...

"Students who are encouraged to think about grades, stickers, or other “goodies” become less inclined to explore ideas, think creatively, and take chances." - Alfie Kohn Earlier this year, after reading Scott McLeod's alert , I wrote about Gallup's report indicating students become less engaged in school as they advance through their program. David Perkins says this decline in student engagement is the result of a relevancy gap , a difference between our prescribed curriculum and learning experiences that offer a significant " life-worthy " return for students. Later, I asked David White if guiding students towards greater digital residency , in other words, providing more opportunities for interactive digital learning, would increase student engagement.  David said, " There is ongoing research based on this premise, but any conclusions should include sound pedagogical practice. " As someone who always enjoys learning, and usually enjoye...

Should current students learn how to use email?   As someone who celebrates a clean email inbox about once every five years, I found it interesting that the topic of student email usage was on the agenda of our recent high school leadership meeting. The focus of this brief conversation concentrated on these questions. How can we get students to utilize their school email account better?  Should we be teaching students how to communicate with email? When and where should email usage skills be taught?  Who's responsibility is this? Why do we want kids to check their email? Those around the conference room table agreed with the importance of students checking their email to stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities. Others mentioned it as being an important part of "digital executive functioning." Time was running short when someone said, " Kids don't use email. " This brief statement sent my mind scurrying in several simultaneo...

When venturing out to world wide web, do we view the various landing points as tools or places ?   Many people consider Google search as a tool, but Twitter as a place. The key difference being we typically associate places as locations of social interaction and contribution. We establish residency by leaving traces of our identity behind as we move point to point. The longer we stay, and the more we engage with others, the further we move away from the visitor role towards residency. A few months ago, I wrote about mapping  Internet usage based on the research of White and Le Cornu . I found this mapping activity to be personally enlightening, and it also helped me have focused conversations about the places our learners are most likely to interact and share. Dave White explains visitors and residents are not separate classifications but rest on a continuum to help explain how people use the web and where places of engagement are likely to occur. The Internet mapping e...

"Using visitors and residents as a lens can help reveal underlying approaches and attitudes, which in turn, can help us support and engage the people we work with." - Dave White Recently, I have been thinking about learning places, not only physical spaces, like our schools and classrooms, but also digital places like Google and Twitter . Seemingly continents adrift, I find myself asking, what is the proper  coalescence of virtual and physical spaces for engaging modern learners? Marc Prensky contends digital natives , those born after 1980, speak a different language, meaning they learn differently than digital immigrants because of technological immersion since birth. His recommendation, published in 2001, is for educators to learn the language of this century by listening to, and understanding, the native dialect. The digital native versus digital immigrant narrative became a favorite topic of debate for the next decade. However, the explosion of social medi...