Secret Ways : Character Building

I'm curled up on the couch by my sliding glass doors watching a rainy snowy mix fall to the ground.  I pull my blanket a little more tightly around me as the wind outside whistles.  This is the perfect day to play on the playground.

What???

Have I gone crazy?

This is the perfect day to play on, not any playground but, the Digital Maker Playground.  The playground opens January 19th and we're hoping you'll join us.  The Digital Maker Playground isn't your typical professional development opportunity.  Instead it is a place where learners join together from around the globe virtually to consider, and work through, the new possibilities in literacy thanks to digital spaces.  This opportunity allows you to work from wherever you'd like, in times that work best for your schedule, while still connecting with others around a common goal.

Last year, as we explored digital tools, this virtual space hosted learners from around the world.  Our community includes members from states such as Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine and Wisconsin.  We were fortunate to have friends join us from Australia as well.  The playground is open to members around the world.

Our Focus:  Reader Response
This year, I'm once again hosting the Digital Maker Playground (#P2Lmooc) with Julie Johnson.  Our focus on the Digital Maker Playground will be around reader response.  We're looking forward to digging into reader response to deepen our understanding and open our eyes to new possibilities for our students.  It seems reading used to be an act of solitude, but digital tools and spaces have opened new possibilities for readers to extend their thinking beyond the text and connect with other readers.

There are four makes in this year's session, followed by time for reflection on reader response.  There is roughly two weeks between each make.  A focus will be selected for each make and community members will be asked to play around and respond digitally to a text.  Participants will have about two weeks to complete each make.  All digital artifacts will be shared in the Google community.

You Might Want to Know:

• To begin Join the Digital Maker Playground
• Our first make will be announced Saturday morning, January 16th (to be completed by 2/2). 
• An optional live workshop is offered for local participants (see Smore).
• Follow the #P2Lmooc hashtag on Twitter (@jreaderwriter and @cathymere)

We hope to see you on the playground!

*Hilliard City School educators can receive credit for this course.  Sign in on PD Express.  If you have questions, please contact Julie or me.  

I'm kind of excited because in just ten days the internet will be buzzing about books - picture books!  Yes, Monday, August 10th will be our annual Picture Book 10 for 10 event (#pb10for10).  Educators, librarians, parents, and picture book lovers from around the globe will be sharing their favorite ten picture books.

Six years ago, Mandy Robek and I were discussing the "must have" books for our classroom libraries.  We began to wonder which books other teachers just had to have on their shelves.  We decided we'd ask everyone and Picture Book 10 for 10 was born.  Since that time the event has grown.  The Picture Book 10 for 10 Community now hosts over one hundred members.  This year will be our first year to host the August event from our Google Community since Jog the Web shut down making it impossible to curate from there.  (Our February Nonfiction Picture Book 10 for 10 was hosted in the Google Community.)

Of course, I can't wait to see everyone's selections.  Many participants have already been talking about their lists, and I look forward to seeing their favorites or the interesting themes they've chosen to share this year.  It's going to be great!  Tell your friends and get ready to join the fun.

If you're new to the event, we're glad you will be joining us.

Here's how you can participate:

1. Grab a Badge (just copy the URL address of the one above or take a screenshot)
2. Join the #pb10for10 Google Community
3. Choose Your Favorites:  All you need to do is choose ten picture books you cannot live without for whatever reason.  In the first days of this event, everyone shared their ten very favorite titles.  This still works.  You will notice, however, that many past participants choose some type of theme to determine their selections.  We'll leave this up to you.
4. Narrow Your List to Ten:  It isn't easy, is it?  We've seen some crafty ways to get around that number.  
5. Write Your August 10th Post:  Write a post about the ten books you cannot live without.  Share your post on August 10th and link it to the Picture Book 10 for 10 Community.  
6. No Blog?  No Problem:  If you don't have a blog, this might be the perfect time to start one --- or there are a million digital ways to join (see post below).  Of course, now with the Google Community it is quite easy to just post your favorites directly into the community without a blog.  We will also be tweeting from the #pb10for10 hashtag.    
7. Comment:  On August 10th (and maybe for a week --- there are a lot of posts) take some time to read posts from other participants.  Please comment on at least three. 

It's time!  Pull out your library cards, load up your Amazon accounts, or better yet - plan a trip to your local bookstore on August 11th because you're going to be unable to resist checking out (or purchasing) a few new picture books.  We hope to see you on the 10th!

Related Posts:

• Mandy's Picture Book 10 for 10 Announcement
• Choosing Picture Books
• So You Don't Have a Blog:  10 Ways to Still Join #pb10for10 Event (now add direct posting to Google Community...let me +1 that...ha ha)
• Nerdy Book Club:  Picture Book Addict?  Join Us 
• Can You Help?  Rebuilding Our Picture Book 10 for 10 Archives  A must read for past participants
• Find out about our Nonfiction Picture Book Event (each February)

Digital tools have opened new possibilities for learning and collaboration.  A variety of sites have made it possible to host spaces to learn together.  There are blogs, blog roundups, wikis and websites to link communities.  Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook allow for conversation, sharing, and collaboration.  In the past, I would have told you I do most of my learning, sharing, and collaborating on Twitter, but more and more I am finding my favorite digital collaborative learning space is Google Plus.

I've never been one to post a lot on Google Plus which seems like a collision of Facebook and Twitter.  In the last year, however, I've been working more and more in Google Communities.  I have come to find Google Communities to be one of the best spaces to grow collaborative communities around common goals.

Google Communities allow you to bring a group together publicly or privately.  You then write a description, create your home, invite members, and you're ready to go.  Within a Google Community you can create subtopics to keep your conversations organized.  Participants can post using more than 140 characters (an advantage over Twitter) and add links, images, video, etc. to their posts.  The posts then stay connected in one space making them easy to read and discuss.  Participants can then comment directly under the post which helps to keep ideas tied together.



I have found Google Communities to work for local groups collaborating.  How often do you leave a meeting and have something you'd like to add or ask about a topic of discussion?  How often are you working on a project and locate links the connect to the work your group is doing?  Google Communities allow you to keep the conversation going.  As educators, Google Communities work for professional book talks, bringing buildings together, helping leaders who work together even though they may be spread across locations, and supporting groups collaborating toward a common goal.  They add the convenience of allowing participants to work around the challenge of finding common time, and instead joining the conversation as their lives allow.

While I have found Google Communities to be a great space to build local conversations, they also open the door to collaborating with others interested in the same topic from around the world.  Recently, Julie Johnson and I opened a "digital playground" community for some professional development we were hosting within our school district around digital making and growing our digital literacy understanding.  We opened the "playground" up to others around the world.  Our group grew to include participants from other timezones and countries.  We all benefited from the variety of learners and expertise in our digital community.  I participate in communities like the CLMOOC where educators from around the world collaborate around an idea, and host communities with participants from a variety of timezones talking about ideas in which we have mutual interest like #pb10for10 (Picture Book 10 for 10 Community with picture book celebrations) and #cyberPD (annual summer book talk).

A Google Community isn't perfect.  There can be challenges in following conversations, keeping up with posts, and finding important links.  It seems that having a page to host links and more static information in an organized manner would be helpful.  Hosting pages within Google Communities might accomplish some of these goals (as far as I know, at this time Google Sites cannot be hosted within a community though a link could be added).  However, for me, Google Communities still seems the smartest space to work and collaborate digitally.