Learning Conversations

In my earlier post this week I introduced Jo, a hypothetical (honest!) Primary Music advisor. We saw how she decided that a blog was probably going to be the best way to extend the reach of the CPD that she offers - both geographically and temporally.

She's been through the discussion with her manager, who has accepted that a personal blog space, under Jo's control, and outside of the Local Authority's network, would be the best way of letting this happen quickly. But Jo was asked to put on the usual disclaimer, seen on many blogs of this sort: "All of the opinions expressed in this blog are mine and are not the opinion of my employer, Middleshire County Council."

One of the blogs Jo used to persuade her manager that this way forward was going to work was Ian Usher's "Changing the Game". Which, although focussed on an ICT-related topic, offered exact parallels to the sort of thing she was hoping to achieve:

• the dissemination of good ideas from around the authority (NB. for USA readers, a Local Authority is similar to a school district - although it has responsibilities far wider than just schools);
• the dissemination of good ideas and resources brought to Jo's attention from across the Primary Music spectrum
• modelling reflective practice - based on principles of Action Research;
• linking up networks of primary music coordinators and other teachers to explore how music, as part of a "creative curriculum" could enhance basic skills.

As you can see, Jo has big ideas, but she decided to start small. Over on another part of the Learning Conversations site, you can see what her blog might look like. (Please note this is not a real blog!)

Every time she leads a workshop with her colleagues she gives out her blog address as the place to go to keep in touch with developments. (This is used in parallel with the Authority's closed learning platform, where all notes from workshops are placed - in a similar way to Ewan MacIntosh's model for designing training events.)

Once or twice a week, sometimes more often, sometimes less, Jo adds a post to her blog which highlights something special or interesting that she's seen in her travels around the authority.

She also posts briefly about new resources that she's come across. She doesn't have to be online to do this, as her blog is set up so she can post by email, so she can do it offline. One day she'll work out how to do it from her mobile phone but that's for another day...

It's a lot to expect teachers to remember (or even want) to go to your particular web page every day just to see if there's anything new. So Jo also encourages her colleagues to make use of RSS readers so they don't have to. Using an RSS reader as their homepage means they can quickly catch up with new posts from as wide a range of RSS feeds as they want - a bit like a personalised newspaper.