From April 2009 to March 2010

Below is a complete Table of Contents for all my ‘Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’ blog entries
from April 2009, at the bottom, to March 2010, at the top.
Please visit my blog home page to see up-to-date posts: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com

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Wow- 4 years! At the time of publishing this: 171 Post (including this one), 627 Comments (since moving my blog to davidtruss.com 2 years ago), 736 RSS Subscribers, and over 28,000 Visits (in my 4th year).

My Pairadimes ClustrMap

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Shifting Learning

Here are 4 trends that education is moving towards: Greater Transparency, greater Responsibility, greater Individualization and greater Permanence.

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The Role of a Principal

(You probably won’t find these in a job description, though you should!)

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Product You

It’s nothing new that we are the targets of advertising. And it’s nothing new that advertisers are getting better at targeting us. But…

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Teachers as Lead Learners

I think that if a teacher goes into a class believing first and foremost that they are ‘model learners’ and that they will learn with their students, then that teacher will create a meaningful and engaging learning environment for their students.

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Warning! We Filter Websites at School

If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance…

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Google Buzz and George Costanza – Worlds Collide

…there is nothing in my Facebook profile that I am ashamed of or that I wouldn’t want others to see, but I talk differently there to my family and friends than I do on other networks. I tend to share my blog everywhere and so that too has a different voice than with other tools in other contexts.

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The Trap

In the last two Pro-D sessions that I ran, I provided ‘play time’ in the agenda. I also provided choice: “Here are a few different resources that you might find useful. Go to one of them now, ’start’ you learning here, use me as a resource too.”

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Olympic and Blogging Fever

…as we encourage students to blog and connect online it is important for us to not just encourage but also to support these endeavors! One of the key things that makes blogging an effective learning tool is that it gives students a legitimate audience.

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Augmented Identity

… seeing someone’s Learning Resources and connecting to their Learning Environments… instantaneously… that’s something that can be very exciting for education!

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Broken Presentations and Broken Photocopiers

There were a lot of reasons to roll my eyes and complain. There were a lot reasons to let frustration prevail… and there was an opportunity for me to model for everyone that it really isn’t about the technology.

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T’was two nights after Christmas… A story of lost innocence

It was only two nights after Christmas and both kids were tucked away in bed. Then the older of the two came from her bedroom and, doing all that she could to contain her tears, she sat on her mother’s lap…

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 Holiday-Christmas-Concert

We called it our Holiday Concert, but in hindsight it was just a Christmas Concert. It wasn’t intentional, it was unintentional bias, but all of the songs performed were either Christmas songs, or songs that we tend to associate with Christmas.

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 Nominations, Appreciation and Inquiry

This year I have been honoured with nominations in two categories for the 6th Annual Edublog Awards… to be placed in categories with bloggers and friends that I both admire and respect is wonderful.

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 Shifting Education

To the unshifted: Shift or retire… regardless of your age and number of years experience. We have the means to teach differently, now! It doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts today.

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Convergence, Cofino and a Connected World

As someone living in Asia now, Kim’s metaphors in Part 1 really hit a chord with me… Kim states,“We have to find ways of more nimbly, realistically and effectively adapting to the new status quo.”

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My 2009 Edublog Awards Nominations

I would like to thank the following people for contributing so much to my learning. I’m only nominating in categories where the impact has been powerful and potent.

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moments

How would you define a moment?… I love it when teachers take a resource like this and make it meaningful to the classroom.

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Cassie and Katie have blogs

I’ve added clustermaps and feedjit traffic feed information to their blog sidebars because I think an authentic global audience does a lot to maintain interest in blogging, as does getting comments and feedback.

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Caring across the curriculum

Sometimes I get tired of seeing the school day broken into subject-matter based courses. We don’t teach subjects we teach students, and students of all ages engage in a real life that matters across individual fields of study.

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Facebook Revisited

So yes, to answer your question, I do have students as friends on Facebook. Here are my self-designated rules…

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Openness and Acceptance, Mr Deng and his Allegories of Windows, Flies and Coloured Cats

This marked the first step in China opening many windows and doors to the outside world. Yes, with the fresh air, some flies will follow, but China has become a world economical powerhouse because of it’s choice to ‘open the windows’.

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Blogs as Learning Spaces

…the idea of a blog being a ‘learning space’ came up both when talking about my own blog and when I spoke of the classroom and what technology could do to expand the classroom space.

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I think schools have become a bit too bubble wrapped too. We protect the kids from impending harm, bubble wrapping their learning. However I think sometimes we harm them in our attempt to keep them safe.

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Variable Flow

As I say in my ‘POD’s are Coming’ presentation, ‘Filters filter learning’ and I’m finding the lack of information flow rather challenging to deal with.

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…Perhaps I might have let persistence cloud my powers of observation, and I could have learned this lesson sooner.

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A letter to friends

I remember reading once that we, as human beings, have two consistent social difficulties, saying ‘hello’ and saying ‘goodbye’.

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The POD’s are Coming! BLC09

This is a story I think all educators need to hear. The question I wonder is, ‘Am I telling it in a way that they will listen?’

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 The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant- On SlideShare

“I can do that without technology” -Actually no you can’t!

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Learning in Louisiana

When introducing ‘new’ tools to teachers what’s the right mix of breadth and depth? How much should we expose teachers to at one time? And how deep should we get with a single tool, a tool that may or may not interest all of the participants?

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 “Chasing the A”

I think that the ‘missing piece’ when it comes to education today, is that it tries to fill us with important things rather than make us feel important and valued… it feeds us content, but doesn’t leave us contented in any meaningful way.

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Collaboration, Contributors and a Comment on Classroom2.0

I think most of these ‘digital natives’ we talk about are very good at connecting to socialize and communicate with their peers, but not to collaborate and learn.

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The Road Less Traveled

Sometimes you can’t just take baby steps, and you’ve got to commit fully to experience something… I’m leaving my job, my home, and my country.

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Hargreaves and the 4th Way [Part 2]

Professionals acting responsibly and holding themselves, and others, accountable in the interest of teaching and learning.

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Black and White Education

How many channels of information do our students experience outside of our classes? How many in our classes?

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A Gr8Tweet-ing Experience

Educators new to twitter, here is a little walk down memory lane… Remember that it takes work and effort to build a meaningful community of friends.

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