Going to try something a little different today. Going to read a book. Hey, wait; that’s not the different thing! No, I’m going to take a few notes as I go – something I regularly do when reading a text to which I might wish to refer as part of my Masters studies. Here’s the ‘but’ though; whereas I would normally make those notes in Zotero, which is the application I use for recording citations/references, today I’m going to use Twitter. The book is Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.
I guess the first question is ‘why would you want to do that?’ Well as far as I’m aware, it’s not something that’s been tried before . . . at least not for a whole book (I’m going to try to read the whole book today) . . . and I do like to explore different things. By using a hashtag
(#hhjc21), I can retrieve all the notes later and maybe, just maybe, there might be a comment or two from the good folks of Twitter who might have a question or comment or two. So there’s a chance at least, that my understanding of what I’m reading could be reshaped by the observations of others . . . and that’s not something you’re likely to get if reading in isolation.
It should be an interesting experience if nothing else and perhaps worthy of a full blog post subsequently – I’ll let you know how it goes.
Had some building work done today by an excellent plasterer and his apprentice, a young lad not long out of school. Now I realise I am about to make a HUGE assumption, but given 20 years of experience teaching lads like him, I’m going to stick my neck and say he probably didn’t leave with a sheaf of paper qualifications. He did a grand job here though, was assembling a useful skill set with the support of his mentor and clearly had the wherewithall to make it his trade if he wished.
I was out in the garden fixing the bike and as we nattered over a cuppa, he commented on the potatoes growing in the veg patch. This was an opening to a completely unexpected topic (and here I risk stereotyping once more!) – Bonsai. He was clearly passionate about his hobby and had developed a wealth of knowledge which he was keen to share. He was currently striving to master ‘grafting,’ by all accounts well beyond beginner level. And what was his knowledge base for acquiring this skill? Youtube!
Just wondered to what extent having access to a resource which is a. easily accessible, b. capable of vivid demonstrations of practical techniques, c. carries no ‘stigma’ of being uncool, had in fostering this rather unusual pastime, for an 18/19 year old lad.
An adjunct to "In the pICTure," these posts have a more practical flavour
Practically In the pICTure 