I mentioned in the last blog post that we’re looking to expand our VC support activities to include a greater emphasis on class-to-class collaborations. Janine Lim wrote a great blog post about the types of interactions that can take place through VC as she updates her Project Booklet. As the VC Regional Leads Network looks for specific class-to-class collaborations to support next year, drawing upon this lived experience of experts like Janine and Roxanne is a no-brainer.

For me though, if I want to truly make personal sense of where we’re going and why we’re going there, I’ve got to start by focusing on my beliefs and understandings of:

  • How people learn
  • How people are engaged
  • How people are motivated
One of the best self-learning activities I have experienced related to a video podcast episode I created on another blog (that I desperately need to re-invigorate) a couple years ago.  I think I need to revisit that episode and watch it again to remind myself about various learning theories I subscribe to.

In terms of engagement and motivation as well as learning, likely the single most influential piece of writing I’ve ever read on this came from Kathy Sierra’s blog in a post called, “A Crash Course on Learning Theory“.
2Learn.ca, the organization that I work for which manages the VC Regional Leads Network, has a long history of leading and supporting telecollaborative projects with K-12 teachers, largely based on the work of Dr. Judy Harris.  As part of the Ambassador Project, Catherine Macklam (2Learn.ca Provincial Team Leader) expanded the work of Dr. Harris to include telecollaborative activities that can take place using VC.  Here is the list of activity structures which I also need to examine as we move forward with our plans for next year.
Finally, based on Janine’s recent posts about Marzano I ordered 2 copies of the book – one for myself/ourselves at the VCRLN and one to give away as a prize at our June 5 VCRLN Provincial In-Service.  I can’t wait to read this book as well as re-read Janine’s blog posts which connect this book’s ideas to VC collaborative projects.
Does anyone else out there have any recommendations of great resources of any kind which focus on learning, engagement, and/or motivation?  It seems to me the logical place to start as far as deciding on the types of class-to-class collaborations to offer next year.