{"id":1007,"date":"2013-04-01T20:39:41","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T03:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=1007"},"modified":"2013-04-01T20:39:41","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T03:39:41","slug":"no-barriers-to-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/?p=1007","title":{"rendered":"No Barriers to Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This was an exercise in unexpected frustration. I understand the word barrier in a new way. For those of you that follow my blog regularly, you might remember that last year at spring break I engaged in a co-blogging experiment with my grade 8 son (see here<\/a>). At that time, he was using very little technology at school. The students in my district seemed to have more opportunities and diverse ways to express their learning than my own children. Co-blogging was a way to expose my son to doing things differently and digitally. It was interesting for both of us. We decided to do it again (yes, with a little encouragement from mom).<\/p>\n

This time, however, our blogging exercise almost fell off the rails. Why? Simply put– lousy, unreliable, unpredictable and s*l*o*w wireless.\u00a0 Clearly, the motel had insufficient bandwidth; too many people with too many devices trying to get on in the evening. (There will be no confession here of the number of devices my family of six had employed). There is nothing like that to dampen one\u2019s enthusiasm. Creativity, interest, and motivation\u2014they disappear pretty fast. \u201cMom, it\u2019s not working again. Mom, it\u2019s too slow.\u201d\u00a0 We became wireless freeloaders trying to jump the track on any local wireless we could find.\u00a0 I felt like a hobo tramp trying to ride the rails. Unfortunately, there weren\u2019t enough freight trains around. And frankly, I was looking for a Japanese bullet train<\/a> \"\"<\/a>. At one point, we were up-to-date on our entries but couldn\u2019t get on seamlessly or consistently or when we needed to upload them.\u00a0 Then we would quit. Not much else we could do. And then we got behind. And it piled up. And it felt more like a chore. And when we wanted to play, to fiddle with design, to learn something new, we just received the dreaded \u201cspinning wheel of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year my son was fascinated by the stats on the back of the blog. He could monitor who was reading it, from what country and what particular type of device they were using. He was entertained by the experience. There were a few colleagues that commented and he tracked that as well. However, this year, there was none of that stimulating feedback, as we simply could not get things done on-line.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The deed is done. We have a record of our adventure, Spring break 2013: Slot Canyons, Slickrock and Arches<\/a> . We finally finished but we didn\u2019t post it daily, simultaneously, to share with family and friends as we had hoped. My parents, armchair travellers, haven\u2019t vicariously travelled the trip with us. They will, however, have it now. \u00a0And because they are our cheerleaders, it will absolutely thrill them to share our world.<\/p>\n

When one writes and shares it publicly, it is about opening one\u2019s life and being to others. There is both vulnerability and connection is doing so. It is both the risk and power of social media. We can use technology to make us human, to make us real, to make us vulnerable, to make us known, and make us understood.<\/p>\n

Some things we take for granted. I am fortunate at home and at work. I can access Web 2.0 tools whenever I want. That\u2019s what I want for my own children. That\u2019s what I want for the teachers and students in my district. No technological barriers to learning. No unexpected frustrations but endless opportunities to be digitally engaged in learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was an exercise in unexpected frustration. I understand the word barrier in a new way. For those of you that follow my blog regularly, you might remember that last year at spring break I engaged in a co-blogging experiment with my grade 8 son (see here). At that time, he was using very little…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovativelearningdesigns.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}