Communities

A good friend, Donna Rawlins Sharpe, who lives here in Sackville, is heading to Toronto to exhibit her art. If you happen to be in the big city then check out Donna’s work at the Rosedale Church Gallery on 159 Roxborough Drive, Toronto, Ontario (phone 416-924-0725). The exhibition will be from January 18th to February 26th.

Donna’s work is influenced by the many years she spent in Japan:

In Japan, it is the little things that are cherished for their beauty. A colourful flower, a simple bowl, a sunlit corner of a tatami-matted room or a ripe piece of fruit help to provide peace of mind and serenity from the frantic pace of everyday living. At present, I am interested in combining elements of both Japanese and Western art, particularly in still life – looking carefully at composition and colour in appreciation of the small but beautiful things that we may see everyday but take for granted. My works are assemblages, either of drawings or prints (linocuts or woodcuts), or a combination of the two, with a wide variety of techniques and types of paper.

One objective of our Commons is to provide a venue for artists who are moving between phases in their artistic life. The Commons can be a communal space for artists and entrepreneurs who need something more than the kitchen table but are not yet ready for their own studio. More established artists like Donna could be teachers and mentors and the Commons would provide the physical space for learning together. Hopefully, 2007 will be the year that we start building.

This year saw blogging enter the mainstream and I’ve noticed that I no longer have to explain it to most people. I changed platforms (from Drupal to WordPress), which has made comment spam management much easier. There is no doubt that e-mail spam is a major problem today and now comment & trackback spam have claimed their places of infamy (as much as 93%) on Web 2.0.

The good news is that blogs are frequently cited in the mass media. The bad news is that most teachers in our area don’t have a clue about blogs, the two-way web or how to incorporate these into their teaching. Plus ça change …

This blog has had a constant increase in readership this year [thank you] with several posts getting significant views and comments. I just checked the stats and these are the most popular posts on this site in the past year, as determined by number of viewers. They’re listed in chronological order.

1. Teachers’ Roles in Learning & Problem-solving (Nov 2005)
2. Learners as contributors – the end of the industrial model (Jan 2006)
3. The relevance of the learning profession (Jun 2006)
4. Informal learning and performance technology (Jul 2006)
5. Blackboard patents the LMS, but does it matter? (Jul 2006)
6. Blackboard Sues D2L over LMS Patent (Aug 2006)
7. My PKM System (Aug 2006)
8. Aliant Connection Speed – the saga continues (Sep 2006)
9. Small schools, loosely joined (Sep 2006)
10. SmartDraw 2007 (Oct 2006)

Time to recharge my batteries, focus on our family and stop blogging for a while. Thanks to all the folks who came by here this year and especially those who left comments, as it’s the continuing conversations that keep me going. All the best for Christmas, Saturnalia, Kwanzaa or whatever you may be celebrating at this time of year.

Here’s a photo, by Rockcliffe View, of what I wished the Tantramar Marshes looked more like this year, but alas we have no snow (yet).

Dave Cormier has slapped me with a meme, kind of like a chain letter, to write 5 things that you may not know about me.

Memes can be very powerful and some can actually be dangerous, and if you want to know more about memes and memetics, listen to Sue Blackmore’s presentation at Pop!Tech. This meme is fairly safe, even though there is some (friendly) coercion that if I don’t pass it on I’ll not be part of the group. Interesting things, those memes.

So here are 5 things that you may not know (or don’t want to know) about me.

First of all, Dave, I don’t have a secret love of armadillos; sorry :-(

In chronological order (drum roll please):

1. I played Frosty the Snowman in the school play in grade 2 and was a celebrity for the rest of the year
2. I was on our school team on Reach for the Top (we lost)
3. I played piccolo in a military marching band during university (it was easier than carrying a rifle on parade)
4. I met Pierre Trudeau one evening in 1977. I had a blind date for a dance in St-Jean sur Richelieu and my date was a personal friend of the Prime Minister. My French at the time was very poor while my date’s English was passable. Trudeau told us this was a great example of his vision for bilingualism; an anglophone trying to speak in French to a francophone speaking English. Vive la différence!
5. I was an amateur vintner in Germany, after a friend passed on a very small plot of about 200 vines on the local hill that was covered with “real” vineyards. It cost me about $10 a year to lease it from the town. All I ever made was bad vinegar, but the grape-pressing party was great.

I’ll pass this along to another five people, but don’t feel guilty if you decide not to reply:

Hal – I’m certain that you have done some interesting things

Jay – because you have lots of spare time ;-)

Jon – to know more about you

Karyn – to get a different cultural perspective, from across the pond

anol – for another cultural perspective, across a different pond

If you’ve already been tagged, then of course you’re off the hook :-)

I see that Jay Cross has been having a conversation about the term Community of Practice (CoP) and in response to Nick’s question, wrote:

>Why do you want to change the term ‘communities of practice’?

Nick, in Denver this October, quizzical faces peered at me when I used the term Communities of Practice. There were only thirty to forty people in my audience. I asked “How many of you are familiar with the term Community of Practice?” No one raised a hand.

I don’t buy your argument that ‘any really useful concept should be initially opaque’. Instead, a new concept should at least relate to its origins. Horseless carriage, wireless phone.

Writing ‘your wish to change the name: dynamic guild misconstrues what I meant. I wrote that “we didn’t find what we were looking for”. The best we could do was not good enough. I’m still searching.

CoP are too important to be stuck with a label that takes time to understand. Let’s not permit semantic conservatism to block progress. This is not the first time this has come up nor will it be the last. See “How about an Order of Slimehead?” at http://internettime.com/?p=693

Well, it may be that we’ll have to pay to use the term CoP anyway. From Dave Pollard, I’ve learned that one more ridiculous patent (#7127440) has been issued by the US Patent & Trademark Office:

A method is provided for establishing a community of practice including a plurality of users, one or more experts, and one or more community of practice managers. A need for a community of practice is identified. The roles and responsibilities of participants in the community of practice are identified. One or more goals are identified for the community of practice based on the identified need. A plurality of the participants in the community of practice collaborate to achieve the identified goals.

Inventors: Jeanblanc; Anne H. (Galva, IL), Coffey; James M. (Peoria, IL)
Assignee: Caterpillar Inc. (Peoria, IL)
Appl. No.: 09/995,822
Filed: November 29, 2001

I remember a sign that was posted in the Officers’ Mess in Wainwright, Alberta. It said, “Let not common sense become so rare that it is mistaken for genius”. Perhaps this sign should be shipped to the USPTO.

The first walk in the snow is a yearly ritual for many Canadians. For me it marks the end of a season, swapping cycling shoes for ski boots, and brings back memories of sliding for hours after school until supper.

Last night we watched An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s excellent documentary on the incontestable fact of global warming. I had been avoiding it for a while because I did not want to get too depressed. I found that the film was uplifting, even with its extremely serious message, because we can do something about global warming – now. Please watch this film.

I also purchased the book World Changing, and look forward to reading about and implementing better ways of living with our only planet. Personally, I want our children to continue to enjoy many more Winters, but we are in grave danger of severe climate change. Now is the time to act and we intend to do our part.