Another Reminder of Educators Who Fail To Embrace Modern Tools

How long can you ignore tools that will engage students?

Just looking

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 12/22/10

The problem with browsers is that they rarely buy anything.

The prospect who walks up to the salesperson and says, "I'm looking for a pinstripe suit in size 38" is a lot more likely to walk out with a suit than the one who mutters, "No thanks, just looking."

Which is relevant to your quest for a new product or business or job or mate or project worth working on...

If you're still looking around, making sure you understand all your options, getting your bearings or making sure you're well informed, you're most probably browsing.

You missed the first, second and third waves of the internet. You missed a hundred great jobs and forty great husbands. You missed the deadline for that course and the window for this program.

Quit looking and go buy something already.

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Once again Godin has me thinking about school - Is the answer this simple?

This post reminds me of the whole selling job that we are doing with so many of our stakeholders regarding embracing technology integration in order to access all of the new tools for engaging students that are available to us. In my school specifically, we are going to be a 1:1 environment next year and we sometimes get caught up in important but complicated discussions about how we are going to do certain things.

Maybe I am wrong, but I feel as long as people begin to understand why we need to make this change and they begin to believe the why then we will have the momentum we need to answer all of the hows that will pop up along the way. The why is the easy part and the how is the complicated part.

"The answer is simple"

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 12/11/10

...is always more effective a response than, "well, it's complicated."

One challenge analysts face is that their answers are often a lot more complicated than the simplistic (and wrong) fables that are peddled by those that would mislead and deceive. Same thing is true for many non-profits doing important work.

We're not going to have a lot of luck persuading masses of semi-interested people to seek out and embrace complicated answers, but we can take two steps to lead to better information exchange:

1. Take complicated overall answers and make them simple steps instead. Teach complexity over time, simply.

2. Teach a few people, the committed, to embrace the idea of complexity. That's what a great college education does, for example. That's what makes someone a statesman instead of a demagogue. Embracing complexity is a scarce trait, worth acquiring. But until your customers/voters/employees do, I think the first strategy is essential.

You can't sell complicated to someone who came to you to buy simple.

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On Godin Today: We Need Schools That Encourage This

My favorite line in this post is where Godin talks about a blogger who "takes her readers somewhere they will be glad to go..."
I think this also needs to be the primary objective in our schools. We need to have environments that take learners where they will be glad to go!

Where's your platform?

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 12/8/10

That needs to be the goal when you seek out a job.

Bob Dylan earned the right to make records, and instead of using it to create ever more commercial versions of his old stuff, he used it as a platform to do art.

A brilliant programmer finds a job in a small company and instead of seeing it as a grind, churning out what's asked, he uses it as a platform to hone his skills and to ship code that changes everything.

A waiter uses his job serving patrons as a platform for engagement, for building a reputation and for learning how to delight.

A blogger starts measuring pageviews and ends up racing the bottom with nothing but scintillating gossip and pandering. Or, perhaps, she decides to use the blog as a platform to take herself and her readers somewhere they will be glad to go...

There's no rigid line between a job and art. Instead, there's an opportunity. Both you and your boss get to decide if your job is a platform or just a set of tasks.

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The Open Road - Do You See A Connection To Your PLN?

While, I am not emphasizing the competition that Godin does in this post. I do feel that this post reminded me about the power of my PLN. My PLN, through all of the amazing things that these incredible educators are doing, keeps me motivated and inspired to do more.

The open road

via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 12/7/10

I was driving on a very dangerous two-lane highway in India. More than eight hours of death-defying horror...

Our driver aggressively tailgated whatever car, truck or horse was in front of us, and then passed as soon as he was able (and sometimes when he wasn't).

What amazed me, though, was what he did during those rare times when there wasn't a car in front of us, just open road.

He didn't speed up. In fact, it seemed as though he slowed down.

He was comfortable with the competitive nature of passing (I may not be fast, but I'm faster than you), and he was petrified of the open road and the act of choosing his own speed.

Of course, we do the same thing with our career or our businesses. Most of us need competition to tell us how fast to go.

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