I went today to hear Maurice Gibbons speak at SFU on Keeping a Working Journal. Maurice is considered the “father” of self directed learning in Field Programs and it was hearing him speak on Self-Directed Learning at a mentor conference in October 2006 that was a part of my decision to apply to work at SFU. In short, I liked what Dr. Gibbons had to say about learning and the role of education and institutions in supporting learning. Similarly, today I found his presentation on Working Journals thought provoking and inspiring.
Journals can take many forms and serve a variety of purposes. They can take a diary form to record events or for personal or spiritual growth. A working journal though, according to Gibbons serves to support intellectual growth. For him, it is about collecting, organizing, examining and creating ideas. Gibbons showed examples from his own and other working journals and they were indeed inspiring. As I watched and listened I was struck by two thoughts.
First, Gibbons uses a plain paper journal. This he claims helps with to encourage more visual representation of ideas. This made me wonder about my own tendency to be verbal, to write ideas rather than draw them out. How might my thinking change if my next journal is plain paper instead of the lined books I’m drawn to?
Second, I wondered how Gibbons’ world of ideas would change if he were using a blog for his journal. While he touched on this briefly, talking about how someone he knows blogs regularly and uses the blog to connect with others interested in writing, I sensed that he was not really aware of the power of blogging in terms of linking to the ideas and creativity of others. To be honest, from my own experience with blogging over several years now, this is only something that I am now really coming to understand.
In the past week Dave Truss has come out to work with two of my TLITE groups and through his presentations I have learned even more. To the Coqutilam group Dave talked about his experiences with building learning communities, in Abbotsford, what he’s learned from blogging. Through both presentations Dave pushed us all to realize the power of the internet, the connections, the larger, very real community and the immense potential, particularly the potential in education. Both times he showed the following video which he put together for a Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Coference in Boston.
A Brave New World-Wide-Web by Dave Truss
I definitely have more to say on all this because so far I’ve really just used this post very much as a working journal. I’ve thrown out a lot of ideas, about working journals as a place to work with ideas, the potential of using a blog as a working journal to add in the element of connecting with others around those perhaps not yet well formed ideas, and the power of that connection particularly for education. But I haven’t formed them well. I’m not finished… but hey, that’s what working journals are supposed to be about.
More to come….