Happy New Year 2008!

I started this blog early in my Masters program (just a day in) and found that I had no time to maintain - so there it sat -

At our first Colloquium, in Closing Circle , I felt a need to connect to these people beyond this event, I wanted peer interaction, connection, support, to be of support to others. I thought a wiki would be a good solution. I offered to create a wiki and others expressed an interest in developing our own MAP community - BUT education at a distance poses some unique challenges as compared to f2f (face to face) education, when thinking of community.

2 others in my Opening Circle joined in, but we are all a bit busy with FT work, families and heavy school loads. yet, I still feel drawn to the need for community beyond the Opening/Closing circles of Colloquium. At the November 07 Colloquium, other MAP groups had heard about and expressed interest in joining the wiki, so that evening, back at the hotel, I embellished to welcome and include a broader group of PC students. A few more have used it, many have not, yet I remain convinced that social networking is great way to develop our own community of learners - within the self-directed, independent learning model that defines the PC MAP program. I firmly believe that by developing our own community of learners, we will all be greatly enriched, broaden our self-contained horizons and come out of the experience more fully rounded, and perhaps with some new friends from the same - or equally exciting - vastly different - areas of interest!

In response to my own interest in robust, purposeful and education social media applications, I have asked Lloyd Sharp and Noel Caniglia for some time at the Feb 08 Colloquium, to use a lab for a guided practice in wiki for any interested. So this blog is my open solicitation to find out if anyone - but me and the handful of folks trying to electrify the wiki - is interested. No guarantee they can find a time, the schedule is already defined - at worst, we can sit with laptops, in any available space, like we did in November, and help those who are interested to find ease with this media, l!

As an educator, it occurs to me that besides the obvious (BUSY, full lives) some of us may like a little practice and support, in person. I love virtual learning and collaboration, but it is new to many and I want to do whatever I can to support getting others engaged.

But more importantly, to develop a sense of community among fellow MAP students that is more rich and deep and inclusive than 1:1 emails!

Feel free to comment here or email me at achayefsky@musd20.org

Map wiki: http://map32c.wikispaces.com/Welcome+to+PC+Map+wiki

See you in the virtual world until I see you In February! Peace. A

Educational Evolution

I am in a self-designed program so that I can address specifically the areas of interest to me. Every time I complete a class creation, I change - I read something, I hear something, I encounter something - that challenges me and pulls me here or there.

That is the joy of this program - respect and expectation of Educational Evolution!

I participated in Prescott College's ADP Program while attaining my Bachelors so I knew this would happen, and I looked forward to it. I am working with an amazing Graduate Advisor who has already shifted (unintentionally I think) my world view - well m y plan view, anyhow!

I was originally interested in establishing sustainable professional development but now I realize there is a much more broad and interesting question to be addressed.

• What does an effective learning community and learning environment look like? In what ways can a learning community or learning environment be green (eco-friendly). Can videoconferencing, on-line classes and social networking learning communities be a viable and powerful answer?
• What bias' and beliefs inform our personal choices in approaches to learning? Do we say we are too stupid too learn because we are fearful of the new or are we simply protecting ourselves from some perceived shame or do we believe we are stupid. By repeating this negative mantra, are we setting in motion a subconscious self-fulfilling prophecy of failure?
• With awareness of bias and belief and norm and group behavior, can an environment of true learning be crafted?

Today I am reading, at the recommendation of my GA, 'Blink', by Malcolm Gladwell. It is an easy and fascinating read. I recommend it to all that are interested in the human mind and condition! Tomorrow - Tipping Point!

My Masters Day 2 - A Gift of Living Connections

Yesterday I began a very long day called 'Orientation' at Prescott College in Prescott, AZ. Today through Sunday we are participating in Colloquium with our new MAP group, a returning (in process) MAP group and several PhD candidates.

Yesterday was business, house keeping and the like. That is an understatement, I met incredibly fascinating people and staff, had really great food. It as an exhaustive day and i think I did not have enough water (today I had lots of water) Once the headache of fatigue and too much new information settled on my brain it did not go away. I crashed into bed at my motel early, awoke at 1 am and tossed for the next two hours as I relived some amazing new ideas I had heard, and weighed how this impacted and might alter my view of my degree, my plan, my lofty goal.

When I first attended Prescott College in 2001-2003, for my undergraduate degree in Elementary Education, it was called stretching. That personal challenge of doing something out of your safety zone, your routine. My synapse were alive with new path development and it was painful!

When I awoke - LATE - today, I had achieved a clarity I did not have at 8 pm, nor at 1 or 3 am! And today was a gift. Today I had choice (wonderful choices) and wonderment. All with the glorious underpinning of the beauty of PC and Prescott, the cool air (though a 'classmate' from BC said it was hot!).

So today was a day of replenishment, of restorative conversations. We have only known each other one day, but there is a friendly ease joining conversations with virtual strangers, asking deep questions about their plans, degrees, dreams, about how they feel.

I walked the wash and collected twigs and created a frame to house my lifetime favorite quote, the one that has grown and changed in meaning just as have I. And I am joyous to know that a delightful young woman knew the creators of the line (King Crimson), I am amazed.

"The gardener plants and evergreen whilst trampling on a flower" - Court of the Crimson King

I can apply this line to any situation I encounter, at face value one makes a choice, a selection based on some value system. Is the tree of more value than the flower? I found this incredibly moving as a middle school student. As an on-going student of education, I can apply this to how we treat students or how we value teachers. What do we bulldoze over for the sake of something else. Is federal funding from NCLB (and the abuses it inflicts on so many) of more value than creating a whole, critical thinker?

I am surprised to find I know more about these people ALREADY, than with some I have known for years. A co-worker is going to PC for her Masters too! We did not sign up together, merely found each others names on a group email and put it together. So we have worked (not closely) for a few years, hello's in the hall. We spent lots of time together yesterday at Orientation and today, TODAY, at dinner, while talking to someone else about where they and I were from in New York, Tara turns and asks where I am from?

She was from Larchmont, I from Rye, only separated by a very few miles. She attended Mamaroneck HS and I attended Rye Neck HS. We are separated by more years than I care to acknowledge (she was 2 when I graduated HS) yet we both had Matt Dillon stories.

I advocate promoting dialogue as one of many ways to save the world, yet it took coming to PC to make me stop and listen. Perhaps that is PC's gift to me today. Getting me to turn off my cell phone, to stop and to really, really listen! And I like what I hear. So maybe me bowling through the day is represented by the evergreen, and all the missed opportunities to listen are my flower. (Please don't say anything about smelling roses)

So this is my journal, my journey, through my Masters Degree. Perhaps I shall try to pattern this by recognizing a gift with each entry, my effort to locate the optimistic when on some days, I may not feel optimistic. Today the gifts are many, the support and encouragement of my classmates, my amazing PC staff, my employer who while swamped as school begins, joyfully send me away to school, my family. Little text messages of support that come through when I do turn on that cell phone at the end of the day.

Yesterday, my son Noah, texted me quotes of hilarious lines from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and Bugs Bunny cartoons. I sat there laughing till I cried. My head was pounding, I was exhausted, full of doubt and like almost everyone else I commiserated with yesterday, I was wondering if I was really up to this after all. I hadn't paid money yet, maybe time ot cut my losses.

Then I turned on that phone and read his text messages, I was restored, renewed and able. Even text dialogue, well placed and well timed, is dialogue afterall. I was in need and someone reached out and found me.

So, did you know that My mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries?