Ever since I started teaching at the college level a few years ago, I’ve been dreaming.

My first dream was to design a course that discussed emerging technologies, social media, and communication on the Web. I took my dream to the powers that be at the college and they gave me a shot. The course, Web Media, was so successful, that the next year it became part of the full time curriculum. It’s one of the most rewarding classes I teach, and I continue to be connected with former students who say that it really helped them get a leg up in the world of new media communication. For that, I’m proud and grateful.

I’ve been immersed in social media and online communications for quite some time. I was in on the ground floor of many things – I was on Facebook way before most of my high school buddies. My user ID on twitter is 821,845 (there are over 100 million users now). I’ve written 325 posts on this blog in 3 years. At about 1,000 words per post, that’s the equivalent of about 3 full-length novels. I’ve come a long way in the online world….but I want to go further. I want to dream bigger.

It’s no secret that computers and the Internet have fundamentally changed the way education is delivered. I remember the days before computers in the classroom, as I’m sure some of you do. The teacher would write and draw on a chalkboard. Presentations were hand written on plastic transparencies and displayed on an overhead projector. We watched filmstrips on an actual film projector, and listened to audio cassettes. Material was presented to us through different media, but often, what we were giving back were just flat, handwritten regurgitations of what we’d learned.

Now, anyone can record a radio show, or make a video documentary. Anyone can publish a novel or a photo travelogue. Most importantly, we can share our creations with the world. There is tremendous power in our ability learn by creating, publishing, and sharing content online. This power has translated well into the classroom environment, and it’s enriched the learning experience for many people.

I want to take this a step further.

Many classrooms today are using technology to create wonderful things. Some are even sharing it with the world. I create YouTube channels for my classes, and encourage my students to blog their college experience. That is all wonderful, and feedback from my students shows that they see great value in this. It falls short though, because classrooms are still mostly communicating with themselves. Sure, in some cases, they are showing off their creations to friends and family, but my YouTube channels are mostly so my students can look at their own and each others’ work. It rarely has much impact outside the classroom. This is where I see a great opportunity.

Most community colleges have some sort of new media or Web program now. Some even have courses specific to new communication and social media. But, in my experience, these classes often don’t know much outside the walls of their own experience.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could some how start to connect beyond the walls of our own classrooms? Wouldn’t it be awesome if our classes began to connect and share with other classes? Imagine a college class in Ottawa and another in Melbourne not only sharing what they’re learning with each other, but actually collaborating on projects. The possibilities are open and wide and endless.

It Starts With Us. The challenge with connecting classrooms is not in the actual connecting – we have the technology. The challenge is in actually figuring out logistically how to do it, and how it fits into our courses. And that starts with us teachers. Before we can connect our students, we have to connect with each other. We have to start sharing, and connecting, and collaborating on the best ways to facilitate these interactions. We have to understand how connecting our classrooms will tie into the learning objectives for our courses, and how we’re going to set our students up for success.

So this is my challenge to you. If you’re a teacher who is interested in exploring connected classrooms with me, get in touch. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching at the college level or not, I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment or hit me up on Twitter. Let’s have a chat and see if we can find some ways to dream big together. Who knows, we might just open up a whole new world of possibilities for learning.

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Most of the links in this post are to the people I have learned the most from over the past three years. Please click on their links and check them out. They offer a great deal to this space, and I am forever indebted to them, for they have taught me so much and made such a huge contribution to my success. There are others too, of course – far too many to mention here. You all mean a great deal to me. From the bottom of my heart, friends….thank you.

The weekend of February 19th marks my 3rd anniversary being involved in social media.

Three years since I wandered in off the street to Podcamp Toronto, was warmly greeted by Two Guys Named Chris, and the first thing I asked them was “What the heck are all you people doing here, anyway?”

The rest is, as they say, history.

Three years later, and I am sitting here, like I do most mornings, connecting, laughing, sharing, and learning. I have achieved much – amazing friendships, a rapidly growing business, and a much more global perspective on helping other people and truly making a difference.

Several times a week I am asked how I know what I know about all this new media stuff. Do I ever step away from the computer? (Yes.) Do I have a life? (Of course.) How do I find the time to stay on top of everything? (I make time.) Do I ever get any real work done? (This is real work.)

There are no quick fixes in social media (or in anything considered real work, for that matter). No $300 “Learn to Twitter in a Weekend” workshop is going to teach you everything you need to know about social media. Books are great, read them all…especially these ones. But books are like the measuring tape and laser level in your tool box. They just give you information.
So, are we ready to begin?

Be curious. I didn’t end up at that first Podcamp because I had researched it for weeks, tried to figure out who was going to be there, what their credentials were, if they had criminal background checks done, if they were in the country legally. In fact, I didn’t know a single person there. I saw “Free” and “Unconference”. And I was planning on being in Toronto that weekend anyway. What did I have to lose? I was curious.

Being curious is probably the most important thing you can do to get on the road to understanding this new medium. Don’t know where to start? How about Google? Do some searches on Twitter. Find some friends on Facebook. Pretend you’re 8 years old again and you are exploring the woods at the back of your house. Look in all the little crevasses and nooks. Peek under rocks. Climb a tree and survey the scene from above. Fall out of the tree once in a while too. Before you know it, you’ll start to find the adventure you came for.

Read and listen and watch voraciously. Once I started to realize how many smart people there were out here in this world, I started to consume everything I could. I subscribed to blog after blog in Google Reader. I watched videos. I listened to wonderful podcasts.

All of these people are out there, every day, working hard, giving you FREE content and advice that, if you listen and do the things they say, will get you up and running in social media in no time. Trust what these people say. They learned the same way you are….by consuming the information that is available to anyone. Don’t tell me you don’t have time. Don’t watch that rerun of Friends every night, and there you go…you’ve found 30 minutes a day that you can be filling your brain with smart stuff.

Experiment. All of these smart social media types got to where they are because they are not afraid to experiment. If you’re looking for best practices drawn from years of experience and comprehensive research, you’re not going to find them. The medium is not old enough to have tried, tested and true. There’s a certain level of experimentation going on all the time. Some of us experiment on our blogs (I know I do). Others are the super early adopters (I’m here too), trying out things like Google Wave and buying the latest gadget and then proceeding to play around with it, figure out how it fits (or if it fits).

But I’m afraid I’m doing it wrong! Here’s a news flash. You’re not going to break the Internet, no matter how hard you try. So if you see a link to something that looks interesting, click it. Sign up for an account (you can always cancel it later). Try a new plugin, or a new method of communicating. Find friends to try along with you. Play. You’ll see pretty soon that the rewards you reap are far more significant than the failed attempts.

Curiosity, consumption and experimentation. Those are the three steps I used to get where I am. (And no, it didn’t happen overnight.) Yep, I learned most of this stuff for free, from reading blogs, watching talks, and participating in free webinars. I paid a little money to buy books by smart people (see above), and I paid a little more to travel to Montreal and Toronto to see people speak live (at free conferences) and connect with others.

What I didn’t do was bombard the smart people with questions. I Googled, I absorbed, I understood, and then I contributed to the space. Feedback came in from the smart folks in my communities (blog comments, @replies, and emails) and I learned some more. Then I contributed more. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But, aren’t you a teacher? Now, a word on education. I’m a college teacher, for Pete’s sake, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least spend a paragraph or two talking about the merits of formal education. If you are seeking to be immersed in a subject, to be able to really focus all your time and energy studying so you can apply, then yes, formal training is very valuable. I am not talking about the snake-oil, Twitter in a Weekend “workshops” here. I’m talking about training given by qualified instructors in reputable environments that cover techniques over tools. I’m talking about courses that can not only teach you important technical skills, but can allow you to connect and learn with and from your peers.

There is great value in formal education, however it’s not always financially feasible or easy to manage going to school full time with work and family. That’s why doing things on your own can be a great supplement, or even a replacement sometimes (depending on your goals and personal situation.)

The final word. A smart friend told me once, at the beginning of all this, when I was struggling to find answers… “you have a whole network available to you now. Use it.” Those words have stuck with me. We really do have all the information and knowledge we could ever want at our fingertips. But most importantly, we also have the ability to share what we know. The most important thing about social media is not learning what tools to use. Just dive in. Write a blog, record and post a video. Talk to people. Make a contribution. Start today.

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I sort of fell into the whole teaching thing.

I never had aspirations to actually BE a teacher. I wasn’t a great student, after all. Sure, I didn’t skip classes, mostly got my homework done on time, but my grades were a mess – partly from being a military brat (Canada’s education system is not really set up for transients), and partly because I simply didn’t have an aptitude for things like math and grammar (though my Art, Music and Drama marks were always stellar).

When I graduated from high school I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. I couldn’t wait to get into college – where I knew I’d be much more successful in a less book-learnin’, more hands-on environment. I was right about that.

After college I fully expected to get a J-O-B, maybe as a junior editor in a newsroom or a production assistant for a local show. I certainly didn’t expect my first job to be as a producer.

I’ve said before, that a producer at a community television station (public access TV for you all down south) is something quite different than a producer for a regular TV network. I was a camera operator, writer, director, editor, sound person, and much more. I had 7 shows to produce, not just one. Like other TV producers, I worked 80+ hours a week. But unlike them, a HUGE part of my job was teaching.

You see, about 90% of the people that worked at the station were volunteers. People from all walks of life who shared a common interest in producing TV shows. They helped out in all areas – camera, audio, lighting, editing, writing, producing, directing – you name it. But most of the time they came in green – having little or no video experience. It was part of my job to ensure that they knew the proper techniques. This happened through formal workshops (I was required to teach one per week in various disciplines) or on the job training (like, during a live TV show).

Having just come from being a student myself, I wasn’t entirely sure that I was going to be successful at this whole teaching thing. But, it was my job, and I’d best be getting the hang of it. My friend, mentor and boss at the time, Andre, gave me some good advice. “Just tell them what you know. Don’t overthink it.”

So really, my only job was to figure out what I already knew.

Seven years and hundreds of workshops later, I landed in college again. Back to being a student. Back to filling my brain with new ideas – I traded in my video camera for a computer and was off to the races.

Upon graduation from College 2.0, I was fortunate to be hired by one of my instructors. She owned a technology training company. She had some web projects and video projects to start me off, which was great. But one day, she came to me and said she needed someone to teach this new software called Dreamweaver (this was 1997). She handed me a book called “Learn Dreamweaver in 21 Days” and told me in 4 weeks I’d be in front of 40 students eager to learn this cutting edge technology. Gulp.

The teaching gig (ironically in the same classroom where I’d just spent the previous 7 months) went pretty well, and boy did I learn a lot. I learned pacing and timing. I learned how to read the class and gauge by number of blank faces how well they were following along. And most importantly, I learned that it’s okay to not always know the answers, as long as you are willing to find them out.

So really, my only job was to figure out what I didn’t already know, and then get to know it really well.

Flash forward to 2008. I’d spent a good deal of time in the previous 10 years doing corporate training and software training, writing training documentation, designing curricula, and coordinating programs for adult learning. I felt as if I was catching on to this whole teaching thing.

I decided to connect with my old classmate who was now running the same program I’d taken at the college in ’97. I expressed an interest in teaching and provided some suggestions on the kind of courses I’d like to teach. I was accepted to the part time faculty and again, I was off to the races, teaching video and web/social media. I was given pretty free reign to design the courses how I wanted them, and more importantly, given a really talented bunch of people to teach. What I love about teaching at the college level is learning about the people in my class – who they are, where they come from and most importantly, what drives them. Their passion for video and multimedia is what drives me to be a better teacher.

So really, my only job is to help others understand what they already know and equip them with some tools so they can be successful.

Teaching is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. It’s the thing I look forward to, and I miss it when its not there. I love it when my students get as fired up about this stuff as I am. I love seeing the results of their hard work and mostly, I love it when I see that lightbulb go off over their head – the one that shows me that they don’t just know it…they understand it.

I learn more from being a teacher than I ever learn from being a student. You can too. You just need to focus on three things in order to become a better learner, and a better teacher:

1. Figure out what you already know
2. Figure out what you don’t know, then get to know it really well
3. Help others to understand, and equip them with tools to aid their success

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My Algonquin College Web Media class this year is doing some amazing work. I wanted to take this opportunity to showcase, with their permission, a few of the blogs and web site projects they have been working on. Please take a moment to click on the links and if you like what you see, get to know them. These people are the future of our industry. What they are doing and what they have to say is very important. Listen to them.

Interactive Multimedia Class of 2010 Blogs:

Noriko Natsume
http://www.eyestir.com/nnproject

Jason Derouchie
www.handtobrain.com

Alexi Dumochel
Tokyo on the Brain
http://aricoukaze.wordpress.com

Al Morrison
http://corloveaduck.wordpress.com

Jacqueline Brinsmead
http://randomthoughts63.wordpress.com

Brandon Brule
www.brandonbrule.com/blog

Sheila Sugavanam
http://sugabam.wordpress.com

Calgar-C
http://calgarc.com

Brendan Shaughnessy
http://welljackson.wordpress.com

Servillano Poserio
http://www.mindhackers.net

John Warren
http://www.thebestjohn.com

Matthew Lavigne
http://mlavgn.wordpress.com/

Tom Martineau

http://tmartineau.wordpress.com/

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Yesterday was the last class of the semester prior to the Christmas break. For the past 15 weeks, I’ve been teaching video production to 84 first-year future web developers and designers. It’s designed to be an introductory course, covering all the technical basics of lighting, shooting and editing but also emphasizing video as a visual storytelling medium and use of video on the Web.

Overall it was an extraordinary first semester. My students were enthusiastic, showed up ready to learn, and really got their hands dirty and worked hard on their projects. I challenged them a lot – they had to produce a short video that told a story without using any dialogue (video is a “show me” medium, not a “tell me” medium!), and also create a mini-documentary. What the groups were able to pull off in the limited amount of time they had was really impressive.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tough having such a large class (it was actually two classes of 42, but still a large group). I found it challenging to be able to connect on an individual basis with everyone, particularly the more quiet students. But in the end, I think I managed to get a good handle on the strengths and weaknesses of each person, and set them up as much as possible for success.

Setting people up for success. That is what teaching is all about. It’s not about standing at the front of a class spewing facts and figures to a room full of half-asleep students. It’s about figuring out how to create an environment in which everyone, no matter what, can learn. The secret to doing this well is to GET PEOPLE INVOLVED. I did very few lectures this semester – and for the ones I did do, I involved people – whether it was having volunteers demonstrate things or asking them questions and getting them involved in a discussion.

Most of the work this semester was done by the students, not by me. My job was to arm them with the tools and the basic knowledge, but the real work (and the real learning) came when they grabbed a camera and went out to create their projects. Sure, they made mistakes. Some had to re-shoot things. Some realized their original concept wasn’t going to work and had to go back to the drawing board. Some got frustrated. Some even wanted to pack it in. But with the right kind of gentle encouragement, they persevered.

Last week and yesterday, when we screened their final mini-documentary projects, and they were all so excited to show what they’d accomplished to the class, I knew I’d done my job.

Teaching isn’t about talking and carrying on until you’re blue in the face. Teaching is about imparting a foundation of knowledge, then stepping back and allowing your students to take that knowledge, work with it, make a bunch of mistakes, and then turn that knowledge in into something they can take ownership and pride in.

Happy holidays to my wonderful classes. Thank you so much for your time and attention. I’ll see you again in fourth semester!

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Life is full of lessons. Every day I learn at least one thing that I didn’t know the day before. I would say we probably all do.

The past 5 years or so have been a time of tremendous learning and growth for me. I’ve bought a house, gotten married (yes, in that order – which I highly recommend!), become a full-time entrepreneur, worked hard to weed out the negative people in my life, and reconnected with some wonderful old friends. I’ve discovered a rich and fascinating online world, and made some really great new friends here.

It’s like I’ve been climbing up a slope of learning these past few years. The path was really steep sometimes. Occasionally I stumbled, even fell. Other times it leveled out; it was pretty smooth sailing. I’m grateful to have had plenty of help on my journey, from incredible friends, and of course my family.

Now I feel like I’ve come to the top of the mountain. I can see pretty clearly what lies ahead of me, and more importantly, what I need to do to get there. As I begin to travel down the other side of the mountain, I am able to release some of my new knowledge as I go. This is happening in all aspects of my life right now.

Professionally, I have the amazing opportunity to pass on my more than 18 years of media industry experience to young people who are just starting out in their careers. Now that I am happily married, I find myself passing on advice to my single girlfriends about dating, finding the person that’s right for you, and being happy in a relationship. And, now that I’ve weeded out the bad energy in my life, I’m able to help others to do the same.

I know that once I am through this teaching phase and at the bottom of the mountain again, I will climb the next mountain of learning. There are many more mountains to climb, many more challenges to face. I am happy to know that I’ve made it this far, and that I have something to offer as a result. And I am excited to know there’s much more to come.

Photo by Matt Phillips on Flickr.

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