Comments on: Engaging Your Community http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/07/engaging-the-community/ Standing on the verge of a technologically educational revolution. Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:13:22 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: monika hardy http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/07/engaging-the-community/comment-page-1/#comment-1397 monika hardy Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:38:56 +0000 http://bengrey.com/blog/?p=206#comment-1397 wow mr grey... so - i have this quote of yours on my emerging ning site. Leaders are those who most publicly learn and bring others with them along the way. - Ben Grey i have been stirred by your words often. these especially grabbed me - the disconnect part. this post is so enlightening. very inspirational. and quite touching. thank you for being so above us and yet so with us. a friend and i were talking the other day about gaps in the classroom. he was saying in his day there were very smart kids in the class, and then the rest of the class, there was just a divide and it didn't matter to the smart kids how badly the other kids were doing - he said a bad school is a school with such a divide. so - ben - thank you for being a very smart kid that does care how the rest of the class is doing. i'm not gonna lie - even with your sweet words - jumping in is tough - awkward even. but how can i expect my kids to do it - if i don't. huge thank you. wow mr grey…
so – i have this quote of yours on my emerging ning site.
Leaders are those who most publicly learn and bring others with them along the way. – Ben Grey
i have been stirred by your words often. these especially grabbed me – the disconnect part.
this post is so enlightening. very inspirational. and quite touching.
thank you for being so above us and yet so with us.
a friend and i were talking the other day about gaps in the classroom. he was saying in his day there were very smart kids in the class, and then the rest of the class, there was just a divide and it didn’t matter to the smart kids how badly the other kids were doing – he said a bad school is a school with such a divide.
so – ben – thank you for being a very smart kid that does care how the rest of the class is doing.
i’m not gonna lie – even with your sweet words – jumping in is tough – awkward even.
but how can i expect my kids to do it – if i don’t.
huge thank you.

]]> By: Todd Williamson http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/07/engaging-the-community/comment-page-1/#comment-1396 Todd Williamson Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:26:17 +0000 http://bengrey.com/blog/?p=206#comment-1396 Thanks for this post Ben. It's always important to come back to that idea of using these tools to engage with others. The barriers to collaboration are so much lower now that we're doing a disservice to ourselves and our students not to try and connect with others outside of our limited real life locations. I'll likely be pointing a number of people in the direction of this post tomorrow as we discuss blogging with some teachers from across our state who have never used blogs, or many collaborative tools, before. By the way, I think part of what I use to determine who the "top edubloggers" are, is the ability of their posts to push my thinking in new directions. It doesn't take necessarily have to be a huge number of "pushing" or "shifting" posts...just a couple that reframe my thinking gets them points in my mind! Thanks for this post Ben. It’s always important to come back to that idea of using these tools to engage with others. The barriers to collaboration are so much lower now that we’re doing a disservice to ourselves and our students not to try and connect with others outside of our limited real life locations. I’ll likely be pointing a number of people in the direction of this post tomorrow as we discuss blogging with some teachers from across our state who have never used blogs, or many collaborative tools, before.

By the way, I think part of what I use to determine who the “top edubloggers” are, is the ability of their posts to push my thinking in new directions. It doesn’t take necessarily have to be a huge number of “pushing” or “shifting” posts…just a couple that reframe my thinking gets them points in my mind!

]]> By: Chad Lehman http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/07/engaging-the-community/comment-page-1/#comment-1394 Chad Lehman Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:05:05 +0000 http://bengrey.com/blog/?p=206#comment-1394 Ben, you're right, to be involved in the conversation, you have to jump in. We do have our own criteria when deciding who the experts are and for many, there is probably overlap among some of those names. I also think some of the criteria depends on what our job is. I'm in the library, so Doug Johnson is someone I consider one of the top dogs. Others not in my field, may not feel that way. The bottom line is that we need to get involved in the conversations, not only via blogs or Twitter, but face to face when those opportunities pop up, like they did at NECC. Once the face to face meetings occur, there can even be a better understanding of the person behind the thoughts that we've been following. Ben, you’re right, to be involved in the conversation, you have to jump in. We do have our own criteria when deciding who the experts are and for many, there is probably overlap among some of those names. I also think some of the criteria depends on what our job is. I’m in the library, so Doug Johnson is someone I consider one of the top dogs. Others not in my field, may not feel that way. The bottom line is that we need to get involved in the conversations, not only via blogs or Twitter, but face to face when those opportunities pop up, like they did at NECC. Once the face to face meetings occur, there can even be a better understanding of the person behind the thoughts that we’ve been following.

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