From Anxiety to Joy: A Conversation about Collaboration across Classrooms

First off, I am excited to launch this new blog space; it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time. My desire here is to see this space grow into a collaborative network where multiple contributors could introduce and guide conversations about pedagogy, 21st century learning, innovation, plasticity, collaboration, as well as many other topics that could help inform a productive conversation about what we should do with our classrooms.

I'm also excited to announce that Joel Garza and I will be leading a conversation at EduCon 2.7 in Philadelphia this January 2015. Our conversation is titled "From Anxiety to Joy: The Emotional & Technological Anatomy of 21st Century Collaboration." Here's a sample of what that conversation could sound like:

Joel and I recorded that conversation as part of the "Stories for Learning" strand for the 2014 K12 Online Conference: Igniting Innovation. We're excited to take some of what we've shared there to the EduCon conference this January 2015. Personally, I look forward to seeing how a conversation such as this one could be explored more deeply by opening it up to a greater carnival of polyphonic voices. EduCon appears to be the perfect place for such a thing:

Those attending EduCon this year, please join us for an honest, energetic conversation about the emotional anatomy of collaboration for 21st century learners and educators.  We'll be telling our story about the successes and challenges with project-based learning across campuses, but more importantly we'll be inviting others to discuss with us difficult questions about the emotional demands involved in such risk taking. How do we get colleagues to collaborate? Where are the boundaries? How do we handle moments of conflict, jealousy, or criticism? Who owns what in such endeavors and when do we yield to others? What kind of similar demands do we make on our students?

If you plan to attend, leave a comment here. What do you want to talk about in relation to the topics being addressed in this post and in the above video? What are the important questions to be asked when exploring the emotional terrain of collaborating with others - especially when they're strangers from other campuses? Tell us what you want to talk about, and hopefully, we'll see you in Philly this January!

-Jared Colley