The Innovator's Mindset Course Reflections

In the final weeks of this crazy school year, my colleagues and I have been doing a book study of The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros, guided by the online course offered by George Couros and Katie Novak. The course has a video for each chapter, prompting us to consider the Innovator's Mindset in the context of Covid-19. There are also a large number of supplementary articles and videos to read. My colleagues and I have enjoyed jigsawing these resources and discussing them together.

It was during module 7 of this course that George Couros discussed his own blog as his digital portfolio and explained about the process of reflecting publicly to deepen his thinking. I realized that my own blog had been sadly neglected for years, but that it was a tool that I should be using much better. As such, I have assembled the reflections that I have posted during this course into a Slide deck. This way they are saved here and can be viewed at a later date.

In May and June of this year, a group of colleagues and I did a book study of Innovate Inside the Box by George Couros and Katie Novak. We took the course offered by the authors which gave use many related articles and videos. It also allowed us to read the book with the particular lens of emergency remote instruction during the period of time that schools were shut down this spring because of Covid-19 and while they were slowly and partially reopening.

As promised in my previous post, I have collected the reflections that I shared for each of the modules in this post. For easy sharing, since they are in various media, I have added them all to a Google Slides presentation. I created four sketchnotes, two videos, and two traditional text reflections. I am saving them here in an effort to document my thinking now so that I can look back on it later. Another reason is that this is a somewhat public forum, and as I get into the habit, I will be able to benefit from sharing my ideas with others.

Resurrecting This Space

Over the past several weeks, I have been taking some online book study courses with a group of colleagues. The books are The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros and Innovate Inside the Box by George Couros and Katie Novak.

Throughout the process I have enjoyed discussing and making meaning with my colleagues, but I have also enjoyed creating reflection pieces for each module of the two courses in different media. Not only have I remembered how powerful the process of reflection in a public space can be, the most recent module has reminded me of the importance of being able to look back at my digital portfolio. How has my thinking developed, changed, and hopefully, grown over time?

Well, this blog tells a sad story of neglect. I have not even composed a post for 4 years, and before that it was spotty at best. But, it still exists, and having some record is definitely better than none! I am definitely pondering on ways to make blogging a more regular part of my routine without it becoming "just one more thing." How do you remember to come to a space like this without it becoming a job? 

I'm not sure, what the answer is. Right now, in the midst of emerging from Covid-19 shut-down, it feels like there is way too much on my plat to add something else. On the other hand, I am doing more new learning than I have for a long time, and it seems like this is a great time to document my thinking. For the moment then, I will begin by using this as a collection space some of my notes and reflections on my online courses and some of the learning that I will do over the summer and see where that takes me. Perhaps a better blogging habit will grow out of the process.