We launch the 20th March

It arrived at midnight. How did I wake up that then to see it at the Region 11 Facebook page? Our district in in the 5 fastest to visit and get a date. % of visited clubs. We are well above that now. And we continue. Well done to us, well done all!

Thanks to Morag Mathieson! Regional 11 Advisor for posting this

For the Guides of the district, it is the Virtual Support Session. The name signify that the support of VPE and club officers is done through an online platform. 

Many will use Zoom, free for 40 minutes in our district, and I have the charge to show what it can do, again, to the Pathways Guides. Tonight and tomorrow night. 

Yesterday, I prepared the slides, today I will put them together in a Keynote presentation. The slides will show what I tell, and I hope I will be able to make all who come TRY it, not only listen. 

We retain much better and more when we experience! 

Could I tell you that I was not panicked when I first realized how many workshops I'll have to offer in the next two weeks? Alas, no. I am only human. Lucky, it did last only a few hours, then I took a notebook and wrote out what I could tell. A bit later, went to chase the images and added a few that were not available yet. Even best, I then found a few stories and anecdotes to add while showing. Facts fly away, stories stick help to remember. As does trying it out, showing to others.

Some things come easy others I had to learn by fail and recover first. Guess, which I remember better? The ones where I had to overcome something! 

Pathways Ambassador District 59 TM Original Presentation

A presentation is a presentation, even more if it is a Pathways Presentation. First the Ambassador presents, then the Guide - unless they are the same person. Here is a prove that you can say the same things and show different images on the way. 

"Meetings stay the same : we learn best in a fun environment, as Smedley suggested. 

It happened at Defense where clubs from District were gathered. All the Ambassador presentation (bellow from youTube) done through mindmap, funny drawings.

Here is another one, explaining the levels. Many more in the actual presentation!

Indeed! Nothing missing from the actual presentation, yet different pictures. In my opinion some of them stick in the mind a lot better then the official ones I used.

"There is more then one way to skin the cat" the saying goes. I do not want to skin a cat and do not know how to create images like here, but I thought, you would enjoy them. Let me know, what you think of this, very original presentation.

I went to it hoping it will be in French, but no, the originality did not go so far... even I am sure, at some clubs, the presentation was done in French. Defense is like "Canary Wharf" in London, lots of international companies there, innovation, expo's etc. 

I did not know this morning, I will write about this but can't stop myself to offer it here to all of you. Most of you have held, heard by now at least one Pathways Presentations, so you can enjoy, I am sure.

Pathways : a Blended Learning

Clive Shepherd wrote this two books, and on his name is the link to his one hour speech given a few years ago, just before he finished More then blended learning book. Clive worked for more then ten years to arrive to explain his methods.

I just got the More than Blended Learning, in a book format: it is thick and square. Now, I can also see the images well and they do add to my understanding.

I begun to read again his book, without need my eyeglasses, and I decided to lookup the Videos on youTube but also, if he has written any other books. 

He has! I acquired on Kindle his book called The New Learning Architect written years before. The two books, together help me understand better the New Learning Theories and Practices. They also helped me to appreciate more and understand better the building of Toastmasters New Education Program. So many things to balance and decide!

Clive published "The new learning architect" in 2010. Reading it, I begun to understand better the Blended and More then Blended learning. How many important decisions a "Learning Architect" has to take!

A Professional, not only at the order of the client, who does know the results the time and money, but does not know the different learning methods available, the different new possibilities in media, and other special Learning Theories of the day and of centuries. 

For the moment, what remained most in my mind is that we do not have to accumulate all the knowledge in our mind. We can find them, use them, when needed, the wisdom found on Web from experts, forums, videos, pals. But, we do have to get to that level of understanding, and learn how to find them, where to find them in need. 

Before, methods of discovery were not so different, as, we did reach out in the libraries, did reach out to ask specialists. I did when I prepared my PhD! At the end, I resumed my learning: "I learned to learn". 

I also learned to combine two domains to find something new at the border, that no one yet, or not many, searched or tried out yet. At that time, combining it with different new searching methods in chemistry. 

When I begun my first Level of first Path, it was combining Transition with Pathways. In fact, I am still on that research, even by studying this books. They explain me a lot strangely, about Pathways and how it is now and how it got there.

Yes, to whom we teach has to be decided. Beginners and experts do not need the same! 

I believe that the new paths will address this issue better, but already I can tell: I did learn something new with every path I went through. I also learned of course, how I can take a path and "bend it" to my need and my passion. Use it to tell better what I want to get known and wanted for long time: the importance of personal storytelling. 

I will have to write a lot more about what I am learning from the two books, from Cleve Shepherd, who, of course, begins his speech with a story. A personal story. Even if he adds somewhere in the beginning, "it is invented", it sounds so true, so personal, that I have difficulty believing him. He speaks often of "my wife and me then..." in first person. And of course, his story to which he goes back again and again, illustrates perfectly the "blend" and the need of blending different ways of learning as we go along to learn a skill.