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FIND, USE, SHARE, and EXPAND

It’s been awhile since Steve Johnson described the FUSE process but I’m noticing that some people haven’t heard the term… or thought as carefully about it as might be useful.

It seems to me that understanding FUSE is crucial to understanding the revolution that’s going on in online learning, especially for teachers who are turning into educational entrepreneurs:

“In the Web 2.0 model, we have thousands of services scrutinizing each new piece of information online, grabbing interesting bits, remixing them in new ways, and passing them along to other services.

Each new addition to the mix can be exploited in countless new ways, both by human bloggers and by the software programs that track changes in the overall state of the Web.

Information in this new model is analyzed, repackaged, digested, and passed on down to the next link in the chain. It flows.”

It’s true that human beings are innovating and creating new things faster and faster. Maybe faster than ever before in the history of the world.

It’s also true that there’s really nothing new under the Sun. All hum,an beings are ever doing is repackaging and repurposing things in new ways for new applications in new times and new places. And that’s all we’ve ever done.

Yes, we’re developing unique “intellectual properties.” And we’ve always been making our intellectual properties on the shoulders of others. N’est-ce-pas?

The read-write-web, or Web 2.0, is simply accelerating this process in ways that are truly mind-boggling!

What seems to me to be crucial for teachers - of all kinds - who are wanting to make the transition from wage slaves to education entrepreneurs online is that we master the art of FUSE:

FIND, USE, SHARE, and EXPAND

… while remaining mindful that our FUSING has REAL VALUE to others and we need to be rewarded for adding value as we feed the flow of information from one place to another, one person to another.

What do you think about this?

I’d really like to hear your perspective on FUSE.

How are you using FUSE to shape your online teaching and learning?

What kinds of rewards are you seeking for the value you’re adding to the lives of online learners?

Michael Hodosh, aka Dr. Michael, is a 49-year-old clinical psychologist who is shifting his focus from face-to-face counseling to counseling online.

He’s making a lot more money online in a lot less time. And he feels he is able to help people more than he can many times in face-to-face conventional systems.

You can do the same! 

Dr. Michael does his work through Kasamba, newly acquired by Live Person.

There are dozens of online marketplaces like the one Mike is using. More are springing up every week. And people who can see new possibilities are starting to transition their counseling and life coaching practices from conventional face-to-face settings to working online through these marketplaces.

In fact, Dr. Michael is one of over 30,000 professionals registered at Kasamba (now Live Person) to help people find solutions to their most pressing problems.

With a doctorate in psychology and training as a coach through CTI, Mike currently earns from $5-6K a month in as little as 80 hours a month providing direct service to people who contact him at Kasamba, or through one of the other online profiles he maintains.

Over the course of his career, Mike has developed expertise in post-traumatic stress, shame, guilt, self-esteem, relationships, depression, anxiety, various forms of addiction, schizophrenia, and other kinds of psychotic disorders.

One of his greatest strengths is knowing how to make people feel comfortable talking about things they might never have talked about before.

Listen to Dr. Michael talk about how he’s leveraging his strengths and the resources available at Kasamba (now Live Person) to make more money in less time while helping people across the globe. You can do the same!

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Starting today, our radio show, “Teaching For A Living, Not Just A Paycheck” will now be hosted both here and on my profile page inside the WeAreTeachers Network.

Show #2 features an interview with Mark Cruthers, an AP History teacher living in Pinion Hills, California, where he teaches both face-to-face and online.

Monday to Friday, from 7:30am to 3:30pm, Mark teaches traditional high school students face-to-face. Then, after 4pm, Mark teaches teaches homeschool students - online.

Last year, he and his wife, Deborah, made an extra $25,000 teaching 13 homeschoolers AP History, AP English and AP Psychology using a free, virtual classroom tool called WizIQ. And every one of them passed their AP History exams with flying colors, too!

I’d call what Mark’s doing teaching for a living, not just a paycheck.

Listen to him talk about how he’s doing this here:

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I don’t know about you, but the more I talk about Web2 and the emergence of independent online teaching in places OUTSIDE online social networks, the more I feel like some kind of crazy Paul Revere (or maybe more like Lady Godiva) riding through the dark crying, “Web 2 is coming! Web 2 is coming!” And only a few people are waking up.In way too many face-to-face encounters, I keep having folks cock one eye at me, furrow their brows, and ask something like, “What IS Web 2.0, Meri?”

Well, for starters, it’s the end of business as usual for everyone. Across the globe! It’s the end of “authority” as we have known it and the start of a global rush into participation like we’ve never known before.

Despite George Bush’s best efforts to the contrary, it’s simply the end of command-and-control.

And it’s already happened. Only it’s not just the BRITISH who are coming… it’s the WHOLE GLOBE!

Web 2.0 is nothing less than a world-wide shift of power from the hands of a few to the hands of EVERYONE. And it’s already underway.

Web 2.0 is an all-encompassing revolution that is changing the very ground that business, government, teachers and learners walk on everyday.

So, if you’re someone who’s been too busy just coping with the avalanche of day-to-day and you want to better understand Web 2.0. I recommend you take 50 minutes to watch this video. It’s a conversation between a group of people at the 2007 World Economic Forum talking about the crucial issue: “What do we know about Web 2.0?” It’s a year old, but it’s still packed with great insights!

You’ll recognize the names of the participants:

Caterina Fake, Founder, Flickr, USA • William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA • Chad Hurley, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YouTube, USA • Mark G. Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nike, USA • Viviane Reding, Commissioner, Information Society and Media, European Commission, Brussels Challenger • Dennis Kneale, Managing Editor, Forbes Magazine, USA Moderated by • Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network, USA .

I’m Meri Aaron Walker and I’ve been an independent teacher, trainer, coach, and consultant my entire working life. Over 35 years.

I’ve produced media of all kinds since my first job, writing radio ads for an underground music station in 1967. I’ve been teaching and learning on the internet since before we had Windows or graphical browsers – over 20 years now. And I’ve been studying the emergence of a new, global, digital culture since before the “public” realized what we were creating together using computers.

For my whole adult life, my work has been helping other people get from Point A to Point B faster and less expensively – and more enjoyably - than they could without me.

And, until now, I’ve quite purposefully avoided making a commitment to blogging.

Why?

Bottom line: I was waiting for the rules of engagement online to morph from more and more subtle command-and-control games to fair, two-way exchanges that benefit both parties. From serial monologue to genuine dialogue.

In other words, I was waiting for social networking to start taking hold in business, education and politics.

And it has.

During the latter half of 2007, I watched Web 2.0 shoot past its adolescence into young adulthood. Early in January, 2008, I watched Facebook sponsor and debrief the most substantive political debate I’ve seen in three decades. And, in my own participation in two dozen social networks, I’ve been watching global dialogue accelerate to the point that I can see the best way for me to manage my participation is to open this blog space and host the conversations I want to be in.

So, Ta-DAAAH!

Welcome to MAW’S TOOLBOX – a place for teachers, trainers, coaches and consultants to discover the Web 2 that works for you.

Intention
I intend for MAW’S TOOLBOX to be

1) a place to engage with me and teachers of all kinds who realize the environment for “teaching” and “learning” has definitively changed - in other words, we’re just not in Kansas anymore!

2) a place for people so excited by Web2 tools and strategies that we’re transitioning our careers into online “teaching” businesses

3) a place to share what we’re learning as we connect directly with global learners – anytime and anywhere they need our help – outside conventional systems and conventional “courseware”

4) a place to start turning your expertise into a reliable new source of CA$H for your and your family.

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