Learning Blog 3 – “Enlist everyone!”

This whole week I have spent hours and hours on the internet trying to make headway with Marlon’s family tree.  I’ve been sick so I haven’t been able to visit the Family History center in downtown Salt Lake.  I’ve been dreading writing my blog because I feel like I don’t have anything to show for it.  As I was dreading it last night I had an epiphany.  I’ve been thinking about learning in the wrong way.  Just because I don’t have a new name on my family tree doesn’t mean that I haven’t learned anything. Sometimes we tend to think that if we don’t hit some amazing milestone we didn’t learn anything, but we are wrong.  We learn new things every day of our lives.

So what have I learned? I’ve learned that a group of people thinking is better than one person thinking.

I’ve been very focused in on what “I” need to do in order to find Marlon’s ancestors.  This week I’ve learned to enlist others for help.  First of all I have enlisted Marlon.  He has been contacting his cousins down in Colombia through Facebook.  In just this week I have been able to find out the second last name of his grandpa on his dad’s side.  I’m also having him reach out to other cousins and see if they have any type of documents that were given to them.  Some of them living in Colombia have got to know where his grandparents are buried.  I think with a little more time and patience I should be able to gather more information. 

Currently I’m teaching a training class at Zions.  One day as an opener I told them of my crazy entrance into the genealogy world.  They laughed and you know what they got interested.  We brainstormed ideas of what I could do.  One of them has a friend that is from Colombia and loves family history.  She texted a message to her friend and her friend is currently looking for information on Marlon’s grandpa.  We decided that I need to figure out what search browsers are most common in Colombia.  Maybe my searches will produce better results.  One googled some information and found out that the name of the town in Colombia was different back in the 50s which is the timeline I am looking at. 

My coworker brainstormed and gave me the idea to contact some LDS wards in the area and see if any of the youth wanted to do some service projects of taking pictures of graves! What a great idea!

I would never have come up with any of these ideas on my own.  This is exactly what the Zone of Proximal Development refers to! The concept developed from Vygotsky’s theory.  We always want to measure ourselves individually but we can do more as a group.  My ZPD has expanded as I have expanded my resources.  My ZPD is the difference between me working alone and me working with the ideas of all those surrounding me.  I should be able to achieve much more by including many more people in my search.  They spark ideas and give me encouragement. Go team!!

So maybe I don’t have a new name to fit on my line, but I do have more resources and ideas than I ever did a week ago!