This weeks reading & video clip for me was informative and inspiring. For many years, I have been aware of wikis, blogs and tagging but did not truly understand what they were/did or what they were capable of doing in the classroom. Learning more about each of these 2.0 technologies, folksonomy and the tagging system was extremely helpful. I like using reflective writing in my classroom but I never gave much thought about students writing their own blogs, similar to what we are doing here. Obviously, this is a great way to create more dialogue and make connections! I also agreed with many of the implementation recommendations, especially the start small and be realistic. Sometimes, I become very overwhelmed with all the possibilities technology brings. It is important to remember that we need to assess many factors before jumping in. Starting with one or two types of technology to begin is smart then adapt/add/change. I also wanted to comment about the scaffolding piece. I resonated with this because I know there have been times I expected my high school students to just know how use technology. I quickly learned that they need guidance and modeling! They may know how to “work” the technology but how to appropriately use it for an educational purpose has to be led by the instructor. Having guidelines and expectations is very important and as I continue to incorporate more technology into my classroom, I will be sure to set time aside to address the purpose and expectations.
As educators are trying to become more connected, the support of administrators and overall education system is needed. There are many areas of professional development I find to be imperative in helping educators make the transition to a networked teacher. My list is below in no particular order.
- Allowing more time for teachers to rewrite curriculum to reflect more 21st century learning needs.
- Encouraging more collaboration with other educators. Not just within the district, but more time/money to send to outside professional development conferences.
- Making PD more relevant for educators. Less theoretical information and more application to real classrooms. Have current educators lead more of the PD and less administrators who have not taught in a classroom in years.
- Allowing more options for how the PD is conducted. (i.e. online/self-paced, small group/face-to-face, combination)
- More continuity and a chance to self-reflect and collaborate.
Specific steps I would consider to become more connected include first and foremost rewriting curriculum to better reflect a connected classroom. Incorporating more real world projects and technology into the classroom is a step in the right direction. The school I am currently teaching at is very much stuck in the “old” way of teaching. I would love to have time to create more of a project based classroom with less paper and pen worksheets (most of which is busy work and meaningless to students!) and spoon-feeding students information. Earlier I spoke about students being able to reflect on their learning. Perhaps incorporating a weekly blog post would be an appropriate way to reflect on the week and of course allowing students to read each others promoting more collaboration and socialization.
Lastly, I would love to learn more about using social media in the classroom. I have been encouraged by my supervisor to start a Twitter page for FCS (Family & Consumer Sciences). I would love to do this to promote our program and show administration the importance of what we do in our classes. I just am not that comfortable using Twitter so this is a focus. I will continue to find EdCamps, online courses, conferences and other professional learning communities to enhance my understanding of connected learning and how I can apply this to my own classroom.
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I like the image that you found about morphing into a 21st Century Educator. I am familiar with a lot of the ideas on the image, but the one that really hits home is “Be as tech savvy as your students”. I use to use the tagging site delicious. It no longer works. I read that it was bought out. Is there another good tagging site that you use?
I honestly do not use any tagging system, but now that I know more about tagging I plan to find one. I will let you know if I find anything!
As I was reading your post I really was just nodding along. I think there definitely needs to be change in admin, and professional development. If this doesn’t happen though, we as educators need to be the change and this can be what is the hard part. With family, kids, extra curricular activities and our lives, I find I run out of time to do it all myself. I think this is where connected learning can play a huge part though. You mentioned twitter and I find twitter to be a great tool to find activities and tech ideas to use within the classroom. Or if you don’t have time to look for them, you can always post a question and someone usually responds if you are following a lot of educators or they are following you. This is not an end all be all solution but I think it could be a start. As far as you mentioning starting a twitter class account, I have not done this but a colleague of mine has. She just told me to make sure you stay connected as your students do and delete any not appropriate comments anytime you see them. She said this does not happen too often because all students are reliable for their own tweets since it has their name attached to them. Thanks for sharing the image too, great way to summarize what we have been learning.
Hello,
I agree with Megan. I feel the same way when it comes to PD trainings. I am at a point in my life where I don’t have time to learn about theories and failed attempts. I want to know what works and how to use it. I want something that is relevant and current to what I am doing. I want something quick and something I can apply right away. It should also be engaging. However, what we typically get is someone who is reading off a PowerPoint or it’s information overload and we don’t have time to apply it. They are giving us information we could read in the comfort of our own homes. Sometimes it is repetitive and not really new.
As far as our own development is concerned, I do think we need time to collaborate with our peers and take a look at the curriculum in order to figure out what we can do to make it relevant and engaging to our students. If you think about it, they probably feel the same about class as we feel about PD training.
Hi all! I’ve been diving into becoming a networked educator by joining Twitter chats, attending webinars, and co-hosting collaborative blog projects. When I’m stuck on a tech question, I even jokingly ask for a duolingo phone number as a fun icebreaker , then we swap serious tips instead. Fun fact: I manage my PLN while walking my pup, tweeting ideas during play breaks. Connecting with educators worldwide has expanded my resource library and inspired fresh lesson plans. Can’t wait to hear your experiences and favourite tools! Thanks for sharing this journey together. Let’s keep learning and growing as a community together.