Dipping My Toe In
What are some of the ways that educators and professionals
are connecting and sharing their learning? What can you do during this class
and after it is over to maintain your connections and networks, to further
develop your knowledge, experience and skills?
Twitter
I am very new to Twitter. In fact, I signed up for Twitter
only a few weeks ago and only because it was a requirement of this course. Since
then I read an article that state 6 out of 10 teachers are using social
platforms like Twitter to enhance their teaching. So for this week of inquiry I
spent a lot of time searching through Twitter and trying to understand how it
can help me develop a learning community.
I have realized that certain hashtags that I assumed would be
in use or relevant to me are, in fact, not.
#sd23 is not that active yet @sd23 is. #sd23learn has more info but isn't much
more active, whereas #sd23learns (the s on the end changes everything) is
much more active and full of information I am interested in. I am definitely learning
the importance of getting the exact hashtag! I learned that #stem works for my
purposes but #steam (science, technology, engineering, art and math) does not.
I have yet to figure out why or a pattern to these trends so that will be part
of my learning for the next few months. My thinking is that I will create a
list of hashtags that work for me and check regularly.
Checking these hastags though led me to interesting people in
my district who are focusing on things like coding, design thinking, and
technology that I am interested in so now I know to follow people like @kleckner_SD23,
@_grahamjohnson, @c_durley, and @amber_hartwell. I am keen on following people
in my district because I understand the context in which they work and teach.
It offers me the reliability and authority I am looking for when using a social
platform such as this. It also lets me get great advice from them because they
know my context too. I think for next
year I will stick to local and then when I am feeling confident, I will start
to broaden my searches beyond my district.
I noticed that searching for specific products such as
@microbit_edu, @scratch, @sphero, @spheroedu or @raspberrypi all produced
excellent results and they were very active accounts with heaps of
instructional or inspirational videos to keep my coding heart happy. I could
see myself doing a weekly check in of those. https://twitter.com/microbit_edu
SD23 Library
Learning Commons Professional Learning Community
We have an active learning community for teacher led by
librarians in our district. They met four times this year, set goals based on
the Leading Learning document, and took turns presenting out what they are
doing. Though I am not a TL, they have welcomed all teachers to their meetings
so I have been going. Usually 5 TLs present each meeting and the topic vary as
do the size and scope of their libraries. The TLs were refreshingly open about
where they are on their learning journey and what their goals were. They
happily share their resources as well. I have been thrilled to see such an
active, positive, and supportive community. I plan to continue attending even
though I am not a TL so that I can continue to learn and shape my practice as
an LAT. I sincerely hope that it is still flourishing when I get to be a TL!
I was introduced to this network in my last few courses and
loved how the "great brain" worked. I did not sign up for it as I am
not currently a TL and didn't want to get heaps of daily emails about a job I
don't have. However, I plan to connect to it and use the archive function when
needed.
http://www.lm-net.info/
Hi Deena,
ReplyDeleteI am new to Twitter as well. I do have an Instagram account so I've learned how to use hashtags from that and they are an amazing thing! Really helps to narrow down searches and your time navigating the web for useful information. In addition, it helps reach your core audience when you post. One would certainly think a missing letter here or there wouldn't make a difference but it does! For hashtags to work for their intended purpose, they must be written correctly. It seems that your Twitter experience is so far a positive one, connecting with local educators and professionals is always good thing.
I am feeling comfortable knowing that I wasn't the only one who was new to Twitter. I thought I was the only one disconnected from the Social Media world. I am glad that we are all exploring and learning together. It is amazing how many people you can tweet out to on Twitter by using hashtag (#). As we introduce coding into our new curriculum, I will definitely be looking at the links you have shared. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely had a similar theme for this week's inquiry! The only thing I really do not like about staying connected on social media is the amount of time I waste. Sure, it's helpful to search a hashtag and have a plethora of information at your fingertips, but I find it too addicting! I could waste hours searching through things!
ReplyDeleteI like that you have discussed a multifaceted plan for your own professional development now and in the future. I am glad that you find Twitter to be useful! The SD23 teacher-librarian group sounds inspiring. For future posts, consider making the links live.
ReplyDelete