The discussion around technology in education often revolves around what technology can or can’t do in regard to affecting kids’ learning. The fact of the matter is that technology in education only works for kids, if it works for their teacher.The best technology in the world will not be effective if the teacher is not a committed advocate for it. That commitment requires an understanding of how the tech fits 
into what it is the teacher is trying to accomplish. The marriage of those two requires an understanding of not just subject content, but an understanding of the technology and the students as well. It is far more complicated than throwing the tech at the kids and sitting back to record the miraculous results in a grade book.
Technology’s effect on education is difficult to assess, because it is not just the technology that affects the learning. If there are three teachers teaching the same subjects in a school and are given equal access to technology, how can the technology impact on learning be fairly assessed? If one teacher welcomes the tech and works to use it to its best advantage, while the other two teachers are less comfortable and less willing to fully commit, is the technology that is failing to help students learn? Two thirds of the students would be limited with their technology in this example. Even if there was a massive improvement in the third of the students who succeeded with tech, two thirds would fail to show improvement, yet all had equal access to the tech. Blaming the failure on the tech is much easier than saying teachers are not living up to their professional obligation. Maybe we need to use the technology to address the adult learning of educators before we can expect to fairly assess the effect of technology on student learning. That would be using Andragogy to promote Pedagogy. For a better understanding of Andragogy read this: https://tomwhitby.com/2015/04/13/the-importance-of-andragogy-in-education/ or https://tomwhitby.com/2013/05/03/pedagogy-vs-andragog/
Technology can be most effectively used for collaboration. Some of the most popular sites on the Internet are social media sites. These sites are designed for collaboration and collaboration is a key component in adult learning. Frankly, it is key to all learning, but adults seem to get it better.
My driving force, in all that I now do in education, hinges on one belief: If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators. Collaboration through technology seems to have been designed for educators to inform, if not educate themselves about their own profession. This includes how to use technology to learn more technology. How to develop a personal learning network through technology should be a course offered in every teacher preparation program.
Time and money have been reasons that prevented collaboration in past decades. Today, access to information on the Internet is anytime, anywhere. Cellphones are not phones, but rather small high-powered computers with phone capabilities. Access devices are now plentiful, and Internet access has expanded and become cheaper. Free access is offered in more locations than ever before.
The ability to collaborate and the time to access collaboration has become far less a roadblock than a few years ago. The next two questions might be: “How?” and “Who?”.
Twitter is the backbone of my PLN. I developed it by considering my “Followings” as professional sources. I follow educators who inform, engage, inspire, or challenge me. I find them on Twitter as they contact me. I find them in education Chats. I find them from hashtags that I follow. I follow Bloggers, Podcasters, Thought Leaders, and Authors. I also check out Twitter Profiles to see whom those people follow. Easy Pickens! Checking Twitter profiles is helpful in focusing on the right educators as a source to address my interests and needs. That’s another aspect of adult learning. Twitter on the phone enables me to tweet anytime I find the time. Standing on the grocery line has now become more productive.
Twitter, although not designed specifically for educator collaboration, is actually the easiest way to communicate the very information educators need to share. Educators discovered Twitter and molded it for their own needs. Documents, audio files, videos, blog posts, webinars, podcasts, and pictures can all be reduced to links and communicated. The best however, is the sharing of original ideas. An idea, that is not shared, is just a passing thought. Twitter enables ideas to flourish, or, after undergoing some scrutiny by other educators, die. All of this is limited to tweets of 280 characters. The number of tweets is not limited, so stringing many tweets together enables discussion. This has developed into Education Chats on twitter. There are chats for almost any educator’s interest. Chats are also a great source for finding more educators to follow. Of course my favorite chat is #Edchat which I founded along with Shelly Terrell and Steven Anderson. It has run continually since 2009.
The design of this model of personalized learning does require that an educator must believe that learning does not stop after a degree is earned, a license is issued, and a job is secured. The profession requires relevance, but with changes happening faster than any time in history, maintaining relevance requires continuous ongoing action. This is not comfortable for everyone, but it has become a requirement of the profession. As adult learners we may be more comfortable with digital, collaborative if we are familiar with how adults learn. Educators are experts in how kids learn through pedagogy. How people learn as adults, andragogy, is a mystery to most educators.
Malcolm Knowles identified the six principles of adult learning as:
- Adults are internally motivated and self-directed
- Adults bring life experiences and knowledge to learning experiences
- Adults are goal oriented
- Adults are relevancy oriented
- Adults are practical
- Adult learners like to be respected
Twitter is more than just a collaborative platform for educators. It has added an element of transparency to a profession that was closed and controlling for centuries. We can now see how other educators teach and what they do differently. Educators can feel free to talk about those things that had been in silos for generations. It allows ideas to be considered on their merits, as opposed to those that had been mandated from above. To state the obvious, if we are to evolve into the future, we must be willing to leave the past behind
One can create a personal learning network by using many tools. Technology has afforded us many choices of those tools. The problem is not the scarcity of sources, but rather the scarcity of educators availing themselves of those technology sources that we have. If collaboration and sharing is the key to relevance for educators than share these ideas with a colleague.
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