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EDUCON: Shift Happens.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, conference, Education, EduCon, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Reform, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on January 28, 2013| 10 Comments »

This weekend I was again very fortunate to attend what many consider the premiere education Conference held each year in Philadelphia, EDUCON. It is the sixth year of this conference and it seems to just keep getting better with each year. It is not at a huge venue. It has no Exhibitors, so there is no Exhibitor Hall. There are no massive dining rooms. There are no planned Gala events. There is no schedule of Keynote speakers. Participation is limited to about 500 people. Students, rather than adults are the support staff at the conference. Without all, or even any of the usual components of a national education conference, how is this a premiere Education Conference?

EDUCON takes place in Philadelphia each year on the weekend between the last weekend of the NFL playoff games and the weekend of the Superbowl.

The venue is a school, The Science Leadership Academy. Compared to many American high schools it is relatively small. For that reason participation numbers are comparatively small when considering other education conferences. The result is a dimension to this conference lacking in others.

The close proximity of participants in a small area with chairs and tables strategically placed in hallways all provide an intimacy not experienced elsewhere. This is important because the very people who are presenters at EDUCON are also participants at the presentations of others. They are also the very people one sits next to at lunch and in the hallways and at other sessions. Engagement is constant and meaningful with educators and thought leaders. It is also happening at all levels: student, teacher, administrator, parent, author, and consultant.

Here is the other difference; every presentation is not a presentation, but rather a conversation. A team of people moderates most of these conversations. Each conversation usually has a group participation component. Group work is very common at this conference. The follow-up discussions from the group work are the driving force to what many refer to as the deep thinking provided at this conference.

I think my greatest take away from this conference had nothing to do with the ideas of Entrepreneurship or innovation, which seemed to be a threaded theme of this conference. It was the focus of two panel discussions. I am having a difficult time defining those terms in the context of education. However since it is an up and coming and ongoing theme among some thought leaders, I am sure we will all spend more time determining these definitions as well as how they pertain to education.

What I came away with was to me a more relevant idea as an educator. I saw a focus on teaching learning as a skill and not a consequence of content delivery. The ideas of thoughtful, and deep questioning of a subject, before tackling it, as a problem to solve was a striking revelation. The idea of teaching the use of the process to acquire the content knowledge as opposed to just providing the content made so much more sense to me. All of this emphasized the “How” to learn as opposed to “What’ to learn. I saw this as a much more meaningful goal for educators. Teaching the skill of learning as the focus of the lessons is a shift from what many do. Learning too often is a consequence of content being poured into the heads of students. Some students get it some students don’t. Throw enough wet spaghetti at the wall and some will stick. That seems to be a hit or miss method for success. More often than not, there is less success.

Teaching Learning as a skill certainly increases the chance for successful learning. That is what I took away. Inquiry based learning, and problem based learning are much more in line with teaching learning as a skill than lectures. Lecture and direct instruction will always have a place in education but they should never be the focus for method of delivery. The question is what percentage of our educators continue to do so, often because that is the way it has always been?

EDUCON challenges the status quo of education. EDUCON promotes deeper thinking leading to more meaningful questioning. If we are ever to find the best answers to our difficult problems, we will need to be asking the right questions. EDUCON promotes that. I believe I am a better educator for attending this conference. The shift in education, that we all strive for, will begin with the type of thinking promoted at EDUCON.

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A Conference Perspective

Posted in Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Social Media, Teachmeet, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on November 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

When I accepted an invitation to attend the World Innovation Summit on Education, WISE2012, in Doha, Qatar, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. In my own arrogance I thought I was a seasoned education conference attendee. I have been to maybe a hundred education conferences both good and bad. I planned or helped plan at least a dozen local or statewide conferences. I even considered myself an experienced critic having done several well-received posts on various professional education conferences. There was very little in all of that which prepared me for what I was to experience in Doha.
The idea that I had about an international conference relied heavily on my ISTE experience. After all, The “I” in ISTE stands for international. It never occurred to me that I would need an electronic translator to understand what was being presented or being asked about by presenters and audience members. Translators were given out to everyone before every session. I was not prepared for the number of security checks. I never realized how people needed to adhere to cultural protocols. After all was said and done, I realized that the life, of an American educator, is in worldly terms, a sheltered life indeed.

The more I attended sessions at WISE2012, the more I realized that this was not an Education conference that focused on the needs of educators, but rather it focused on the needs of education. Those are needs, not of the educators, but of the learners. Those are needs not of school districts, but of countries. This was truly the needs of education on a global scale. Many of the educators at this conference were not academic teachers, but administrators of NGO,s, Non Government Organizations established for the purpose of providing education.

Education of girls came up time and time again as clarion call of this conference. I could easily understand that call with my American perspective. I clearly understand that there are cultures in the world that do not consider women equal to men, and therefore, they believe women are not entitled to an education. As true as that is of some countries, that is not the reasoning behind that clarion call. The reason obvious to many at this conference, other than me,was that, if we educate a woman, we educate a family. It is a simple explanation to address a complicated problem. Many countries depend on women to be the teachers. These countries do not always have the luxury of selecting college graduates. They often rely on women with an education that culminated somewhere on the secondary level. The fallback position for educated women would be that at the very least, they could educate their own families.

Another area hampering education throughout the world is the lack of infrastructure, as well as barriers of country and climate. The Qatar Foundation through WISE provided funding for the development of floating classrooms. In an area of the world where seasonal flooding dictates the progress of the country, students, who are cut off from roads to their schools for extended periods of time, can now be safely served by these solar-powered, floating bastions of education. This innovation sponsored and funded by WISE will be supported and duplicated in areas that require such solutions to advance education.

My final eye-opening issue is the problem of educating students in areas of conflict and war. Americans are fortunate that we are not a nation involved in armed conflict on our own soil. Our children, with few exceptions, do not come under fire on the way to school. Their lives are not threatened as a direct result of getting an education. These are not factors that hold true for all countries. Conflict at best constricts education, and at worst destroys it. This is an issue that faces many countries, but it is not complicating the lives, or is it even on the minds of many Americans. It is an issue that must be addressed.

These are only some of the issues discussed at the WISE 2012 conference. This conference does not lessen the problems discussed at American education conferences, but it does give them a different perspective. I was profoundly affected by many of the issues at this conference. It was attended by not many classroom teachers, but by a great many educators. There was far less discussion about methodology and more about the survival strategies of education. This was a necessary and powerful meeting of policy makers and organizations that deserve support and recognition for what they try to do every day for our world. An educated populace is the key to making our world a better and safer place. Collaboration of concerned world citizens is the only path to that goal. This was the WISE Education Conference.

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What is a WISE Conference?

Posted in Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, EdChat, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on November 14, 2012| 2 Comments »

A few weeks ago I received an email invitation to attend an education conference with all expenses paid. This is done to get the conferences noticed in the education community. It is an expense and a necessary element of Public relations. Depending on the quality of the conference, sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it exposes flaws of a conference to the world of connected educators. This is not an uncommon practice, and as a connected educator, I look upon it as an opportunity with each occurrence. I have been afforded a number of such opportunities since becoming an education Blogger.

What really struck me about this invitation however is that it came from an organization called WISE and it took place in the organization’s home city of Doha, Qatar. I consider myself an educated person, but like many Americans, I am only familiar with maps of vacation destinations, and war locations. With the advent, and exception of the GPS those are the only real maps I ever look at. Sad commentary, I know. My ignorance of the geography of Qatar was complicated further by personal prejudices stemming from it being, in my mind, a country of the Middle East. I am not consciously prejudiced against, or do I hold responsible, the Muslim religion for the events of 911. I am however, a New York educator who was personally and profoundly affected by the events of 911. I did have to overcome some personal hesitation, as well as family concerns in order to accept the invitation. The world is a much more dangerous place. All of that being said, I am very glad that I accepted the invitation, and flew to Qatar for the International Conference of the World Innovation Summit for Education, WISE 2012.

Of course the icing on the cake was that my close personal friend, connected educator, and fellow education Blogger, Steve Anderson, @web20classroom, was also invited, and accepted the invitation. I did need to prompt him a little, but I did not need a cattle prod to do it. I am sure that Steve had many of the same reservations, so travelling together helped ease those trepidations for both of us. We were even able to schedule our 13 hour flight with adjoining seats. Life is good.

Qatar Airlines was very impressive, but it was the organization of the logistics team of Wise that was really impressive. Our sole contact was a young woman named Nandita, who was a delight. Her team was able to invite and move and collect educators from all over the world, while jumping through every international hoop placed before them to complete their task. They were also able to accommodate the individual needs and desires of the educators as well. It was a daunting task, well accomplished.

My next question was how does a plane with over 400 passengers get off the ground? My second question was how does it stay in the air for 13 hours? Answers to both questions were stated to my satisfaction through the accomplishment of both. The Airline was incredible, and the meals, snacks and beverages were all included and expertly delivered on the flight. The crew of over 20 people was wonderful. The passengers were a truly international representation with Americans in the minority. Since the flight left at 9:30 PM New York time, most of the 13 hours involved us trying to sleep. That was not an easy assignment.

At one point I managed to get about an hour into a really great snooze when I was half awakened by a beep. This was followed by a male flight attendant tapping me on the shoulder saying, “ Sit Lower”! Of course even in my twilight sleep, I wanted to immediately comply with each command, so as not to appear to be The Ugly American, so I attempted to sit lower. I had no idea what that meant. My seat was all the way back, and I was as scrunched down as low as I could get, but I tried to scrunch down further. I only hoped my attendant would be pleased with my best attempt to comply with his command to “sit lower”. As he came back down the aisle I could not contain myself any longer. “What did you mean by “Sit Lower?” I asked.

He answered, “I am sorry sir, I said, ‘Seat Belts On’, as the seatbelt light went on.” I was very grateful the lights were out and most everyone continued sleeping, including Steve seated next to me. I really felt dumb at that point and not at all like an international education blogger.

Upon arrival we were herded to school buses which would rival most upscale buses in America. They were air-conditioned with comfortable seats, seatbelts and an information display at the front of the bus. The bus ride took us through a city that was lit up to show some of the most interesting architecture I have ever seen. Although we had just eaten breakfast on the plane three hours earlier, it was now 8:30 PM and we were at an alcohol-free cocktail party with incredibly delicious finger foods. That would be the eating with fingers, as opposed to the eating of fingers.

At this mingling event we got to talk to educators from around the world. They were interested in what Steve and I had to say about what we did as connected educators who Tweet and Blog and present at education conferences. We were interested in how WISE provides money for innovative education programs and recognizes educators. This WISE 2012 conference will hopefully prove to be a most productive event. It again underscores the fact that in today’s world everything global is local and everything local is global. I look forward to Tweeting and Blogging more on this as the week progresses. Watch for the Hashtag #WISE2012!

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Are EDU conferences meeting our needs?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Edcamp, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Observation, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Truth, Twitter, unconference on November 10, 2012| 12 Comments »

Today I attended the 39^th Annual Conference for the Association of Middle Level Education in Portland, Oregon. I actually presented for this group for a couple of times about 25 years ago when it was The National Middle Schools Association. That was back in the day when we had far fewer middle schools. The model most often employed back then was the Junior High School. Junior high schools were 7-9 mini high schools. Little kids, little problems (what were we thinking?).

The middle school movement changed that for many school districts. It supported a more collaborative model for educators with a team oriented approach to education. I was a high school teacher for Six years, a junior high school teacher for ten years and a middle school teacher for eighteen years. From that perspective I describe middle school educators as teachers of kids, and high school educators as teachers of courses. I also describe elementary teachers as saints. That is not meant to disparage high school educators. Their job is to prepare students for a college environment which will be, unfortunately, far less supportive or nurturing for students.

I did not participate in many sessions today, but I did study the extensive program, and I did stop in to a number of sessions to get a feel for the conference. My focus at education conferences is no longer as a classroom teacher, but as an educator supporting professional development as a path to education reform. Through that lens, I was amazed at how little the sessions of this conference had evolved in the many years since I presented. Many, many of the sessions were hour-long, PowerPoint presentations with a period of time at the end for questions and answers. In one of the sessions that I monitored, the presenter would not take any questions until she finished her PowerPoint.

I always wonder why experienced educators with a firm grasp on learning and methods of teaching would subject their audience of adults to presentations that they know would never work with their students. For some reason, many teachers abandon what they know, to become what has been modeled to them as the method of how an educator should present to colleagues, rather than employ proven methods of teaching. How many people can retain information delivered in Text-laden slides spanning over an hour of presentation and only 15 minutes if interaction? Let me be clear. This was not done in every session, and sometimes it may be the only way. The trend however should be taking presenters to more effective methods of presentation. Presentation is teaching, and that is the subject we as educators are experts in.

The other big thing that stood out to me was the subjects of sessions that were provided. The topics covered many of the important issues of middle level education. There was however, much duplication. This could be good for the purpose of planning on the part of the attendees. It enables them more flexibility in scheduling their personal slate of sessions. It also offers different views of the same subject. The downside is that redundant subject sessions limit the total of topics to be presented.

Of course my most critical comment would be the lack of technology not in the delivery of the sessions, but within the subjects of the sessions. Yes, it is not an ISTE conference, but education is now employing a great amount of technology with in many cases limited professional development for educator’s specific needs in their specific subject areas. More sessions in any conference need to be tech-oriented supporting Technology Literacy in education for educators, as well as students.

With that thought in mind I began observing how many of the participants were connected educators. I did hear the Marzano name mentioned in a few sessions, so I believe there is some connecting going on, but is it enough? I could only identify about a dozen tweeters at the conference who back channeled sessions. I do not believe any of the sessions were being live streamed to the internet. I was impressed with the mobile app supplied for the program. That might have been why so many participants were looking at their phones. Middle School educators are the most team-oriented, collaborative educators in our education system. I could not understand why the tweets were not flying fast and furiously.

It was then that I began to consider my own Twitter Stream, my Personal Learning Network. At a glance, I realized that much of my network, although global, is weighted on the east coast. Whether I was personally connected to these folks or not, the #AMLE2012 hashtag still should have approached trending. That never came close.

The idea of connected educators should be a focus of all education conferences. Criticisms aside, this was a wonderful conference that offered educators a shot in the arm to get those creative juices flowing. People come off of a conference like this ready to move up. The problem settles in as time passes. The idea of being connected enables those educators to keep those juices flowing. The great boost that educators get at the conference is enabled to continue beyond the conference. Although many education conferences meet some needs of educators, often times there are simultaneously missed opportunities. Things are moving too fast for missed opportunities.

This, as I explained, is my view through the lens of an educator interested in Professional Development leading the way to education reform. We cannot have professional conferences that focus on supporting the status quo. We do need to effectively share what is happening in classrooms today. The greater need however, is what should be happening in whatever we decide will be the classrooms of tomorrow. This is my lens, my observations, and my opinion.

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PD: How do educators get to know what they don’t know?

Posted in Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, cooperating Teacher, Edcamp, Education, Internet, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Standardized test, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on October 9, 2012| 24 Comments »

When it comes to education reform, there are in general two major camps, but there are also several variations of each. The first camp would like to blow up the system and start all over. The other camp wants to continue the status quo while working to change it in directions governed by whatever dominant force of change has the ear of the public at the time. I find my own inclinations falling somewhere between the two camps. I want to blow some stuff up while improving upon some existing stuff. Like most educators, or any people with a basic understanding of authentic assessment, I do want to blow up any notion or hint of compliance with high stakes, standardized testing. The area of improvement that I think will get us the biggest bang for the all-important, tax buck is professional development.

It has long been my position that to be better educators, we need to be better learners. Since I have worked in higher education now for a while, many teachers have said to me how they love having student teachers in their building, because they can learn so much from the “young people” about all the new stuff in education. Some variation of that phrase has been repeated by more than one educator every year since I have been working with student teachers. To me that is a big RED FLAG. It causes me to ask, “Why does a veteran teacher need to have a student bring them up to date on the latest methodology, pedagogy and technology in the field of education?” If our students are to get a relevant education, should we not have relevant educators? Why on earth would experienced educators need students to provide that which every school district in the country should be striving to provide teachers within their system?

We need to examine the way we approach professional development in education. Too often it is left up to the educators to seek out their own PD. That is good for some, but not all educators have an understanding of what they do not know. If you don’t know about something, how would you know to seek PD in that area? This is especially true of learning with technology. I have a master’s degree in educational technology. The fact is that not any of the applications or computers that I learned on, as well as the methodology in the use of those components, exists today. Very little of that degree would be relevant, if I did not continue to learn, adapt and progress with what I know. The same holds true with any degree in any profession. From the day one gets a degree, things in that area of expertise begin to change. With the influence of a technology-driven culture, things move at a much faster pace than years past causing a more rapid rate of change. Therefore, the pace at which things change has increased exponentially, while the way we provide PD to deal with these changes is relatively unchanged from years past in many, if not most schools.

PD is offered by many schools in an annual or semiannual teacher workshop day. The other method is to allow teachers to seek out their own PD on their own time, often at their own expense. Technology training for teachers is often addressed in schools. The method of choice, however, by many schools is what my friend Brian Wasson, an IT guy, refers to as the “Home Depot Method.” The district goes out and buys all the cool tools from the vendors and then tries to teach, or force feed them to the teachers. That is a sure formula for failure.

We need to change PD. It must be part of an educator’s work week, and that includes administrators. We need educators to connect with other educators to collaborate and maintain relevance. Educators need to explore their needs and address them with solutions of their choosing after exploring the options. Faculty meetings can address procedures in shared documents with educators, while using the time in meetings to discuss pedagogy, methodology, best practices and new ideas. Educators need to be supported in trying new endeavors. When we address PD as evolving and continuous, and not as a teacher workshop day, we will begin to bring relevance back to education. Schools that do this now will be the first to tell us this. Of course, we need to connect with them for that to happen. Connecting educators is a first step.

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Defining Definitions for ASCD

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Linkedin, Literacy, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teachmeet, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on July 27, 2012| 3 Comments »

This was originally posted in SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Education http://smartblogs.com/education

I was lucky to have scored an invitation to the ASCD Leader to Leader Conference. ASCD is a premier education organization that engages a membership of about 150,000 educators internationally. This particular conference concentrates on the leadership of ASCD. It is a great effort by this organization to bring together its leadership as well as invite, introduce, promote and revere new leadership along with tried-and-true leaders. This is a great way for any organization to transfer power from the old guard to the new.

My invitation was somewhat of a mystery to me. I am not a leader within the organization or interested in becoming one. It is not that it is a position that I would not be honored to hold, but my career has taken me down another path. I am a blogger, and one of my platforms is ASCD EDge, one of several websites that ASCD uses to expose members to blog posts, discussions, media and events of education. My assumption is that my invitation was linked to my blogging, which is a gutsy thing for any organization to do. It opens the inner workings of the organization to the scrutiny of someone who can expose its blemishes to the world. It is a true acceptance of transparency.

In my role at this conference, I found myself at times an observer and other times a participant. What was obvious to me as an observer is that many tools of technology have changed the definitions by which the organization tries to govern itself — a dilemma not foreign to the system of education. The most obvious of these definitions is that of “connectedness.” In terms that leaders of this group understand, they are connected by e-mail, websites, cellphones and state-of-the-art conferences. Compared with 20th-century methods of connectedness, these newer methods should be taking the leaders to a higher level — and they do, but they don’t meet the expected goal.

What was obvious to me in all of the leadership discussions is that the leaders were viewing connectedness as a static position that they had reached. They expected that after they created websites and organized conferences, they could get the message out to more members than ever before. All of that is probably true, but the real question is whether they are reaching everyone possible and necessary to be relevant. We can’t use standards of the 20th century to determine success in the 21st. Developing technology will continually move the mark forward. Our definitions will continue to evolve as technology changes the methods and intensity of things we do. Our goals become moving targets, and if we don’t adjust our sights, we can never hit those goals.

My view of the missing piece to the puzzle for this group and many others is the integration of social media and the ability to strategize their use to maximize communication, involvement and creation by members to advance goals of the group. This can also apply to education. Educators can use social media to connect, communicate and create with other educators to advance their goals.

Of course, the obvious stumbling blocks are large and multiple. First, we need to convince people that social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn are serious and effective for professional connections, as well as learning. Second, we need to teach the basics of these tools so people can use them. Third, we need to apply strategies to use these tools effectively to maximize their potential for ongoing, continuous connectedness. Again, all of these obstacles are not limited to organizations such as ASCD and its members; they also apply to educators and education.

We cannot continue to act using definitions from the past to address today’s goals. Technology is rapidly and continuously changing what we do and how we do it. Being truly connected is the only way we can maintain relevance. Education has traditionally been a conservative institution, with change coming slowly. That is no longer an option for educators. Technology is the game changer. If we are not moving forward, we are falling behind. If our leaders and professional organizations are not staying relevant, the revolution many of us are hoping for in education might arrive too late to help.

This is what I had to offer ASCD as a result of my participation in its forward-thinking conference for leadership. Additionally, I hope we can apply some of these lessons to an education system that needs leadership to define itself in relevant terms to effect change. I am tired of having educators and education being defined by businesspeople, politicians and tax reformers. We are the education experts, and we can define ourselves in relevant terms.

Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) is an adjunct professor of education at St. Joseph’s College in New York. He came to that position after 34 years as a secondary English teacher in the public school system. He was recognized with an Edublog Award for the Most Influential Educational Twitter Series, #Edchat, which he co-founded. Whitby also created The Educator’s PLN and two LinkedIn groups, Technology-Using Professors and Twitter-Using Educators.

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#ISTE2012 and the Importance of Educator Connections

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Elementary, Email, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, Ning, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on July 8, 2012| 6 Comments »

I recently attended a complete immersion of education philosophy, education methods and pedagogy, technology tools for learning and connectedness with education thought leaders from around the world. All of this took place at one of our premier annual education conferences, ISTE 2012 in San Diego. Educators attend these conferences with their own focuses. They select the sessions they need from a smorgasbord of high-quality presentations on education topics given by practitioners and authors, all vetted by a screening committee of educators.

A majority of the comments that I heard from attendees were positive, with one exception. There were some presenters who adopted a stand-and-deliver lecture style — the death-by-PowerPoint presentation. Many educators simply hated this type of presentation and were fairly vocal about it. Of course, I am but one person talking to a small sample of people, so there might be less to this than I was led to believe.

Of course, individual presentation styles cannot be controlled by screening committees. It will only be through feedback that these methods will dwindle and die. We will always have a lecture form of method for teaching, but we can hope for it not to be a focus for all lessons. The more engaging give-and-take, discussion-oriented presentations seemed to have been more popular with the folks with whom I spoke. This should be a lesson to all educators to take back to their classroom practice.

My personal focus for this conference was to make connections. Connectedness among educators is something you will be hearing quite a bit about in the upcoming month. It has been so declared as a national month of observance. Of course, the irony is that many of the national organizers have not been connected educators. Educators who have been connected and working those connections were contacted late in the process. That is another post for later.

ISTE 2012 is one of the best sources for connecting with education experts and education thought leaders. My goal was to touch base, connect or reconnect with as many of these folks as possible. Fortunately, each time I connected, a valuable conversation resulted.

Many educators use various methods to connect with other educators for the purpose of professional exchanges. These exchanges include ideas, information, websites, webinars, videos, advice, connections to other educators and personal relationships. Connected educators use conferences such as ISTE 2012 for face-to-face meetings with those digital connections.

All of this is valuable to a profession that before digital connections was somewhat isolated. Digital connections can provide a bridge to cross that void of professional and personal relationships. The connectedness of ISTE attendees is most prevalent, and there appeared to be a high percentage of connected educators in attendance. This, of course, is my opinion, but with all of the social media tools at my disposal, I am probably directly or indirectly connected to 40,000 to 50,000 educators.

Who should I connect with?

That’s the question that I always get from people new to digitally connecting with other educators. I went to ISTE to seek out and connect with education thought leaders I hold in high regard. My standard was to connect with those who not only have great ideas in education but also are willing to share those ideas. An idea not shared is only a passing thought that will never become an idea. The best part of ISTE 2012 for me is that no one was unapproachable. As in social media, ideas at ISTE 2012 were the focus, and a person’s position and title took a back seat. My interest was to interact with many of the folks who are public supporters of those ideas. These are the people I follow and interact with daily.

I always hate putting out lists because there are too many people who might belong on that list but are left off. I will say that this is a partial list of those with whom I connected at ISTE 2012. Most were presenters and keynoters. Feel free to use this as a starting point or an additional resource for educators to follow on Twitter.

@dwarlick, @shareski, @teach42, @djakes, @adambellow, @dlaufenberg, @joycevalenza, @mluhtala, @willrich45, @mbteach, @web20classroom, @cybraryman1, @kylepace, @thenerdyteacher, @coolcatteacher, @shannonmmiller, @stumpteacher, @BethStill, @chrislehmann, @kenroyal, @SirKenRobinson, @smartinez, @garystager, @stevehargadon, @ewanmcintosh, @InnovativeEdu, @amandacdykes, @2footgiraffe

My apologies go to the many whom my faulted memory has omitted. I am sure they will be included on some follow-up lists.

ISTE 2012 provided many things to many educators. My best take-away is the great face-to-face connections with people with whom I have been digitally connected, as well as with those with whom I want to be connected. In a profession that relies on teaching relevant information to ready students for the world that they live in, we must maintain our own relevance as educators and citizens. Being a connected educator is the best way we can maintain that relevance. ISTE 2012 reinforced that position for me, and my personal goal is to connect the dots and help all educators to be connected.

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Twitter Ties

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Thought Provoking, Twitter on May 18, 2012| 14 Comments »

For the “Connected Educator” Twitter can be a mainstay for information and sources. In order to build up a steady flow of information and sources, one need only to establish a list of people to follow on Twitter who put out the tweets, or messages, that contain links, URL’s, to that information or source. In Twitter terms these people are called “Follows”. They are the people one follows. An educator using Twitter for professional reasons would follow educators, since they put out education information. I follow over 1,600 educators, so my stream of information runs constantly through my Twitter timeline. No, I do not read every tweet.

The other side of the coin here would be those educators who follow me. They would be my “Followers”. Once I got over 300 followers it got to be a bit heady. I had to keep things in perspective. It was not a third world dictatorship with me as the leader of my loyal followers who awaited my every word. If I put out useful information and thoughtful advice, I found that I would attract more followers. The very best method to do that was to follow really great educators and retweet what they tweeted. That means I would tweet their tweet, but give them credit for it. I was valued, because I valued someone else’s thought or information. How cool is that. Kudos all around!

There are many ways to follow people. There are lists that people offer. Bloggers now have “Follow me on Twitter” icons located on their blogs. There are recommendations of people to follow from other tweeters. Twitter dedicates Friday as the day to recommend people to follow with a hashtag #FF placed on tweets making follow recommendations. The #FF stands for Follow Friday. Of course for the more popular or specific people to follow, there is always the “Search People” tool on Twitter. Probably the best method is to check who each of your follows follow. Take people from their lists of follows. The point is that one can strategically make a vast number of follows with far less effort than was once required.

The real connections with all of the follows, and followers however, come with the personal exchanges made between follows and followers. These are the important, meaningful connections. Exchanges of ideas and information are the goal, but more often the personal and social aspects are the things that bind individuals. Many of these digital connections become much more. This has added a whole new dimension to Education conferencing. Educators who are connected through social media will meet face to face with people they have been attached to online. Without ever having before met face to face, it is like old friends reuniting. It is truly a unique experience.

It is with this backdrop that I now address my latest experience with my Twitter emotions. As I said, my follow list exceeds 1,600, so I was looking for a quick way to cut that down in order to eliminate some of the noise created by huge numbers on my Twitterstream. That means that I was getting a great deal of chatter distracting me from more meaningful tweets and that was becoming less efficient. Of the 1,600 follows I may have 1,000 people with whom I have never ever had an exchange other than the initial “Hello, I am now following you”.

I happened upon an Application, or Twitter tool called Manage Flitter. It was designed to identify from a list of follows those who do not follow back. Now, I do not expect Regis Philbin, Chris Matthews or Anderson cooper (I know they are not educators) or any celebrity to follow me back. There are even education celebrities to be followed on Twitter and I have no problem with them not following back. My problem became evident when I saw how many people whom I admire, have retweeted and have interacted with, no longer followed me. Of course my head immediately said, “You have disappointed these people and let them down, so they dropped you and your offerings”. Of course that was totally irrational, but nevertheless I had to deal with that in my head. Although I was disappointed to be dropped by Daniel Pink, Deborah Meier, Alan November, and Sir Ken Robinson, I really should have been elated that they even followed me to begin with. Twitter is an amazing tool because people, for the most part, are accepted for their ideas and not their titles, but there is still a star system and a fan base culture below the surface. The really hurtful “no longer followings” however were those people who I spent many tweets on exchanging ideas and giving out sources. Of course it is ridiculous to feel this way, but this entire system is based on connectedness. When you lose that connection, questions come to mind.

While expressing my concern about Twitter on Twitter, two of my follows stepped up to console me. Mark Barnes, @markbarnes19 a great ASCDEdge blogger and Jerry Blumengarten, @cybraryman1, one of my long time connections. Mark suggested I Blog about the issue, which resulted in this. Jerry pointed out that Twitter has had problems with a bug that has people unfollowing others without permission to do so. You’re Not Crazy, After All: Twitter Confirms Unfollow Bug. Both of these guys helped me through this self-created crisis.

I think the whole point of this post is that the connections made on Twitter for the purpose of professional enrichment carry with them more than the idea of people just swapping links. Twitter is more than wanting to share what was for lunch. Of course that is part of Twitter, but it is more about personal connections. Unfortunately, that cannot be seen by looking at Twitter from the outside. I am always astounded at the number of people who have never used Twitter, but feel compelled to offer up their opinion of it. Now, would someone like to point up the Irony in the fact that I was upset at all those who were no longer following me, as I employed a tool to unfollow people?

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Vendors: Villains or Visionaries?

Posted in conference, Education, Leadership, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on May 3, 2012| 9 Comments »

And now for something completely different… As an educator who has organized and attended many education conferences over several decades, I have made a few observations about the unique relationship between educators, and vendors of education materials or educational technology. The reason for my consideration of this topic is because I will be participating in the Software Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco next week. Most of my conferences have been with a majority of educators in attendance and a minority of vendors. At this conference it will be mostly vendors and very few educators aside from me. I am actually flirting with the dark side in answering the many calls for consulting in regard to my Social-Media-in-Education experience.

Of course my reference to the “Dark Side” is a perfect example of what I now plan to address. Just how do many educators view vendors? The ironic point to this teacher-vendor relationship is that many of these people took the same education courses in college, but found that damned divergent road in the woods and travelled down different paths. I have often told students in education methods classes that the skills that they were learning were skills that they could apply in many places other than the classroom. I often thought that to be sound advice to kids trying for hundreds of teaching jobs sought after by thousands of applicants.

An often voiced complaint by conference attendees is that they don’t want too many vendor directed presentations or workshops. I always found that surprising in that who better knows the product and its potential than the vendor. Vendors are the product experts. Of course teachers would often say that vendors did not know the classroom, and that might be true of some, but not all vendors. It has been my experience that the industry looks to recruit teachers whenever possible, so that their personnel do have classroom experience. Unfortunately, I think it takes about a year out of the classroom however, before credibility as a teacher is diminished if not wiped out altogether.

Additionally, I wonder if the comfort, and ease of the vendors demonstrating their products, especially in the area of technology, doesn’t in some way intimidate some educators. Surprisingly, not all educators are at ease with technology. It doesn’t fall within their comfort zone. Then there is always the fear that some educators may have, based on the mythology that teachers can actually be replaced by technology. Using that perspective, the vendors are then trying to replace educators with their wares. Dastardly Tricksters!

Of course the most common complaint heard from educators is: The only reason why vendors do these workshops is to sell their products. Is there a loftier, more altruistic reason why vendors should demonstrate their products? Their products serve educators, help kids learn, financially support education conferences, and yes, it puts food on the vendor’s family table. Of course the vendor is there to sell products. That is the purpose of being there.

In this emerging era of collaborative learning, we need more educators and vendors reaching out. Teaching and learning is not easy. The more we move forward, the more we have to learn. If technology is required in our culture in order to aggregate, create, collaborate, and communicate, then great, let’s use it. Let us engage the experts who can best help us help ourselves. We need to engage them in a common effort to improve what we do, and how we do it. Let’s take their vision for teaching and apply it to what we know about learning. The term “Educator” can be broadly defined beyond a classroom teacher. Corporation and Education may need to strive more to find similarities and common goals together, rather than assume the solutions separately.

In the interest of full disclosure: My wife, a former professor, has been an education technology industry executive for more than two decades. We have often discussed the educator-vendor issue. We have managed to get along in harmony for a very long time with a bigger and better perspective on what we each do.

This is a survey that SIIA has asked teachers to take. It is an attempt by the industry to take in to account the needs and concerns of teachers. SIIA Survey

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What If School Was More Like Twitter?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, conference, Edcamp, Education, Email, Leadership, Linkedin, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Standardized test, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter, unconference on April 17, 2012| 22 Comments »

Every educator knows what their school is like, but few really understand what Twitter is like. The Twitter experience, like school, is different for everyone. One’s contribution to the effort in either of these endeavors has a great deal to do with producing the outcomes. Simply put, the more you put in, the more you get out. That at least is the theory.

I am fortunate to have a very large base of educators that I follow on Twitter and an even larger number of educators follow me. This affords me an ability to see a great deal of activity on Twitter in regard to how educators use it on a daily basis. I wish all educators had Professional Learning Networks like mine, but it is not a style of learning suited for everyone. Nevertheless, I began wondering what it would be like if the types of sharing, collaboration, reflection and discussion that are continuing activities on Twitter could at least be attempted in the school building environment.

A bulk of the information exchange available on Twitter for instance comes in the form of links, or URL’s, which are internet addresses to pages of information. They could be announcements, articles, posts, videos, podcasts, webcasts, personal opinions, or books. I guess in a school setting each teacher could take articles, videos and books to exchange and discuss with other faculty members. Admins could find education links run them off on paper, and insert them in teachers’ mailboxes daily. Of course personal opinions are the mainstay for faculty rooms.

Another thing that Twitter offers us is the ability to respond to ideas and have a general discussion about those responses. Often times the authors of the ideas participate in those discussions. In a school setting, I imagine that the administrator could offer ideas for discussion, or bring in speakers and lecturers for the faculty. This is usually done at the beginning of the year to get everyone pumped up for the New Year. It would need to be done more frequently however in order to emulate the Twitter experience.

Reflection is very big on Twitter. Many tweets cause people to discuss and reflect. After a short period of time some educators address those same issues on blog posts. That of course is shared, commented on, reflected upon, and the process repeats itself. I guess in the school setting the Admin could propose a topic for discussion and afterward people could respond and reflect and if they chose to do so, come back with articles they had written on the subject to present to the faculty or place a copy in everyone’s mailbox.

Twitter offers a great deal of variety in opinion. An obviously unique element to this is the fact that Twitter is a global effort. Educators from around the world offer their opinions on some of the many subjects that educators have in common around the world. As an example, I am amazed at how universally standardized tests are recognized by educators to be counterproductive in educating kids. In the school setting it would be difficult to get a global perspective on issues unless the guest speakers were flown in from other countries. Skyping might be a great alternative.

A big, big Twitter plus is the access educators have to education experts. Conversations are had between regular teachers and education luminaries on a daily basis. Many of education’s leaders actively participate on Twitter in order to stay on the pulse of education, as well as education reform. Many of the people forming the national and international education discussions are gathering and sharing information over the internet using Twitter. In a school setting Admins could probably make calls to these same education leaders and set up at the very least Skype calls. The faculty could be assembled in the auditorium for the Skype call. The discussion after would be great.

Twitter is a gateway to many free online webinars and online conferences. It also keeps educators posted on local and regional Edcamps and conferences. Edcamps are a product of social media and a great form of Professional Development for educators. In a school setting the Admin could post a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar of events for professional development. The mailboxes again would be a wonderful method of delivery for this.

On Twitter there are constant discussions and references to pedagogy and methodology in education. As one example Twitter has been discussing the Flipped Classroom for almost two years at this point. I imagine that admins should be the education leaders of their schools and be up to date on all things education. Once they get any new trends they could present the idea at a faculty meeting. Hopefully, the discussions of pedagogy and methodology will spill over into department meetings and faculty room gatherings.

I know that schools are doing the best that they can, given the restraints of time and money, to involve their teachers with as much as they can, but it is not enough in a world where new information is formed by the ton in a matter of minutes. The idea of using technology as a tool for professional development has not caught on. The idea of being a “Connected Educator” is too foreign to too many educators. If this post is to be effective it will have to be printed out, reproduced, and circulated in teachers’ mailboxes in order to reach them. In this age of technology, that should be an embarrassment to the most educated people this country or any country has to offer.

Twitter is only one source for teachers to connect. It is the easiest to use, and the hardest to understand. Teachers need to get started connecting to other teachers. If Twitter is too difficult, try Google +, or LinkedIn, or start a blog that accepts comments. If what we are now doing as teachers was keeping us relevant and effective as educators , the words “Education” and “Reform” would not be linked together so often in so much written about education today. We have a need to connect with other educators. It must be an imperative! In the words of Ben Franklin, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”