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How Does #Edchat Connect Educators?

Posted in Administrator, Assessment, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Internet, Leadership, Professionalism, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on August 7, 2012| 6 Comments »

For educators who have been connected since the early days of social media, it is difficult to understand the reason people would ask, “What is #Edchat?” We must remember that many educators using social media for professional reasons have joined only recently. The idea of using social media for professional reasons is a relatively new concept. One would hope that it is having a positive effect because the Department of Education declared August Connected Educators Month. In our technology-driven culture, sometimes we need to stop where we are and take time to consider how we got here.

#Edchat began on Twitter three years ago. Like dog years, three years in social media time is much longer. Back then, there were far fewer educators exchanging ideas on Twitter. Twitter was only beginning to emerge as a serious method of collaboration for educators. Celebrities dominated the network and got great media coverage about their tweets. Serious use of Twitter by educators for collaboration was never covered by the media. It was not media worthy.

The popularity of Twitter for many is a result of its simplicity: Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so the writer isn’t required to say much. Of course, this was not an attraction for educators, who found the limit constricting and not welcoming for people who often have much to say. The secret that had not yet been exploited was that many tweets strung together focusing on a single topic create a discussion. In Twitter terms, this is a “chat.”

Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell), Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) and I (@tomwhitby) created such a chat to focus on topics for educators. We used the hashtag #Edchat to aggregate all of the tweets in one place so people could follow #Edchat-specific tweets and focus on the chat in real-time. By isolating all #Edchat tweets in a separate column on TweetDeck, we were also able to follow and archive the entire discussion. #Edchat certainly was not the first “chat,” but its quick acceptance and growth among thousands of educators within weeks ensured its place in Twitter history. We held the original #Edchat at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays. Tuesdays became known as “Teacher Tuesday,” a day that teachers recommended other teachers to follow on Twitter. Participants used the hashtag #TeacherTuesday or #TT. We quickly learned Twitter’s global reach as European educators requested an earlier #Edchat to accommodate their time zones. We added a noon Eastern #Edchat in response.

The power of the hashtag was still developing in those days. #Edchat, however, began to appear on any tweet that had to do with education. The idea is that if a person on Twitter is connected to 10 educators, every one of his tweets goes to and ends with those 10 followers. This is the basic premise of Twitter. There were many educators who recognized and began to follow the #Edchat hashtag. By tacking #Edchat onto a tweet, the person can extend the range of his tweet beyond his 10 followers to the thousands who follow the hashtag. This potentially increases followers and expands his professional learning network.

There are about 70 education chats working for specific focuses. There are several hundred hashtags used to identify education-specific tweets. #Edchat continues at noon and 7 p.m. Eastern each Tuesday with different topics. The topics are determined by a poll including five topics that is posted each Sunday and remains open until Tuesday. The No. 1 choice becomes the 7 p.m. topic, and the noon #Edchat covers the second-place topic. A team moderates each #Edchat to keep things moving and focused. In addition to those already mentioned, the team consists of Kyle Pace (@kylepace), Mary Beth Hertz (@MBteach), Bernie Wall (@rliberni) and Nancy Blair (@blairteach). You can access the poll. There are hundreds of educators participating globally each week. Jerry Sweater (@jswiatek) maintains the chats, which are all archived.

Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) maintains other education chats. He also offers a solid list of education hashtags.

These are methods that educators have developed using social media in general, and Twitter specifically, to connect for the purpose of personal and professional development and advancement of the education system. The effect of many #Edchat discussions can be seen in blog-post reflections in the weeks after the original #Edchat discussion. Topics tend to reflect education concerns that have most recently been tweeted or blogged about to maintain relevance. That should be all anyone needs to become part of the #Edchat experience.

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What’s the big deal about Blogging?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, Mentoring, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on August 3, 2012| 60 Comments »

A short time ago I attended a meeting where members of a college English department were doing a presentation to the faculty about their writing program. As I listened to about a 30-minute presentation of the types of writing required by this program, it became obvious to me that two words in this presentation of a college writing program were never uttered. They were two words that as an educator I come in contact with almost every day. Two words that have changed the way information is exchanged. The two words, never mentioned, have transformed the publishing industry. The two words have revolutionized journalism. These two words have moved authentic learning to the fore in writing classes across the country, or rather the world. These professors of writing had developed a program which by all accounts was very effective, but overlooked and did not even mention either of the two words that had changed forever how society views and consumes and disseminates the written word in the 21^st Century. Obviously, someone did not do their homework, or maybe they were just not connected. If it is not yet apparent, the two words are “Blog” and “Post”. Sometimes they appear as one, “Blogpost”.

I was a reluctant blogger. I needed to be pushed into doing it. I saw no need to put myself at the mercy of the public scrutinizing: my every idea, my every word, my every mistake. I also did not believe that, even if I managed to start a Blog, I could sustain it with any substantial ideas over a period of time. That was 136 blog posts and two years ago. That number does not include guest posts done for other Blogs. What I learned and appreciate more than any other thing that I get from blogging is that I write for me. It is a reflective, personal endeavor. I made the choice to open my blog to public scrutiny. I encourage comments to my ideas, to affirm, or further reflect on those ideas based on the reader comments. Testing my ideas in public is testing I can believe in. Of course I can take that position because pretty much most of what I have written has been fairly well received in over 2,000 comments.

As an educator I believe kids should be introduced to blogging early. A writer’s work will quickly improve with a real audience. Writing for an audience of only one is a tedious process. This is the preferred method in education. The writer needs to wait for the composition to be graded. Of course the student writer can always shake off the teacher’s criticism; because the writer is convinced the teacher hates him anyway. With comments from a real audience providing proper feedback, the writer gets a better sense of impact on the audience as well as recognition for accuracy and focus. Of course it is also on the teacher to teach kids how to responsibly comment and respond on other’s posts. We can’t hold students responsible for things that we don’t teach them.

As an educator I believe educators should be blogging. We need to model that, which we are demanding of our students. It also opens the teacher to the effects of transparency. It goes without saying that teachers must be thoughtful and responsible in what they post. We have to remember that any idiot can write a blog and most do. This is why we need more educators modeling and contributing to the pool of responsible blogs. Teachers who abuse their responsibility by irresponsible posts are for the most part just irresponsible adults who were never taught about the responsibilities or the impact of the blogging.

As an educator I believe that administrators should be blogging. Administrators in theory are our education leaders. They have an obligation to tell us where we are going and why we should go there. Education can no longer be an isolated profession. There is too much at stake. I continually try to convince administrators to blog. Many have the same trepidations that I had at first. Most, after taking the plunge, become blogging advocates. Check out the Connected Principal’s Blog. This is a collaborative blogging site for principals, most of whom are recent bloggers.

The whole idea of Connected Educators is to break down the barriers that have prevented us from exchanging ideas in a big way. Technology has provided us the tools to share and collaborate in astounding ways. We do that on a daily basis with existing content. Blog Posts provide us with: original thought, new ideas, questions, reflections, and much, much more.

This is not just a job for writing teachers. The computer is the today’s publisher. Computers do not send out rejection letters. If we as educators recognize the position blogging now has and will continue to have in our society, we need to take responsibility for teaching proper use in whatever our academic field of choice. We need to model for the next generations. We need to use the Blog as a tool to connect and communicate. We need to blog in order to openly reflect and challenge. We need to blog for ourselves while opening our ideas to others. For many this is a scary thought, but for many others it is a challenge.

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Teachers Are Poor Consumers of Learning

Posted in Connected Educator, Edcamp, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Truth on July 24, 2012| 29 Comments »

There are only a few explanations that many educators offer up as reasons not to learn and use any technology as tools for learning. One of the most popular excuses, frequently cited by educators, is that there is not enough time to learn all of the stuff that is out there. It certainly is true that there are a huge number of things to learn out there that are linked to technology. When thought about as a complete package, it most definitely can be overwhelming, and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Where I disagree however, is in thinking about all of this technology stuff as a complete unit that must be learned all at once. There are logical and necessary ways to break things down to learn smaller snippets of things on a need-to-know basis in order to build into a larger framework of information.

In sales people are taught that if you can answer a customer’s objection to a product, you are more likely to make the sale. The problem is that the customer more often than not cannot articulate what the real objection is. They will say that they object to one thing, while the real reason is that they can’t afford it. If money is not the problem, they might choose color, or, size, or, complexity, or simplicity as an excuse not to buy something, when all along the reason for the objection is that they don’t understand how to use the product. The product is too complicated and they fear that they will fail at learning how to use it effectively, as well as looking foolish for all to see. That is not an objection that the customer will publicly admit to, or even privately to himself. Of course a good salesperson will discover the objection allay the fears and make the sale. The customer, after making the purchase, will then take home the product, place it in a closet, and never visit it again until the eventual possibility of its placement in some future yard sale becomes a reality.

As educators, we deal with information, and once that was a limited commodity. Theoretically, at one time all of the available information in the world could have been contained within a very large publication. With each passing day however, the amount of information available to us grew in drips and drabs. It really began to increase exponentially with the advent of technology from pens, to printing press, to computer, to the internet. No publication could house all of the information available in the world today. I have been a classroom teacher for 40 years. There is way more stuff to teach today compared to when I started out.

As educators, do we throw up our hands and say that this is all too much, and there is not enough time for our students to learn all of the stuff that is out there? I think not! We actually break things down for our learners into teachable bites of information to be assembled and digested as ideas and concepts as our learners are able to take these things in. As educators the volume of information of what we teach will continually increase. That should never be a deterrent to educators preventing teachers from teaching, or learners from learning. We also now teach the skills for learners to critically analyze information so that they continue learning on their own beyond the limitations of their teachers. There is however one exception to this picture that I have just drawn out. The idea that educators are prevented from learning about technology tools for learning because there is just too much information.

Why don’t educators learn from their own teaching? Break things down into small bites of information. Learn what needs to be learned first, rather than all that can be learned, which is an unattainable goal that will overwhelm. Do not be daunted by the amount of information available, but inspired by that which is attainable. As a teacher’s knowledge of technology increases, so do the skills of learning more, as well as the ability to teach more. Technology doesn’t make a bad teacher good, but it can make a good teacher great. Educators should not be defined by their limitations, but rather by their ability to learn as well as teach. To be better educators, we must first be better learners.

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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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Educators Need to Discuss and Learn…?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Education, Elementary, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, Parents, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Standardized test, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on June 18, 2012| 5 Comments »

My last post, Hypocrisy in the Profession of Education, seems to have gotten quite a few people talking about educators needing to learn more. Of course there were some who disagreed, which is an inevitable consequence of blogging. One of the comments that caused me to think even more about this educator/learner topic was a comment that I had received concerning the methods I suggested might need a revisit of learning. Authentic learning and project-based learning were two that were specifically mentioned by a commenter. The comment was to the effect that these were methods of teaching that have been with us for years, so why would educators need to learn them? That set me to examining why, or even if, we need to revisit any of the things we should be teaching. What is different about: communication, collaboration, collection of information, critical thinking, and creation from 20, 50 or 100 years ago? Obviously, the function, and purpose of those skills remains the same, so what is different? Why are we being told our students need better preparation in these skills? If we have always taught these skills before with success, what makes it different now?

We always taught kids how to write and encouraged them to get published. This was the goal of any good writer, the success of publication. The idea of submitting transcripts to publishers in great numbers as a buffer against the inevitable rejection slips was also advised. For many English teachers their greatest pride came from having a published student. What’s the difference today? The computer is the publisher. There are no rejection slips other than an audience response. Kids understand this, but many educators are playing catch up if they get it at all. I recently listened to two college professors describe their writing program and not once did they mention the words “Blog”, or “Post”. Writing for a post for an audience is different than writing a composition for your teacher to read. This is an area that all educators need to discuss and learn.

We always taught critical thinking, and how to vet sources. We taught which newspapers and magazines were reliable, trustworthy sources. Today newspapers and magazines are disappearing. They are being replaced by 24/7, cable news cycles, websites, blog posts, and social media. There is much more of a need for critical thinking skills than ever before. There are fewer reliable sources to count on. The super-pacs have proven that sound bites and images are more persuasive than facts. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Communication has always been taught. We have always had kids stand before the class and deliver reports and presentations. Science fairs in every county in America have kids communicating their data on poster boards. That happens with such frequency that Poster Board manufacturing became an industry in this country. How many job seekers will put “great poster board skills” on a resume’? Yes, I know there are other important things kids learn from this beyond the poster board, but why not take them beyond the poster board? Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Creation is the highest point on Bloom’s Pyramid. Some educators think that it is the peak of the pyramid because it is so hard to get to without mastering all the other skills. Some people may not think everyone is capable of getting to that peak of higher order thinking skills. We might find that the reason many students don’t reach a point of creating is that we have always limited the means they had to do so. We were only equipped to receive prescribed reports, oral projects, and an occasional video project. That has all been blown up by the evolution of technology and social media. Justin Bieber was barely in his teens when he launched and promoted his creations into a multi-million dollar industry. He did not use a report, oral report, or a video tape to do this. When it comes to creation, we as educators shouldn’t limit our students. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Technology has evolved at a rate which has changed our culture as a society, and has had a profound effect on education. Society’s demands on what it expects from contributors has evolved, so that what we turned out as literate in the past, is no longer literate in today’s world. Even with that being said there are many who doubt it. There are schools that refuse to recognize technology as a factor in education. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

I am not attacking educators on this. Our society in general needs to discuss and learn. We need more people to be connected. Technology is not going away or standing still. It will continue to evolve whether individuals accept that or not. If it is a factor in our society as a tool for: communication, collaboration, collection of information, critical thinking, and creation, then we must teach our citizens how to use it as a tool. Our kids will be required to do so in their world, which is not here yet. It should change priorities in education as to what we teach and how we teach it. Authentic learning and critical thinking are now huge factors because kids are learning and interacting without the benefit of a classroom or a school. Education must not be limited by standardized testing. Our responsibility as educators is too great. These topics of discussion would best be served through leadership. Education administrators may need to prioritize these discussions over those of budgets and tests. These are the concerns that need to be driven by Professional Development. This is an area that educators and parents need to discuss and learn.

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Smart-Briefing and Zite-Seeing

Posted in Blog, EdChat, Education, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, online learning, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on April 6, 2012| 7 Comments »

There are few questions that I get from teachers about social media, or sources that I haven’t gotten in some form before over the last three or four years. Two similar questions that I get with frequency are: How do you know all that stuff? And where do you get the time to get all this stuff? My immediate response is that Twitter is my guide to relevant education sources. Those educators who are “unconnected” should know that many “connected educators” consider Twitter an indispensable source for all things education. Twitter if properly connected to thoughtful and collaborative educators is a virtual cornucopia of endless links for: Posts, Videos, Articles, Podcasts, Webinars, Websites, Lessons, Announcements, Original thoughts, Chats, and all else Education that the internet has to offer.

That being said; Where do all those “connected educators” find things to send out on Twitter? Many educators contribute their links to the Twitter Stream based on what they are personally doing within their field of expertise. Some of us are more generalists in education, or we are using Social Media to reform or, as I like to think of it, advance Education. My life in retirement from public education has become one big sharing fest with educators. It has gotten to a point where I am now reading about stuff not to use it personally, but to consider its value in sharing with other educators who may benefit from it. I am forever advancing links and ideas in math, and I have never been able to legitimately balance a check book.

Where does one find the time to locate all of these sources? This is a commonly asked question since lack of time to do anything is always on an educator’s list of shortcomings. In additions to tweets of other educators, I depend on two sources for keeping up with the huge amount of stuff flowing through the internet. One delivers posts to my email and the other delivers to my iPad. Delivery is an important element for me. I have an extensive amount of blogs feeding into Google Reader, but since I don’t open it up that often, I hesitate to open it at all for fear of facing the mountain of unread blogs. Dumb as it sounds, I often open Google Reader up just to mark all the blogs as read (without reading them) so the pile goes away.

The two sources that I count on most for collecting blog posts and delivering them to me in a brief form are SmartBrief and Zite. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but in tandem, I seem to be able to accomplish a great deal in surveying and sharing on the topic of education as it is delivered over the internet.

SmartBrief is a free service that offers a subscription delivered directly to me by email. It curates the very best education blog posts, and newspaper and journal articles dealing with education. It comes in a capsulated form that I can expand if I want to read the entire post. SmartBrief does this for other industries as well, but in the area of Education there are twelve separate SmartBriefs that deal with offerings from specific education organizations. Probably the best known to educators is ASCD SmartBrief. This is a link to all the Education SmartBriefs http://www.smartbrief.com/news/education. Again these are all free subscriptions that can be dropped, hassle-free at any time. The advantage is that it is delivered by email accessed by any device. It also has an iPad app.

My other source strategy is ZITE. I originally started off with Flipboard on my iPad, but after I discovered Zite, I have spent little time on Flipboard. I start the day with Zite and coffee. Like SmartBrief, Zite also provides a capsulated form of posts and articles that can be expanded on demand. Most, but not all articles are easily tweeted out using a tweet icon. The tweets pop up for easy edits before you actually seal the deal with a send button. Zite is a free app that one personalizes to desired topics that are delivered to your Zite site. There is a constant turnover with posts being added hourly. A week seems to be the longest any post will last. The posts are time-stamped by hours/days on Zite.

SmartBrief and Zite are both source providers that get me the latest and greatest in Education to share with others. Being a “connected educator” does give me the ability to take what others are sharing and pass it along to even more educators. Taking what is shared comes with a responsibility to give back as well. How much we give back varies with every individual. In order to maximize any of this, a strategy should be in place. Smart, and convenient sources like SmartBrief and Zite take us a long way into utilizing what little time we have to affect the most amount of positive collaboration.

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Pizza, Wine, and Vasectomies

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Education, Internet, Leadership, online learning, Parents, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on April 5, 2012| 7 Comments »

What is not to love about a zone of comfort; it is a comfy cocoon. It is a pleasurable place that is safe, sound, and satisfying. It is a place where alliterative adjectives may abound with abandon. Comfort zones are safe havens where residents of those zones need not do anything that would in any way slow the flow of comfort. Comfort zones exist in our personal lives as well as our professional lives.

My personal favorite comfort zone is created on Friday nights. I have a Pizza delivered; open a bottle of wine; turn the computer off, and the TV on, and all is right with the world. It is difficult for me to accept any alternate plan for my Friday evening. If my wife commits us to anything else, I put on “the Grumpy Face” and very reluctantly go along with whatever uncomfortable thing I am forced to do, and almost anything else will be uncomfortable. Comfort zones seem to create patterns of habit that way.

There is little that people will not do to create, or maintain their comfort zones. Basketball fans are a great example of this. During “March Madness” the number of vasectomies performed takes a huge statistical jump. That operation in particular allows men to recover uninterrupted for several days with a real need to remain on the couch in front of the television set, or in a more relevant term in front of the big screen. All of this occurs with the willing support of the wife who may even be the willing server of beverages and snacks. This of course only happens once, but for some it is the ultimate comfort zone.

Pizza, wine, and vasectomies have little to do with today’s education, but comfort zones are a major factor in retarding reform in education. Change in any form is the one thing that destroys zones of comfort. Reform of any kind in education will require changing what we are doing now, to something else. That is change and for too many educators that is uncomfortable.

Direct instruction and lecture are probably the two most basic forms of instruction familiar to educators. It is how many, if not most, educators were instructed in their education. It is familiar. It is comfortable. Those methods are necessary and in some form, they will always be a part of education. The change however, is that those methods will probably no longer be the focus for education. There are other methods that are moving in. Problem based learning, collaborative learning, and social learning are all terms that have crept into the everyday discussion of education. To many educators these are not new terms, but their position in education is being elevated. These methods are moving up the ladder of acceptance. They must now be recognized as a force to be reckoned with in education. It will require both work and even more discomforting; CHANGE.

To compound the problem that some have with these emerging methods of instruction, there are new tools for learning that must be introduced. These tools are all in the form of new technology that enables or enhances the shift in education. This requires educators to travel away from the lectern, the chalkboard, the overhead and the rows, and the front of the classroom. That is difficult for these are the very things that formulate the comfort zones that many refuse to leave.

The biggest threat however is the self-image many educators have. They have been programmed by decades of previous teachers to hold fast to the belief that they are the keepers of content. They are experts in their areas. They are the masters of their domain (Seinfeld episode not withstanding). The internet and its easy access have changed that forever. Technology has changed the self-image that many educators have had. There are even some educators who buy into the myth that someday teachers will be replaced by technology. For some this goes beyond discomfort to actually threatening one’s self-worth and livelihood.

For many educators the use of new methodologies and the technology to utilize these methods are very foreign. Employing them will require change. This change requires more education, more training, different attitudes, and a different self-perception. Educators will need to advance from not just content experts, but to facilitators, or moderators, or guides. These are different roles for educators. It is not the understanding of the role that many had when they entered the profession. All of this is very uncomfortable. Too many will have to leave their zones. This is not limited to teachers. Administrators, parents, and even students have their comfort zones in today’s education system. We all are invested in our comfort zones, even when we are pointing to others demanding that they leave their zones.

Change in the education system must happen, if we expect different outcomes for our children. How do we do that with so many uncomfortable alternatives? We need to educate the educators. Comfort zones are obstacles to reform. We need to make professional development an integral part of the educator’s profession. Pedagogy and technology tools for learning need to have a balance in discussions. These are the reform discussions educators should be having for real reform. We cannot be sidetracked with the labor, tax, and accountability issues pushed forward by politicians who would refuse to judge themselves by the same standards they want to force on educators.

I love my pizza and wine on a Friday evening, as I sit in front of the TV. If tomorrow however, the doctor told me that my self-described, comfort zone has become a detriment to my health, and that I must change things or possibly die before my time, then my comfort zone is no longer comfortable. It is time to get comfortable with some other set of things. That is the state of education today. It is a change-or-die situation. We are running out of time for people to ease out of their comfort zones. We need to prioritize professional development. We need to make everyone comfortable with learning. That should be the only comfort zone for students and educators.

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“Cellphones are a Distraction”

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Banning, Education, Filtering, Internet, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Standardized test, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on March 30, 2012| 16 Comments »

Over the last year I have engaged many educators on the topic of using “Cellphones” as learning tools in the classroom. I would say that in most of these discussions, the leading reason given not to have “Cellphones” in a classroom is that they are a distraction.

For the purpose of this post, I am placing some Webster definitions here:

Telephone: an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance; specifically: one in which sound is converted into electrical impulses for transmission (as by wire or radio waves)

Cell Phone: a portable usually cordless telephone for use in a cellular system.

Smartphone: a cell phone that includes additional software functions (as e-mail or an Internet browser).

Personal Computer: : a general-purpose computer equipped with a microprocessor and designed to run especially commercial software (as a word processor or Internet browser) for an individual user.

Distraction: 1. the act of distracting or the state of being distracted; especially: mental confusion <driven to distraction>

2. something that distracts; especially: amusement <a harmless distraction>

Now with the terms defined by Webster, we can all have a clear understanding. Few people would dispute the advantages technology has given us as a result of the advent and evolution of computers. Technology, although not always visible, is evident or influential in almost everything that we do in our society today. It has had an immeasurable effect on our culture and will continue to as it evolves. The personal computer has enabled individuals to apply many of these advantages in their everyday lives. This however has taken both training, teaching, and learning on the part of the users.

Most educators have noted that technology has had a profound effect on teaching and learning. I think it is safe to say that with technology’s influence; many things have changed in education since the 19^th Century (not rows of course). Education has adapted to technology, albeit ever too slowly for some, over the years. Technology will always move faster than education will accept it, because as a system, the conservative nature of education seems very slow to act on change and technology and tides wait for no man, or woman.

I remember a time when telephones were not even in a classroom for a teacher to use. The idea of telephones in the classroom is a fairly recent movement in education terms. Many school buildings built in previous centuries have found it difficult or impossible to accommodate telephones in the classroom. Ironically, for years districts refused to put them in classrooms with the belief that telephones would be a distraction for the teachers.

What is more distracting to a teacher and learning than the PA SYSTEM BLARING ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR PEOPLE TO COME TO THE MAIN OFFICE DURING THE PERIOD THAT LEARNING IS TAKING PLACE? How about: the cutting of the grass with the industrial mowers outside the window of the classroom, a Warm day, a hot day, a snow day, a dress up day, a dress down day, a Pajama day, someone walking in the hallway, a class returning from a field trip, fire drills. TESTING DAY, assemblies. These are all distractions. Teachers and students deal with them.

Now, if students had telephones in class and were receiving and making calls for the purpose of talking, that would be a distraction. It is not an appropriate time for such conversations. Teachers learned that when they were given telephones in their rooms, so why not expect the same from kids. Additionally, teachers have been taught classroom management strategies. They can put in place procedures and consequences to manage the potential problems of telephone conversations in class. That is not the distraction everyone talks about.

Beyond talking, there is texting. That is sneaky, stealthy talking. It is the digital form of sending notes. Note-passing is the bane of a teacher’s existence and this method is technological. Again, there are procedures in place for passing notes. The teacher needs only to now stipulate written or digital; problem solved.

Here is the rub. These kids are going beyond the limitations of voice and texting of the Cellphone, and are using Smartphones. They are doing things that can’t be done on a telephone. There must be more afoot here. The smartphone adds a new level of sophistication to deal with. The smartphone has the capability of a personal computer. That changes the dynamic in the classroom.

Additionally, kids can now look stuff up on the phones. They have access to Google and can actually check facts to dispute what the teacher might be saying. Kids can view stuff on their phone during a teacher’s lecture that removes them from where they should be, paying attention for a test. They can take a picture of the “Blackboard” for notes. They can video or audio record a teacher’s presentation. They can creatively do many things in the classroom that could not be done a year ago. They have control because they own the device that does all of this. That is scary to many educators. What many viewed as a toy-like telephone has evolved into a learning tool that can not only communicate, but can publish to the world. That is a powerful device.

If this is such a powerful learning tool, why hasn’t it been embraced by educators universally? Smartphones, after all, are actually personal computers with phone capabilities. It would seem, with many schools dedicating their computers, and computer labs to test preparation, and test-taking, that personal learning devices for students would fill a gap. Smartphones are powerful, mobile, personal learning devices. But of course, there is that damned control issue thing.

Here is a novel idea. Since we hold kid’s accountable for what they do on the internet with all devices anyway, why not teach them how to do it right. Why not teach them how to maximize their learning. We can’t expect them to use the technology appropriately if they “learn it on the streets”. Teachers have procedures in place and methods to use that can take the distraction factor out. Teachers must be open to doing this because the tech will never go backwards. Administrators must accept that control is less of an issue than responsibility. Teaching and learning will always be a better alternative to banning. Learning new ways to do things can be a very big distraction from the old ways. Relevance will always be a distraction from obsolescence!

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What’s This #EDUCON Buzz?

Posted in Back channeling, Blog, conference, EdChat, Education, EduCon, Elementary, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, Observation, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Twitter, unconference on January 28, 2012| 6 Comments »

There are certain education conferences that people look forward to attending each and every year. Certainly the big national conferences with thousands of attendees and hundreds of vendors are the conferences most familiar to educators. The state organizations usually draw big crowds of educators as well. At one time this is how educators networked and saw the newest of the new, and the best of the best. All of that is represented at big education conferences.

With the introduction of the internet, conferencing as an activity has changed. There is a transparency to conferences that was not possible before. Social Media has armed educators with the power to report out exactly what is happening at any conference. Not only are there tweeted comments about the conference, people often comment on specific sessions for all the world to see, blemishes and all. For those who closely follow conference tweets through the use of hashtags, there are many horror stories of presenters who crashed and burned, having each and every flame described to the world in tweets from the audience.

A specific hashtag is created for each conference, so that it can be discussed on Twitter. The symbol, # starts the tag with a few identifying letters to follow. For example: the hashtag for the upcoming ASCD Conference will be #ASCD12. Anyone tweeting from, or about that conference will tag their tweets with that hashtag. Anyone wanting to follow what’s going on at that conference, need only create a follow column for #ASCD12, and each and every tweet about the conference will flow through that column. I have found TweetDeck and Hootesuite to be the best Apps to use for this purpose. Social Media people are beginning to gauge a conference’s success by the positive buzz generated by tweeters. Social Media savvy organizations are beginning to understand this and are developing Social media strategies.

Of all of the conferences dealing with education, there is one very small one (I think between 3-400 attendees) that creates the greatest Buzz with the Social Media connected educators. The audience of attendees is made larger by the Livestreaming of sessions over the internet to those who couldn’t attend in person. For the last four years EduCon has taken place in Philadelphia sponsored by The Science Leadership Academy, which is headed up by Chris Lehman, an outstanding educator, leader, and speaker. This conference differs from most others centering about education. There are very few vendors. There are very few formal presentations. EduCon is based on discussions lead by discussion leaders. The leaders present the topic which they have some stake in or knowledge of, and direct the discussion from there. It is a simple formula with no bells or whistles.

There is another thing that makes this conference different from the rest of the education conferences. Most of those big one’s have been around for years, and are learning how to adapt to social media. #Educon in many respects was born through social media. Most of the educators in attendance are connected educators. It is almost a requirement for connected educators to tweet their impressions out about #Educon at every session they attend. When you look at a twitterstream for the #Educon hashtag it is not a trickling brook, but a white-water rapids of a river racing with tweets of opinion, reflection, information, and occasionally adoration. If all conferences were only judged by the buzz they created, the EduCon would rival or surpass all the top contenders. I am sorry I missed actually attending EduCon this year, but I am keeping up with the tweets. I look forward to next year.

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Edublog Awards Don’t Suck!

Posted in Awards, Blog, conference, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Ning, Professionalism, Social Media, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on December 15, 2011| 7 Comments »

Last night was the Edublog Awards Presentation, also known as the “Eddie” Awards. This event happens once a year at this time honoring those who excel in the area of Educational Social Media. Categories include educators, students, groups, and vendors. It originally started out recognizing Blogs and Bloggers, but has now expanded to all forms of Social Media as Social Media itself has expanded. This is an example that schools should emulate; the ability to be flexible and change to meet the needs of an ever-changing and developing culture.

The Edublog process is simple. Categories are established with little description other than the title of the category, and people in Social Media nominate people in Social Media. They could nominate others or themselves. This year there were nineteen categories and thousands of nominations. After the nominations are posted, the voting begins, and continues, so that everyone has an opportunity to vote. Yes, that opportunity includes the ability to vote once a day for everyone as the voting continues. There are no judges; just nominators and voters. This is the element that has brought out the voices of discontent each and every year since 2004. Of course when this started it was a smaller community. With the advent of Twitter and Facebook, the Education Social Media community has grown to huge proportions, and, hopefully, will continue to do so.

The Presentation of the Edublog Awards is a virtual gala event. It takes place in a virtual room and all are invited to attend. It usually draws between 100-200 people. There is a dialog box where participants exchange pleasantries and jabs, as a fun time is had by all. Some of us jab and joke more than others. The event is hosted by Steve Hargadon, Sue Waters and this year Ron Burt. These people are also great contributors to the connected community of educators in their own right, beyond their Edublog contribution.

The best part of the presentation is when the winners take the mic for a very few short words. This is nothing like the Oscar speeches. Student winners always bring on the most Ooohs and Ahhhs from the audience as evidenced in the chat box. Last night one young, very young, winner took the mic to thank the group for his award. His name was Royce and obviously, Royce failed to tell his Mom about the award ceremony being held virtually. As Royce quietly thanked the group from what was evidently a computer in his room, his mother was heard yelling to him from another room “Royce it’s getting late turn that computer off”.

Now here is the not so funny part of this piece. The process, the awards, and even the nominees are often targeted by some disgruntled (for whatever reason) educators. These individuals find fault with and gripe about the process. They try to trivialize the award itself. They comment to the nominees that they shouldn’t use social media to tell anyone about their nomination. They sometimes even call for standardization of the awards with judges and criteria for assessment of sites. This has gone on every year that I have been involved in Social Media. Whatever happened to “A rising tide lifts all boats”?

I LOVE what the Edublog Awards represent. They recognize the hard work that individuals so unselfishly offer to a community. They recognize and publicize many education social media sites that might otherwise go unrecognized and unseen by those educators who need to see them most. They put a face to the text voices that we all see and hear every day. They enable connected educators to be further connected. Why would anyone object to any of this? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that such people are in the very circles that I travel.

I was nominated in five categories and I did not win one award. I was so impressed by the people I was nominated with, that winning really did not matter. The idea that people actually saw me in the same light as the individuals that I shared the nominations with just blew me away. Of course, I would have loved to have won in every category and create an Edublog record that would last for years, but that did not happen. I was still proud to be involved. Everyone who won deserved all the accolades this award brings. These are people who have a vision and act on it. It is hard work, albeit a labor of love, to consistently put out a product for Social Media that remains meaningful to others. The best incentive to continue happens when public recognition in any form comes your way. The true reward however, is never in the Edublog Award itself. It is in the connections you make with others. Affirmation of those efforts by connected educators is always a shot in the arm.

Next year, if I am nominated again, I will tell all my friends and neighbors that I am an Edublog Nominee. After all this is social media and the social thing to do is share news with others. We do it every day. I will nominate people who are adding meaningful content to our community of connected educators. I will participate in the presentation ceremony to honor those who so deservedly receive their Eddie awards. This is truly a supportive effort to those who support us with ideas, links, and sources all year-long. I will also speak out publicly to those who find fault in these awards or the process. I will also publicly thank Steve Hargadon, Sue Waters, and Ron Burt for yearly designing, accumulating, tallying, and presenting all that they do to make the Edublog Awards happen. Now as Royce’s Mom’s voice still rings in my ears. It’s late, so I better turn off the computer. Congratulations to all of the Nominees and the winners of the 2011 Edublog Awards.

Here is the link to the Top Edublog Nominees and the winners, as well as the addresses to their sites: http://edublogawards.com/