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The Age-Old Faculty Meeting Facelift

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on September 21, 2015| 5 Comments »

Over the many years that #Edchat has been engaging educators, one topic that always generates a huge amount of interest, based on comments, is the faculty meeting. Teachers are required to attend the faculty meetings that administrators are required to hold and very few are happy with the results. The only upside is that with each meeting a check may be placed in the box for attending.

Technology may be a way to update the tired model of the faculty meeting. Email for the faculty may be a great way to distribute the mundane stuff that takes up so much time at these meetings. Of course a really progressive administrator might have a weekly Blog that could address a great many topics that bog down the faculty meetings. Once the day-to-day school housekeeping topics are removed from the meeting there will be more time for more substantive topics that affect learning in education. Using a Google Document to circulate amongst the faculty for suggested topics of discussion for the upcoming meetings might be a great direction in order to address real faculty needs and concerns.

Once topics are decided upon a flipped meeting should serve the faculty well. Material like blog posts or videos could be assembled and distributed using tools for collaboration prior to the meeting. This will prepare the faculty for what will happen rather than dropping it on them in the meeting. Assessment tools could be used for formative assessment during the meeting to gauge understanding of the topic by the faculty. Any teams or committees formed from this meeting can be connected through collaborative tools and shared documents to create a professional Learning community. Administrators in those groups will immediately be aware of any problems that might arise as the groups strive to complete their goals. There will be no need to wait for another faculty meeting to get results

Technology offers many tools to change the face of the faculty meeting. It can make it a means of change for the school culture. It can permit and support teachers with bold and innovative ideas to lead their colleagues into change, or just expand and improve what change is already occurring.

Time in education is a precious commodity to teachers. To waste a monthly get-together of the entire staff is an outrage when there are so many real needs that should be addressed or things to learn. Just because we have always run faculty meetings a certain way, that is not a justification for continuing what is so obviously a bad, or at least an unproductive practice. Administrators need to stop observing and commenting on how technology is being used by others in their school and begin employing it themselves to improve their schools. In so doing they would be modeling for all the thoughtful, meaningful, and responsible way to use technology in education without fear.

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Twitter Chats for Learning, Easy vs. Hard

Posted in Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Mentoring, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on September 16, 2015| 3 Comments »

One Education Twitter chat that precedes all others is #Edchat. It was founded July 30, 2009 and has run continuously ever since. For those who are not Twitter chat savvy, a Twitter chat originally was a discussion that uses a specific hashtag to conduct a real-time chat on a specific subject. Of course education chats are education-specific. Typically, they run about an hour in length and are running on set periodic schedules.

Here is a site that updates chat schedules:

https://sites.google.com/site/twittereducationchats/education-chat-calendar

My original intent in creating #Edchat was to involve people in an in-depth, organic conversation on a single given topic. It was not easy to run and it might have been even more difficult to participate. We had never done a chat before. It is my opinion that participation requires involvement and not just observation. Those involved in the chat are creators, while those just lurking and observing are merely consumers.

Participation in a chat is not always easy. It requires an understanding of the chat in order to affect a working strategy to participate. It is fairly impossible to follow and interact with every participant. My strategy is to engage a small group of participants by tweeting my own opinions and questions on the prevailing topic. People who respond are drawn into my circle of influence. On other occasions I work off of questions and opinions of others to invite myself into their circles.

I have been asked on several occasions to guest host a chat. I am usually invited to chat about collaborative learning, or connected PD. On more than one occasion the owners of the chats presented me with a number of questions they wanted to post over the course of the chat. They wanted them numbered: Q-1, Q-2, and Q-3 etc.… They wanted the participants to answer the numbered questions with numbered answers: A-1, A-2, A-3 etc.… I would not participate in those chats. I understand that it made things easier for some but that was painting by the numbers as far as I was concerned. What was the participants’ investment in that type of chat? They needed only to follow the numbered Q’s and answer with numbered A’s. Where was the thought? Where was the pushback? Where was the following of a progression of thought? Most importantly where was the learning? These chats had evolved into following a recipe. Q-1, A-1 move on to Q-2 and repeat.

Chats are difficult for a reason. People do not know what they will face as they enter the chat beyond the Topic. The discussion is determined by the participants. Where the chat goes should be totally directed by where the participants want to take it. Moderators are there to help and participate, but they should be taking their direction from the chat, not trying to direct it with pre-determined questions. This makes it more difficult to run, but it emphasizes a trust in the audience/participants to come through with concerns, solutions, or other more in-depth questions. We are adults and deserve the respect from chat owners to conduct ourselves as learners eager to find answers to questions within specified topics that we need to know. We need organic discussions and not scripted ones.

I understand why some chats have gone to the multiple question format, answering up to 10 questions during a 1-hour chat, but we have to ask what is being sacrificed in the name of simplicity? We have educators supporting rigor in education while they are trying to simplify their own learning. Although my personal preference is for the unscripted chat, there is no right way or wrong way of doing this. For some the only way they might be involved in any chat might be through the scripted chat. For many others the organic conversation that springs from the unscripted chat is the way they learn best. We are fortunate that any chats are now available to us as connected educators using social media for continuing professional development. Chats give transparency to education. We talk about our individual experiences on topics common to all. Chats are also a sounding board. Even more, they are a treasure trove for collegial sources, people who can help each other professionally. Participate in chats for all these reasons and to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing world.

#Edchat takes place every Tuesday at Noon and 7 PM Eastern Time zone. There are different Topics for each chat. Archives are found at http://edchat.pbworks.com/w/page/219908/FrontPage.

#Edchat Radio Show on The BAM Radio Network is a weekly analysis of the week’s chat with myself and Nancy Blair hosting with a different guest each week http://www.bamradionetwork.com/edchat-radio/.

#Edchat Moderators include: @tomwhitby, @blairteach, @ShiftParadigm, @wmchamberlain, @lookforsun, @web20classroom and archivist, @jswiatek

If we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators.

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Is Isolation in Education A Choice?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on July 14, 2015| 6 Comments »

Two of the most common excuses for not doing something new in education are time and money. They are probably the same excuses for not making change in any profession. People seem to understand and accept these excuses because they themselves use them whenever needed. These excuses are used so often for so many things, that they have come to mean, “I really don’t care to change the status quo, and it is too much trouble for me to do so”.

Many educators through the centuries have observed and commented that the teaching profession is an isolated profession. Many educators, then and now, feel alone in their efforts to educate kids. They often reflect on their efforts, accomplishments, and failures, without the ability to share with a variety of others within their circles in order to improve. Educators were limited to their buildings for collaboration, which occasionally might widen out to include other educators in their district, but that was often less likely to occur. Of course collaboration on a greater scale would take both time and money, and that has rarely been a priority in most schools.

Collaborative learning has always been with us from the beginning of learning, however, it required that the learners occupied the same space at the same time. In a modern world, where people tend to spread out and separate, the boundaries of collaboration, time and space, began to impede professional collaborative learning for educators. It required effort, time and money to get people together for substantive collaboration. Professional organizations stepped up to fill the collaborative void with annual conferences, but these conferences cost money and took away precious time to attend. Budgets were created to support administrators’ attendance, but teachers were more problematic becoming less of a priority to attend. Conferences, dependent on vendor support, soon recognized the benefit of administrator attendance, since administrators were the movers and shakers of the purse strings of schools. The result of all this supported a proportionally greater number of administrators over teachers’ attendance at collaborative conferences. The collaboration among teachers was limited.

It has often been said that if you fill a room with very smart people, the smartest mind is the room itself. We all benefit through collaboration. We each help define, refine, challenge, and support ideas collectively until we settle on a final idea. We all contribute to that process to some degree.

Collaboration is also a preferred method of learning for adults. We are studying adult learning more and finding a difference between adult learning, Andragogy, and child learning, Pedagogy. Since educators are child experts, many wrongly assume that all individuals learn according to pedagogy. Adults however are motivated differently with different needs. Collaboration and problem solving suit adult learning best. This misconception forcing pedagogy on adult learning has had a profound effect on how we handle PD as discussed in a previous post, The Importance of Andragogy in Education. I found one of the best explanations of adult learning in this article: “Adult Learning Theory and Principles” from The Clinical Educator’s Resource Kit.

The real game-changer for collaborative learning is technology. With the introduction of social media applications, we have the ability to connect with anyone at anytime. The cost is minimal and the time is adjustable. Time and money excuses no longer serve the status quo when it comes to collaboration. What that means in terms of education is that educators are only isolated by choice. As I have said in the past, any educator has the right to choose to live in a cave, but they don’t have the right to drag students in there with them.

Connecting for collegial sourcing is becoming a standard for educators. Educators in greater numbers are connecting to build Personal Learning Networks through technology. What was once a method of the tech-savvy educators is now becoming a staple of the profession. Of course when the objections of resistance are answered, objectors will come up with new objections to stave off their involvement. Many teachers now say, I am doing well enough with my kids, I don’t need to make connections.” Those teachers will need to live with that decision, for they may never get beyond “well enough” with their students. Imagine telling parents that you will teach their kids well enough?

Of course we know the biggest obstacle to change is leaving that place we all love to reside in, the “comfort zone”. Educators do not have that as an option as professionals. As professionals, we deal in content and fact. Technology is changing both at a rate never before experienced. If we do not keep up with these changes we become irrelevant. What can an irrelevant educator accomplish? Most importantly, an educator’s comfort zone must never take precedence over a student’s education.

The latest and greatest excuse is that face-to-face connections are the best. Connecting down the hallway is better than connecting around the world. I do not entirely disagree with that. If the connection with a person down the hall works then use it. My question is why would anyone interested in learning limit his or her collaboration to only his or her own building? As good as any building’s staff may be, why would one not want to expand collaboration and share with the world. Remember that collaboration works two ways. It is not always what you can get. It is also about what you can give. I believe as educators we all have a moral imperative to share.
Technology provides the means to collaborate on a scale never before available. It requires some effort on the part of educators to happen. It requires a mindset that our 20^th Century education has never prepared us for. Connectedness becomes a way of life for an educator, but this does not happen overnight. We need to take it one step at a time, as we need it. We can now take control of our own learning. None of this will happen however, unless that first step is taken. If you don’t know or can’t decide on a first step, talk it over with someone. It’s collaborative learning. By choosing not to engage in order to be connected, educators today make a conscious choice to be isolated. Yes, Isolation is a choice. It is not the choice of a Life Long Learner. If we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators.

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An Upcoming Frenzy in Education

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Common Core, conference, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on June 16, 2015| 3 Comments »

If educators can count on one sure-fired outcome of the largest national education conference in America, it is the information feeding frenzy that accompanies it. Each year that ISTE holds its Annual Conference with 20+ thousand attendees social media lights up all over the world with exchanges of information between educators emanating from whatever city ISTE is in that year. This year it is Philadelphia. I think there might be more social media interaction with east coast events because of the time zones. The east coast is favored by a longer period of time to get to people while they are awake, active and reactive. The #ISTE15 hashtag will probably trend on Twitter several times during the ISTE conference.

There is a reason why Tweets on Twitter are dominated by education topics. It is not that a majority of Twitter users are educators, but rather those educators who are Twitter users are very collaborative and prolific in their use of Twitter. They use Twitter for exchanging and expanding ideas. They are very active in hundreds of education Twitter Chats. I am sure that Twitter’s founders did, not foresee the educators’ use of Twitter as a form of professional development.

The use of social media by educators underscores the glaring need for a better system of professional development for educators. While there are some districts that make PD part of their culture, most districts allow it to continue as it always has: haphazardly, at the whim of administrators, often ill-conceived and too often with minimal impact on student learning. Trends often dominate the choices. A demonstration of some newly acquired App may count for PD for the entire year.

The adoption of social media to deliver “Do It Yourself PD” is an indication for the need, as well as recognition that educators are hungry for direction.

Only a small percentage of educators will ever get to attend an education conference like ISTE. Districts do not budget for teachers to attend. Conferences are not cheap. Often Admins and Tech Directors will attend such events year after year. Those educators who do attend education conferences however use social media to share out what their experiences are like with those folks not able to attend.

Over the next few weeks the #ISTE15 hashtag will begin to appear more frequently building to a crescendo during the conference and continuing a short time after the conference concludes. These “sharings”, whether on Twitter or any other form of social media, are an effort on the part of educators to involve other educators in a collaboration of learning in their own profession. Educators more than anyone see the need for effective PD and are trying to provide what the system is failing to do. Even when the education system wanted to implement something as big as common core, all of its focus, support, and money went to everything but professional development for those who were to be key in its implementation. That was left to individual districts to do and most had no clue what that meant. As a result we have to ask if educators were properly prepared to implement the common core?

Educators as evidenced through their collaborative efforts recognize the need for PD. The evolving collaborative communities are filling the void left by the system to keep educators relevant in a rapidly changing, computer-driven society. The real key to better educating our kids is, and always has been, to better educate their educators. The #ISTE15 hashtag frenzy that we will experience in the next few weeks is a best-case scenario of dealing with a poorly supported system of professional development. It is yet another symptom of a system in need of change in order to be relevant.

If you attend ISTE15, send out those tweets. If you can’t attend ISTE15 read those tweets. Everyone should Retweet #ISTE15 tweets. Sharing is Caring!

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What is a Twitter Profile?

Posted in Administrator, Connected Educator, Edcamp, EdChat, Education, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on April 20, 2015| 12 Comments »

The basic principle of Twitter is that if you follow ten people on Twitter, you will only see the tweets of those ten people. Additionally, the only people who will see your tweets will be those ten people. Of course with the advent of the hashtag that has changed. If you add a Hashtag, #Edchat for example, the range of your tweet is extended beyond your ten followers to thousands of educators who follow that specific #Edchat hashtag on a search column. People can now follow specific hashtags that are filtered from the stream.

After all is said and done, in regard to building a Personal Learning Network, who one follows is much more important than who follows back. Most tweeters have their own criteria for following people back. I generally follow people who I engage with in some substantive way. The number of people I follow is almost 3,500. NO, I do not read every tweet, but I am exposed to all of them.

The ideal way to follow someone back is to first examine his or her Twitter Profile, which has public access. There is important information beyond the person’s name and location. Information on not only the number of people they follow, but specifically who they are. Additionally, the number of people who follow them back, as well as who those people are, will be listed. A very important number on that profile is how many tweets the person has tweeted while on Twitter. It speaks to their Twitter interaction. I too often find administrators who claim to be connected on Twitter, but have profiles showing about 100-200 tweets as their lifetime total. Of course that is not limited to administrators, but that is one of my personal hot buttons.

Checking the profile is simply verifying a source. Each selection of a person to be connected to for a Personal Learning Network is actually a collegial source. It stands to reason that his or her credibility should be checked. It is our due diligence as critical thinkers to check this out when possible. I always go back to that old adage: Tell me about a person’s friends and I will tell you about that person.

One of the most important elements of the Twitter Profile is that it shows a history of the last tweets the person has posted. That is probably the best indicator of how each person engages Twitter. The profile allows you to go back in their Twitter timeline.

I enjoy examining profiles of the high-profile “Education Reformers” to see whom they interact with. I wonder if any of their perspective is influenced by their Twitter connections. I have found that many follow organizations, politicians, celebrities, and not regular educators. This is something you can try as well and draw your own conclusions.

I think that there are two very important takeaways from all of this. First, have a clear, concise profile describing who you are as an educator. This way people can quickly identify you as a serious educator to follow. Second, use the profiles of others to determine if they meet the standards that you have set for your own Personalized Learning Network. Do you want that person as a collegial source?

Although I have a huge number of folks I follow, I use TweetDeck to organize that number. I have created lists of folks that can be filtered to specific columns in TweetDeck in order to see those tweets in isolation. I do the same for specific hashtags. These lists that I have created are also available on my profile since I leave them as public.

A great way to expand your own PLN is to find great people whom you already trust and examine their profiles to see the people that they follow, the lists that they keep and follow the very same people. You can unfollow anyone at anytime without him or her being notified.

The more time we spend finding the right people to follow will go a long way in getting to good stuff in less time. Each of us has individual interests, concerns, and needs, so we all need different collegial sources to get to where we eventually want to be. With a little forethought and investigation that destination can be just a little closer before moving on to the next. Use the Twitter Profile to your own best advantage. Check it out: @tomwhitby

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We Have To Stop Pretending… #MakeSchoolDifferent

Posted in Connected Educator, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on April 16, 2015| 10 Comments »

Earlier this week my friend Scott McLeod challenged educator/bloggers to post their five choices of things we have to stop pretending in education and hashtag it with #MakeSchoolDifferent. I was asked to meet the challenge by Robert Schuetz , which prompted my post here.

I encourage you to read Scott’s post along with the collection of statements others have made. These are my contributions:

We have to stop pretending…

That teachers have a choice in using technology as a tool for teaching and learning.
That the college education made unaffordable to a majority of U.S. citizens is the common standard of success in education.
That content which is being taught is more important than teaching students how to curate, critically think, communicate, collaborate, and create as life long skills.
That seat time in a classroom is a measurement of accomplishment (placing more significance on the ass over that of the brain).
That once teachers are licensed and working, their relevance and mastery in the classroom is locked in without a need for further investment of money, time and support.

What do you think? What are the 5 things we need to stop pretending? When you write your post tag it with #MakeSchoolDifferent so everyone can reflect.

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Collaboration: Connected vs. Unconnected

Posted in Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on April 1, 2015| 7 Comments »

Over the years I have been an advocate for connected collaboration. I believe that collaboration using technology to connect people for the purpose of collaboration is different from connecting people in a room together for collaboration. I used the word “different”. I did not use the word “better”. For educators any form of collaboration with other educators is a good thing.

Historically and for centuries, collaboration had not changed the way people connected together in order to accomplish learning. If one wanted to connect with someone to collaborate it was a question of picking a time, a place, and showing up. Collaboration itself has remained the same no matter the time or place. People exchange, modify, reflect, improve, and create ideas collectively. This form of learning has proven invaluable in advancing education. It is the basis for education conferences. Learning and sharing is the backbone of education.

What has changed however is the way that people connect to collaborate. It is that element of connection that has been the game changer for many educators. Connecting for collaboration has now become a function of what technology can provide educators. Most often, social media applications provide the bulk of these collaborative connections, but other tools of technology cannot be discounted. This all requires educators to have at the very least a modicum of digital literacy. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a stumbling block for many.

The act of collaboration is the important element in this conversation. Collaborating with folks in your building, or district is wonderful, but if it is limited to just those people the potential of the collaboration itself may be limited. One advantage of collaboration through technology-connected collaboration is that there are few limits with whom or with how many people one may engage. The connections could be local or global. Access and contact with authors or education thought leaders are more possible through technological connections. The technological connections could easily include teachers, administrators, students, and parents separately or together for collaboration The overall effect of sharing has a greater reach in the world of technological connections. The limits of where or when are far less impeding with technological connections. Transparency is evident through social media collaboration. It is out there for all to see.

In the technological sense, a “connected educator” has a number of advantages in collaboration over an educator not technologically “connected”, an “unconnected educator”. This may cause a rift between the connected and the unconnected in education. Questions of who is better? This is an argument that education does not need. This opens educators to even more criticism from a beleaguered public, being manipulated about education by politicians and “Reformers”. Of course the obvious best way of all is for educators to balance out face-to-face and technological connections for collaboration. Ideally, both types of connectors can be brought together, which often happens at education conferences for the purpose of collaborating on collaboration itself.

I believe most educators are collaborative. I also believe that far fewer are connected collaborators. Technological connection comes with a great deal of baggage that prevents educators from embracing it. The use of technology itself is the biggest of these obstacles. The idea of it being a huge time consumer is another. There is also a stigma of using any social media as a tool for learning. The biggest deterrent of all however is the perception that one needs to learn a whole bunch of technological stuff in order to participate in this connected world. Of course the worst advocates for this technological connection are those who are connected. They proudly announce their many accomplishments and successes as technologically connected educators and scare off anyone even remotely interested in trying it. People unfamiliar are just blown away and overwhelmed by the exuberant chatter.

Of course the obvious alternative to all of this is to have more collaboration between those educators who are not technologically connected and those who are. In the end whatever works best for an individual educator is what is best for them. Some believe the best collaboration is just down the hall. Others live on social media. My preference is to use whichever I need in order to accomplish that which I hope to accomplish. Sometimes I know where I am going and sometimes I need a direction from my trusted collaborators. The focus must be the collaboration. My bias is that for me, I need to be a technologically connected educator in order for me to remain relevant. That works best for me. Others need to make their own determinations. I am willing to collaborate with them to present what I know and believe.

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What’s a Twitter Chat?

Posted in Blog, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Student teaching, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on February 16, 2015| 18 Comments »

There are now hundreds of Education Twitter chats taking place around the world at almost any time of day or night. To follow any chat in real-time all one needs is the hashtag (#). The hashtag is the key to the chat. Using TweetDeck, Hootsuite, or some other third-party application it is easy to create a column that will follow only the hash tagged tweets of the chat. That will focus on and deliver each of the tweets in the chat in the order that they are posted.

Of course in a chat that may have fifty to a hundred participants it is impossible to follow every tweeter’s tweets. Very much like any face-to-face social gathering of such numbers of people, one would only engage with a few chatters at a time and focus on the topic of discussion within that group. I enter chats with the intent of engaging a few people with my point of view on the topic to challenge and test my own ideas, as well as the ideas of others. Many chats archive the entire chat so people can go back to see whatever it was they thought they might have missed from others.

My personal preference is to participate in chats with one topic to be explored in-depth as opposed to chats, which program 5 or 6 questions in a one-hour slot. My feeling is that the chat never develops naturally with predetermined questions. The participants may just be getting started when time demands a change to the next question. Maybe it is a control thing on the part of the moderators of those chats. It does keep things moving in the chat, but it seems more forced and less organic. There are many however who thrive in that format. As long as topics are being explored the format of the chat is less important. We can never answer for how other people learn and participate.

In a single question chat the participants are more reliant on moderators to feed off of and restate questions and ideas. It is more of a practice in the art of discussion and less formula.

The purpose of any chat is to get a more in-depth discussion and reflection on a given topic. Hopefully, the most successful chats will generate Blog Posts with further reflection and clarity. The people attending these chats often have a specific interest in the topic. The use of Twitter as the platform for education chats enables not only anyone interested in the topic, but also people whose area of expertise might be that specific topic. Keep in mind that twitter has a global reach, so the only possible barriers to anyone’s participation might just be time zones. Many authors, speakers, bloggers, and thought leaders will often participate in chats.

Regardless of titles there are many chatters who offer great ideas, or challenges during chats. It is great to assemble educators who have a common interest to express their ideas on that interest. They are the very people who one needs in a Personal Learning Network to continue following and interacting within meaningful ways. Every chat should offer up some new people to follow on Twitter, or to engage further in Google Hangouts or Skype calls.

The one long-standing criticism of Chats is that they have a tendency to become echo chambers of like-minded people. I would agree that educators do have a common interest, but it has been my experience that they rarely agree 100% on anything. Everyone has his/her own slant on any given topic. Some even abandon their personal beliefs to stir the pot with opposing views. This is where experienced moderators prove their worth in chats. I do not prescribe to the echo chamber argument.

New chatters are usually hesitant to get involved at first. They sort of lurk and learn the culture of the chat. They try to figure out the leaders and just try not to get overwhelmed because of the rate that most of the tweets fly by. It can be quite intimidating. Most chats start off slowly as people begin to gather. It usually takes 5 to 10 minutes to get going. Some chats have people introduce themselves others just dive right in. There is one distraction newcomers should be aware of. Hashtags for chats are used for any tweet that may be related to that general hashtag. For instance a hashtag widely used for any Tweet dealing with education is #Edchat. People use this 24/7. That means that during the #Edchat Chats tweets my come in that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Knowing this before the chat helps filter through the noise.

To bullet point the chat strategy:

Set up a column to follow the Chat
Enter the chat to engage a small number of people and not the auditorium.
Identify the moderators for guidance
Follow on Twitter the most interesting participants to add value to your own PLN
Do not get distracted by off-topic tweets
Engage clearly and succinctly
Reflect on your experience

Now all you need is find a chat to engage in. There are chats for educators in various States within the US as well as many other countries. There are chats for specific grades, subjects, courses, and interests. Of course the Granddaddy of chats is #Edchat which takes place twice each Tuesday. The first #Edchat is at noon eastern time and the second #Edchat is at 7 PM Eastern time with a different Topic. The #Edchat Topics are decided by a Poll each week. Please Join Us!

Here is a list of all of the Education chats taking place globally on Twitter.

All Chats

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Why Twitter Will Never Connect All Educators.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, online learning, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on January 26, 2015| 21 Comments »

If there is one thing I truly understand about educators it is that they are slow to change. It might be from decades of people jumping in with the “latest and greatest” answer to a better way to do things in education, or some legislative mandate to fix it all through legislation, only to find it to fizzle out and fall way short when actually implemented. If teachers learned one thing from these experiences it is that, if you wait and ride it out long enough, all of these initiatives will all go away. The problem however is that many educators want to apply this sit and wait posture to anything that requires them leaving their zones of comfort.

The mindset of a 20^th Century educator is very comfortable for most educators since they were trained for the most part by 20^th century educators. A majority of educators are very comfortable with the methodology and pedagogy of that time. Structure and student compliance matched to a focus on lecture and direct instruction are the common experiences of most educators.

The gap however, between 20^th Century educators and 21^st Century learners, is now beginning to widen at a much faster rate. Today’s learners have become more directed and into the ownership of their learning. The classroom is no longer the only location where learning takes place. If today’s learner has a need to learn something that has meaning to him/her, he/she can access information and tools to curate, communicate, collaborate and create without any help from someone standing at the head of the class.

If students need info, they can Google it. If they need a demonstration they go to You Tube. They can use any number of applications to create something from what they have learned and to make things better they can collaborate with anyone globally at anytime. The very best part is that after all is said and done they have the ability to publish their work at will.

Many students today learn for a reason, not because they are told to. They have found their voice. Many are finding themselves limited by what is being offered in classrooms. Many have inquisitive minds that do not want to wait to get to the next grade to learn what they want, or need to know now. Students want to learn in order to contribute and gain from meaningful, authentic learning and not because we tell them that, “someday you may need to know this”. Quite honestly the world is changing so rapidly, we do not know the “what” it is that they will need to know for their future. The best we can do to help them is to focus on the “how” to learn for the future, and they will determine the “what” based on their specific needs at that time.

The gap between teacher and student will continue to widen if the educators’ mindset for learning does not evolve. Educators, themselves, must be the Life Long Learners that they speak of in school mission statements and addresses at “parents nights”.

It is the growth mindset of educators that is the key to changing an antiquated system. We can have every educator in the country sign a future ready pledge, but if they have no understanding of what future ready means to them personally, it will be another wasted initiative. Committing to working technology into the infrastructure will have little effect if the educators are not willing to embrace the teaching and learning that must go along with that. We can’t cram 21^st Century learning into a 20^th Century model of teaching because it is more comfortable for our educators. There should be no comfort zone for an educator that is more important than a student’s relevant education. The students and their learning must be the focus. Educators can only be effective if they to are learners. Teaching is not a passive exercise; it requires work, study, and involvement in an ever-changing world. That is why everyone can’t be a teacher. It requires a growth mindset and a willingness to evolve as a learner for a lifetime and that is a necessary commitment that many are not willing to choose to make.

The idea of collaborative learning has always been with us in education, and in life in general. It is the social learning we talk about. The idea that we can now collaborate globally on a huge scale is something of a shift in thinking in education. It is only as a result of technology that this has become possible. It does afford educators an unlimited pool of collegial sources. Educators who can share ideas and help others avoid problems make up an individual educator’s Personalized Learning Network. This PLN is made up of people, who collectively are smarter than any one individual, and are willing to share. The ability to create and access these sources is all part of a growth mindset for learning in the 21^st Century. It also requires an openness to learning about the tools to accomplish it all. This takes time and is not a product of a workshop, or a daylong PD event.

Without a mindset for continually learning, or a limited view on what one is willing to learn, it will be difficult to change the status quo in education. Connecting with others may be a great idea that we all agree will make a difference in education, but what good does that do us, if a majority of educators are only comfortable doing what it is they have always done. Of course, it should go without saying that if staying within those comfort zones worked, we would not be having a global discussion on needed reforms for education.

In order to create these much-needed Personalized Learning Networks educators will need to learn about social media and its culture. The ins and outs of Twitter would be the most efficient and effective way to share what is needed for educators. This however takes some time to learn, and it also takes a commitment of at least 20 minutes a day interacting with connected colleagues for anyone to benefit from this. The benefits far outweigh the time and work involved, but the fact of the matter is that not every educator has a growth mindset. Not every educator shows a willingness to leave those zones of comfort. For those reasons Twitter will never connect all educators. The shame of it is that Twitter is probably the best way to share and learn available to us now. If we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators.

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Assertions and Assumptions Skew Perceptions

Posted in Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on January 12, 2015| 8 Comments »

This post is a direct result of a conference that I recently attended with some of the brightest minds in education. The attendees were education thought leaders all. I was humbled in their presence, which is not unusual for me. I was an education lightweight compared to many in attendance. What struck me about this group however was their lack of relevance in the world of EdTech education. They were not at all a part of the model we have all come to believe is now the EdTech-influenced model of education for the USA. I was asked by some what a Blog was. Others had never ever heard of a Professional Learning Network. Somehow the model of education portrayed by so many and being sold to America by the press through some vocal politicians and financial influencers, who probably don’t have a clue what goes on inside most classrooms today, does not exist for these folks. Like many educators today, PowerPoint is the extent of their technology integration into education.

I am so very fortunate and grateful to be able to travel and participate in Education Conferences worldwide. My interaction with educators is not limited to a building, district, county, state, or even a single country. I talk to many educators from many places both inside and outside the USA. One factor common to all these educators is that they are attending some form of education conference. This is not a common experience for many, if not most, educators. Few schools budget for teachers’ attendance at conferences and the view that a teacher’s place is in the classroom is one that is probably the most prevalent view among most keepers of the purse strings.

As a result of limited teacher participation at many of these conferences, only the best, or the most innovative, or the most influential of teachers get to attend. Of course the number of administrators, movers and shakers, the decision makers, or those who control the budgets and purse strings are most often represented in greater numbers and repeatedly attend year after year at these conferences. Of course they are also the people most sought after to attend such conferences since most of these get-togethers are sponsored and supported by companies trying to sell their products to that very target audience. This is not a bad thing, but an element in considering the big picture of education conferences, especially in the area of EdTech.

Now that we have an understanding of who attends these conferences, let us consider the “what and why” of the sessions presented at these conferences. Often, the very companies sponsoring the conference to display their Tech wares will do their own informative sessions within the program. They are probably the most knowledgeable of their product, so it is a great way to represent the best potential of that product. The employees who demonstrate these products are trained to do so, and, more often than not, they are trained extremely well. Certainly their training exceeds a typical teacher’s experience with a PD session in school. Additionally, these demonstrations show off the latest and greatest version of the products. Companies are not stuck with older product versions because of budget restrictions that schools often face.

This is my personal view of what a typical education conference looks like. It is a showcase for the best and brightest schools have to offer with the help of EdTech companies supporting and promoting the teachers and districts that are effectively using their products. Unfortunately, with all the hype, public relations, and a need to put education stories out to the press, this is often touted as the picture of education in the USA: Teachers using technology to teach our digital native children in preparation for their world. This might be the perfect time to mention those flying cars of the future that we have heard so much about over the years.

The point here is that it is not representative of what is going on in education in the USA. We are not as fully tech-oriented as the press and politicians would have us believe. Many schools lack the budget, or infrastructure to support it. Certainly the way PD is provided today, as it has been in centuries past, is hardly adequate to get educators up to speed. Trying to maintain a 20^th Century model of education in the 21^st Century is not moving us forward either, yet it seems to be a dominating education philosophy.

We need to somehow take the vision of what we see in education conferences and mix it with the reality of what is actually being done in education. If we want to focus on a better education for our kids, we need to focus first on a better education for their educators. If the promise of EdTech is ever to be realized than we need to clearly establish where we each are in that picture and make specific individualized plans to get us to where we each need to be. It will not happen organically. We will never have out-of-the-box, innovative learning until we promote and support out-of-the-box and innovative teaching. Technology in education should not be limited to PowerPoint presentations and word-processed book reports.

The picture of what American education is has been blurred by politicians, well-intentioned business people, profiteers, and to a great extent educators themselves. I don’t know if we can describe a picture of a 21^st Century classroom that holds true for all classrooms. I imagine that the most typical class in America still resembles a 20^th Century class which is not far different from a 19^th Century class: Rows, a board, and a teacher standing in front of the room. The frustration I have always had as an educator is that the vision for education is far better than the reality.