My Island View

Social media is ever-evolving, although, as of late, some see it as de-evolving. As an educator, I was an early adopter and advocate for social media as a tool for professional collaboration, and development. I began using America Online (AOL) and MySpace back in the day and that was basically my introduction and exploration of social media. I moved along to Facebook for friends and family connections. After getting comfortable with the idea of social media, I started using LinkedIn, a professional social media application, to link up with many other educators who were somewhat tech-savvy. I connected with educators directly, as well as created several LinkedIn groups specifically for educators. I created a NING site called The Educator’s Professional Learning Network that: housed specific education groups, announced events, archived hundreds of education-based videos, and podcasts and it allowed individual connections for over twenty-two thousand educators to collaborate. 

Along with all this, I began to explore Twitter as an additional source of educator collaboration. In addition to direct exchanges of information, I used it to move traffic to my other collaborative sites. All of these social media applications added to what would become known as my Professional Learning Network (PLN) a compilation of collegial sources from around the world used for the purpose of education collaborations in addition to social interactions. This took education beyond the impact of the invention of the old Guttenberg Press, enabling digital publishing. Collaboration was possible from anywhere at any time. Twitter took me from tweeting to blogging, to podcasting, and finally to authoring two books.

My collaboration was extended around the world. Between all of the social media applications, of which I was a part, I found myself in contact with well over 100 thousand people, mostly educators, giving my thoughts and ideas with a reach in the millions. It was a scary responsibility, which required me to be more thoughtful in everything that I would say, or do in regard to my connections. Through this PLN, I was able to speak with and get to know authors, thought leaders, and iconic educators that I could never have imagined even meeting let alone collaborating with before social media made it all possible. 

Throughout this social media adventure in my winter years as an educator, many of the platforms could not keep up with change and finally fell away. Some. like Twitter, adapted and survived. Twitter doubled its tweet size from 140 characters to 280. Twitter chats went on to be used by people in many specific areas in education. The original #Edchat Twitter chat has actively continued for over 13 years!

Twitter has been a mainstay for interaction and collaboration for educators and as we enter into a new year, it may or may not continue to do so. The recent change in ownership has many educators questioning their use of the platform. There are concerns about trust, as well as moral and ethical responsibility. Additionally, there is a great concern about Twitter’s longevity. Will it be around to support educators in their collaboration? 

Currently, I have a Twitter network of over 82,000 educators who I cannot just leave hanging. As such though, I may only continue on Twitter for a while longer.  I need to simultaneously enlist another platform to protect my collegial sources if Twitter should instantly close down. My trust has been shaken, and my community of educators which was built up over more than a dozen years has been threatened. I need to migrate to another, more stable platform with as many members of my PLN as I may convince to join me in the adventure.

Thus, I have set out to find a platform capable of providing the ability to collaborate using text, pictures, audio, video, and much more. It also needs to be a safe environment capable of handling a massive amount of people from around the world. Hate speech needs to be monitored and dealt with to preserve moral integrity. Hopefully, the platform will continuously evolve to address the need for improving and expanding collaboration.

I believe I have found that platform.  A former APPLE engineer has developed a unique user-focused social media application that goes to the next level of creating virtual communities. It is called uSync, and it has been available for less than a month, so it is still adding to its already extensive capabilities. I have been talking with the founders of the platform, and I am confident that it is what I have been looking for in order to build a bigger and better education community where we can safely collaborate with confidence. Click here to see a complete explanation of the purpose and mission of uSync from its founder and CEO Darrell Lynn.

I have found the uSync staff to be open to suggestions for change and improvement to meet the needs of the broader community.  At its core, uSync is a platform that is like a combination of several existing social media platforms, all in one place. Like any social media platform, one has to experience it to begin to understand its potential. 

Right now, my plan is to guide people as they explore uSync, to work together to build our new EDU PLN. Like any other technology, as we use it, we will “get it” and find ways to build a rich ecosystem full of resources. One difference with uSync is that it has a one-time purchase price of $3.99. This is a small price to pay for an environment where there are NO ADVERTISEMENTS and NO SELLING OF USER LISTS. It will be money well spent, considering the access you will have to the many tools of collaboration.  

If you have an interest in joining me in this new collaborative community of educators on a highly ethical and safe platform, I have included my personal invitation in the QR code below in this post for your convenience. My mission at this point is to get all of the educators I am connected with to migrate to this site and join the #Edchat Connected Educators Group. 

 Personal invitation to uSync from Tom Whitby

I don’t think many people would disagree that the job of teaching is different in a post-pandemic era when compared to the job most teachers signed up for before 2019. I am not discussing mandates, or masking, but rather the day-to-day preparation, and delivery of lessons and strategies for student learning. That is not to say that mandates, masking and the threat of Covid don’t place a significant level of stress on every educator, every day.

Anyone who has ever taught knows that teaching requires a great deal of preparation time. My observations over the years lead me to believe that the best teachers have a balance of experience and preparation. Both of these components require time, and, as it has been embedded into the American culture, “Time is Money”. That preparation time has always fallen on the backs of the educators. It has always been expected that teachers will prepare for their teaching on their own time. For the most part teachers have accepted this as part of the job. Of course the preparation time varied depending on the individual teacher and the time of year, since events, and holidays play a significant role in any academic calendar. Teachers over the years had accepted this sacrifice on their free time for the sake of the children, but that amount of time was something each teacher could personally determine.

That preparation time was established as part of the job description for a teacher throughout the public school system. Of course those states that have teacher unions might have found it difficult to increase that expectation of sacrificed free time without additional compensation. This all changed with the pandemic. Students were: in school, out of school, or blended both in and out of school depending on an individual school districts’ Covid Policy.

Teachers stepped up to help in anyway they could. They freely sacrificed their own family time to address the needs of their students. School policies wavered and flexed in all directions. School openings and closings both met and missed deadlines even different schools within the same district. Through all of this teachers hung in and adjusted their preparation time, most often giving more. This is when Districts began to rely on the time that teachers freely volunteered. Schedules were made up in many cases (not all) with little teacher input. All of these new demands on time have now changed the implied job description of a teacher, placing a greater burden on the teacher.

Teachers require time not only to prepare for their classes, but collaborative time with colleagues, professional time for development, downtime to recharge, time to assess their own efforts as well as that of their students. All of this is a necessity of the job of a teacher. All of it impacts a teacher’s time with family.

We must consider the new reality in today’s workforce. In this post-pandemic between 30 and 40 percent of employed people are leaving their current jobs to seek something better. Teachers are not immune from this trend.

It should be obvious to all that the public school system today is not the system we had before 2019. It is time to accept that change and make the system better. We need to approach time differently. We need to consider the needs of the entire education community. It is not “all about the kids”. It’s about the kids, the educators, and the parents.

We need to recognize the importance of time and how its efficient use is an investment in making a better system. Yes, money is important and necessary, but throwing money at a system that is inefficient with how time is spent is a waste of both.

I recently tweeted out an idea to consider. What if we made up the school schedule based on a four-day week for students and a five-day week for teachers? That teachers’ fifth day could be dedicated to addressing much of the preparation time teachers need: planning, grading, collegial collaboration, formative self-assessment and professional development.

This is just an idea, not yet a plan, but it is a great starting point to build a better, more respectful system. Getting more money for teachers has never been popular with anyone but educators. Teachers overall are underpaid, but it is more than money that they need. Time is also a valuable commodity and within reach if properly planned.

Let’s not come up with a list of flaws to dismiss this idea. Why not come up with a list of ways to support the idea. Give us a reason to make it happen, rather than reasons not to do it. The time is right for thoughtful change, but change is the key word. When it comes to respecting a teacher’s worth and the time she or he spends on her or his profession, I do not think our system has had a stellar record. After all of the bad stuff that has resulted from Covid, we need to strive to make some positives from this devastation. We have an opportunity here and now.

Whether it is called an “Aha Moment” or ”an Epiphany” educators are seeing many aspects of their profession in a different light over this last year of the pandemic education plan. They are questioning, what was considered normal for centuries, as a system in need of change more than had ever before been realized. The pandemic blew up the existing education system, forcing changes that could never have evolved naturally at such a rapid pace under normal circumstances. Many concepts and assumptions, based on what was “normal” before the pandemic, have been discarded, replaced, adjusted and improved. Many changes have exposed more problems that will require new solutions to these new problems. Twenty-first century technology has both helped and hindered the entire process. AHA! Ironically, tech is both the problem and the solution at this point in this education evolution.

Many of the biggest problems that are being acknowledged in education today are not new. They are however, being magnified to a point where they can no longer be ignored, or denied. Poverty is one great example. Although I do believe the system is riddled with systemic racism, poverty is a separate issue. It knows no bounds of race although many people of color fall within this category; it also includes white kids of urban and rural poverty groups. AHA! One can’t pull him, or herself up by their bootstraps, if they don’t own a pair of boots.

It was always my belief that Tech and online teaching was the direction to take. The pandemic has certainly hit that with a huge monkey wrench. It showed me that it is impossible to educate kids online with more kids in a family than devices in the home to access the Internet. Of course another stumbling block is the Internet itself. AHA! How can we provide online learning when we can’t provide adequate and equitable Internet access to the country?

We are beginning the third decade of the Twenty-First Century. Why haven’t we prioritized and provided Internet access, as we have with water and electricity to the country? We seem to have the technology for this, but not the inclination to provide it. Of course money is at issue here. AHA! Unless we prioritize the Internet into our infrastructure for equitable countrywide access, we will never have the ability to properly implement distance learning.

Of course one of the greatest epiphanies for many educators has been the relationship of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Maslow’s Hierarchy. As educators we are all familiar with Bloom, since his Taxonomy deals with higher order thinking skills and that is directly connected to education. Maslow’s Hierarchy is more nuanced in education. Once we began the pandemic year of education many of the basic needs of Maslow’s pyramid were lost to many more kids: Love and belonging, safety needs, and physiological needs were obliterated for many students. Without the ability to meet these needs for kids, we loose the ability to get them to respond to any of Bloom’s thinking skills. AHA! Without completing the basics of Maslow, there is no room for Bloom.

Probably the greatest of all the AHA moments that educators and parents have had is the role that relationships play in learning. From the beginning of the year of pandemic education, educators have stepped up in reaching out to their students. That has made a big difference in a bad situation for many kids, as well as parents. Now a term that we have all become familiar with is SEL, Social and Emotional Learning. AHA! Strong teacher/student relationships strengthen learning. We must deal with social and emotional needs of kids before we can accurately assess their learning.

My final Aha moment came after I spoke to hundreds of educators about how the year of pandemic education has affected them as educators. I was surprised that after at least a decade of professional development for educators emphasizing technology integration and online learning in education that a majority of educators were totally unprepared for the transition to online teaching. AHA! If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators.

The pandemic education plan that we have all been forced to endure for this last year is not all bad. We need to consider all that we have learned. Yes, many kids do not perform well with distance learning, but there are other kids who are thriving with it. AHA! There is no one method of education that works for every kid. We need to consider what we know to be true and build from there a flexible and evolving education system. We need to encourage and embrace the Aha moments and share these ideas through collaboration with all educators.

With the rapid spread of the Corona Virus, there has been a clarion call for schools to close and immediately shift to online learning in the interest of health and safety. With all that has been written and talked about in regard to “online learning” over the last decade, the perception is that now is a great time to put tech to work and implement this modern methodology to address our current situation and limit face-to-face exposure in order to self-quarantine a huge portion of our population. Online learning will do all of this, and kids won’t miss a beat in their education. That is a great picture of progressive ideas in education coupling with the advancing strides of evolving technologies to carry us to the next level in the evolution of education. That may get us a short way away from the flying cars that we have always been promised for generations. Of course before any of this can happen we need to address several questions to determine the viability of this wondrous solution.

Is the infrastructure in place for online learning? In order for this to work, we need the teacher to be able to connect with the student. That takes computer equipment for both, as well as some capacity for connecting them. Of course that connection would need to be made for each and every student for which each teacher is responsible. Assuming that the schools are closed to teachers, as well as students, the school will have very little to do with what devices teachers or students have, as well as what internet accessibility is available. Schools having issued each student a computer would have more control.

Do the teachers have lessons prepared specifically for “Online Learning”? Teaching online is not the same as teaching face to face in the classroom. The class is far less captive with many more distractions in each student’s personal environment. The lessons need to be far more engaging. Feedback from every participant is more important with online learning. Summative assessment is essential and must be ongoing. Learning is not a passive exercise online. Interaction is the key. Teachers need to be more aware and more demanding of student participation. These are only a few of the needs that teachers must address in “online teaching”

Does each teacher have the mindset to be an online teacher? Being forced into a situation that effects one’s livelihood and challenges lifelong beliefs is not a good way to introduce a person to a new way to perform his or her job. A longstanding fear of educators is that some day they will be replaced by computers. Personally, I don’t believe that will ever happen, because education is best served through strong relationships of students and teachers. Technology however, will change the way those relationships take place. Forcing people into performing a job they don’t believe in cannot have a positive outcome for anyone. A majority of teachers have never been trained to teach online. They have been taught how to teach in a classroom. Kids sitting in rows where a teacher can see them is not the same as connecting with students online.

Will a knee-jerk decision for a quick fix to a problem with the Corona Virus have a lasting effect on education? My overriding fear about this situation that we find ourselves in, is the long-term effect it will have on education. If schools close and mandate online learning to carry them through the period of time such as this crisis requires, will the resulting failure of education be blamed on the teachers, the technology, or the folks who pushed for an ill-considered idea? I fear the teachers and technology will unfairly bear the brunt of the blame. Of course the folks who pushed the ill-considered idea are also the judges.

When will online learning be a reality? I truly believe we will move to a methodology that uses both face-to-face and online learning. This will only happen as teachers are taught what online learning is and how it works best. This is still a new and developing methodology. We also need to teach students how to use it before they are thrown into it. Most importantly we need to instruct parents on the benefits of it as well. They did not grow up with online learning, so they will need to be sold on its value. Before we can change the system, we need to change the culture. Mandating online learning before the infrastructure, methodology and mindset of educators and students are all in the proper place, the endeavor will ultimately fail. That would be a setback for an evolving education system.

The discussion around technology in education often revolves around what technology can or can’t do in regard to affecting kids’ learning. The fact of the matter is that technology in education only works for kids, if it works for their teacher.The best technology in the world will not be effective if the teacher is not a committed advocate for it. That commitment requires an understanding of how the tech fits into what it is the teacher is trying to accomplish. The marriage of those two requires an understanding of not just subject content, but an understanding of the technology and the students as well. It is far more complicated than throwing the tech at the kids and sitting back to record the miraculous results in a grade book.

Technology’s effect on education is difficult to assess, because it is not just the technology that affects the learning. If there are three teachers teaching the same subjects in a school and are given equal access to technology, how can the technology impact on learning be fairly assessed? If one teacher welcomes the tech and works to use it to its best advantage, while the other two teachers are less comfortable and less willing to fully commit, is the technology that is failing to help students learn? Two thirds of the students would be limited with their technology in this example. Even if there was a massive improvement in the third of the students who succeeded with tech, two thirds would fail to show improvement, yet all had equal access to the tech. Blaming the failure on the tech is much easier than saying teachers are not living up to their professional obligation. Maybe we need to use the technology to address the adult learning of educators before we can expect to fairly assess the effect of technology on student learning. That would be using Andragogy to promote Pedagogy. For a better understanding of Andragogy read this: https://tomwhitby.com/2015/04/13/the-importance-of-andragogy-in-education/ or https://tomwhitby.com/2013/05/03/pedagogy-vs-andragog/

Technology can be most effectively used for collaboration. Some of the most popular sites on the Internet are social media sites. These sites are designed for collaboration and collaboration is a key component in adult learning. Frankly, it is key to all learning, but adults seem to get it better.

My driving force, in all that I now do in education, hinges on one belief: If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators. Collaboration through technology seems to have been designed for educators to inform, if not educate themselves about their own profession. This includes how to use technology to learn more technology. How to develop a personal learning network through technology should be a course offered in every teacher preparation program.

Time and money have been reasons that prevented collaboration in past decades. Today, access to information on the Internet is anytime, anywhere. Cellphones are not phones, but rather small high-powered computers with phone capabilities. Access devices are now plentiful, and Internet access has expanded and become cheaper. Free access is offered in more locations than ever before.

The ability to collaborate and the time to access collaboration has become far less a roadblock than a few years ago. The next two questions might be: “How?” and “Who?”.

Twitter is the backbone of my PLN. I developed it by considering my “Followings” as professional sources. I follow educators who inform, engage, inspire, or challenge me. I find them on Twitter as they contact me. I find them in education Chats. I find them from hashtags that I follow. I follow Bloggers, Podcasters, Thought Leaders, and Authors. I also check out Twitter Profiles to see whom those people follow. Easy Pickens! Checking Twitter profiles is helpful in focusing on the right educators as a source to address my interests and needs. That’s another aspect of adult learning. Twitter on the phone enables me to tweet anytime I find the time. Standing on the grocery line has now become more productive.

Twitter, although not designed specifically for educator collaboration, is actually the easiest way to communicate the very information educators need to share. Educators discovered Twitter and molded it for their own needs. Documents, audio files, videos, blog posts, webinars, podcasts, and pictures can all be reduced to links and communicated. The best however, is the sharing of original ideas. An idea, that is not shared, is just a passing thought. Twitter enables ideas to flourish, or, after undergoing some scrutiny by other educators, die. All of this is limited to tweets of 280 characters. The number of tweets is not limited, so stringing many tweets together enables discussion. This has developed into Education Chats on twitter. There are chats for almost any educator’s interest. Chats are also a great source for finding more educators to follow. Of course my favorite chat is #Edchat which I founded along with Shelly Terrell and Steven Anderson. It has run continually since 2009.

The design of this model of personalized learning does require that an educator must believe that learning does not stop after a degree is earned, a license is issued, and a job is secured. The profession requires relevance, but with changes happening faster than any time in history, maintaining relevance requires continuous ongoing action. This is not comfortable for everyone, but it has become a requirement of the profession. As adult learners we may be more comfortable with digital, collaborative if we are familiar with how adults learn. Educators are experts in how kids learn through pedagogy. How people learn as adults, andragogy, is a mystery to most educators.

Malcolm Knowles identified the six principles of adult learning as:

• Adults are internally motivated and self-directed
• Adults bring life experiences and knowledge to learning experiences
• Adults are goal oriented
• Adults are relevancy oriented
• Adults are practical
• Adult learners like to be respected

Twitter is more than just a collaborative platform for educators. It has added an element of transparency to a profession that was closed and controlling for centuries. We can now see how other educators teach and what they do differently. Educators can feel free to talk about those things that had been in silos for generations. It allows ideas to be considered on their merits, as opposed to those that had been mandated from above. To state the obvious, if we are to evolve into the future, we must be willing to leave the past behind

One can create a personal learning network by using many tools. Technology has afforded us many choices of those tools. The problem is not the scarcity of sources, but rather the scarcity of educators availing themselves of those technology sources that we have. If collaboration and sharing is the key to relevance for educators than share these ideas with a colleague.

Anyone who thinks that there is one answer to all that is wrong in education is at the very least ill informed. Public education has had hundreds of years to establish practices and procedures that would ultimately slow down any progressive ideas for change. This is the Kevlar vest against any silver bullet that an insightful, forward-thinking change agent might shoot. That seems to be the strategy to protect most bureaucracies, but that being said, there are still many good things happening within the education system.

Most change in education comes about through the leadership and passion of individuals within the system. More often than not, change is localized rather than a national movement. Too often, if the person driving that change is removed from the movement, then the movement itself is soon diminished and eventually forgotten. That might be the key for promoting lasting change. Do not put the responsibility for continuing change on the backs of one or two lead teachers. If change is to last, it requires support from the top leadership. Bottom-up change is great when successful, but how often does that happen without top-down support?

The best example I can think of is the Edcamp movement. It is a different approach to professional development. It is a model based on educators discussing specific topics that they are interested in learning more about, or topics that specific educators know quite a bit about and want to share that knowledge with other educators through discussion. Using discussion to collaborate is more in line with adult learning. It is also a model that is based on respect for what every participant brings to the table on the subject.

This model has been successful because administrators, as well as teachers, have supported it. The driving force behind the Edcamp model is the need that educators have to learn more about their profession in a world that is changing more rapidly than the education system can deal with. The goal of education is to educate kids to: live, learn, survive, and thrive in that ever-changing world. All of that considered, one would think, that this model of professional development would have been adopted nationally over this last decade of its existence. It hasn’t, and teacher dissatisfaction with conventional professional development continues to be a point of contention.

We acknowledge that professional development is much needed for teachers to keep up with the latest methodologies in education. Most districts require teachers to be involved with some minimum requirement of time for PD. That PD can be general to education or specific to a subject area, or a technology. Most districts provide PD for a day or maybe two to check off the “PD provided” box on their “to be done” list. The question I have is: do districts have the same PD expectations of their lead administrators?

Being an education administrator is a hard job. Most administrators come from the ranks of teachers and enter a whole new world of: business, public relations, labor management, budget control, public speaking, and leadership. Beyond all of that, they are considered to be the lead learners of the school district. It is a tough job balancing all of that and trying to keep up with what teachers are doing in their classrooms. It stands to reason that districts might not want to put another thing on their administrators’ plates, like a minimum PD requirement. Yet, when we consider what administrators do, why shouldn’t they be as relevant as the teachers that they lead?

I engage and collaborate with many administrators around the country and outside the USA as well. The administrators I have worked with have all been progressive, supportive, and open to change wherever they found it possible to be so. The question arises that if all administrators are like the ones I have worked with, why hasn’t the education system made positive changes by leaps and bounds? Maybe there are a greater number of administrators who are less educated about what should be relevant in education today. All of the bottom-up change from teachers will never stick without support by informed and relevant administrators.

We know we need to reform professional development in order to meet the need for educators to maintain relevance in a culture that is changing with the advance of technology at a pace never before experienced. We need to include the leaders of our educators in this ongoing need to keep up.

For decades I have said, “If we are to better educate our kids, we need first to better educate their educators.” I now believe that if we are to better educate our kids’ educators, we need to first better educate their leaders.