Tomorrow (afternoon of February 2) I’ll be facilitating a workshop for #AISQ8 (elementary) staff on using social media in teaching and learning. From my experience educators need to buy-in before spending (precious!) time learning and developing their social media presence. And that presence is essential if you want to genuinely use social media in teaching and learning. How can you help your students become connected if you aren’t?
I would love your (my wonderful PLN) thoughts on some questions to (hopefully) help garner some buy-in from teachers. Feel free to discuss here, on Twitter, on my COETAIL blog or if submit here if you prefer to remain anonymous. Merci bien!
- Why have you chosen to use social media to create an open network and be professionally connected? What sparked your commitment?
- How did you become connected? What, specifically, did you do to cultivate your PLN?
- Why do you stay connected? What keeps you coming back to your PLN?
- How do you stay connected? How do you balance what you put in (time) with what you get out (benefits)?
- How do you balance creating your social media brand with staying authentically you (in a space where many people don’t actually know you personally)?
- How has being connected impacted your learning? Your teaching?
- Why have you chosen to use social media to create an open network for your classroom/students? What sparked your commitment?
- Why do you keep your classroom connected/open? What impact has this had on your students?
- What advice do you have for teachers who are looking to start using social media for teaching and learning?
- What ‘connected’ experiences have impacted you/your classroom the most? These personal stories can have a huge influence on other educators thinking about becoming connected.
- Any other thoughts are also welcome and appreciated! 🙂
te(a)ch french 
I could write a whole post of my own on all of that! I’ll try to be brief here….
As a new migrant new to Australian system & sources of Ed literature, I joined Twitter to follow organisations and people here – to keep my finger on the pulse. For me it’s information media rather than social in the conventional sense.
Around the same time I was developing an interest in coaching in education and found the #educoach chat and discovered the power of conference back channels on Twitter at a national Coaching in Ed conference. This is where I really began to connect with people with similar interests and on similar journeys. I tentatively reached out to some people and began sharing my own humble efforts in coaching. The story from there is one of exponential growth of my PLN! I’ve done more professional reading and grown more personally in my four-ish years (3.5 actively) than at any other time in my 22 year career.
I’ve also tried to convince colleagues of the power of Twitter (and now blogging) for professional learning but not had much success.
Key learning –
People need a motivation (special interest) to engage with SM.
Hashtags are the secret to connecting around common interests.
I don’t mix social and professional tweeting (except with PLN peeps who is now call friends and have met face to face).
I ‘count’ my chat engagement & Twitter reading as valid PL time.
Finally, share share share! You’ll get it back in spades!
Well that wasn’t brief but hope it’s useful. My train is nearly at work now.
Good luck!
Chris
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I’m connected because it means I’m constantly learning. My learning is updated in the background as I go throughout my day. Twitter provides me a constant stream of information & learning from people with similar interests, similar jobs & similar issues that work in different schools all around the world. I’ve received countless resources from my PLN some asked for specifically, some just shared because that’s what people on Twitter do. I’ve built my PLN by participating in various chats and eventually starting and running one myself. Contrary to what many suggest, I like to use my Twitter account for both professional and personal needs. I like it when others take this approach as well. Its more fun to learn with people you know a little bit about and its just easier. Being connected has changed the way I teach and the way I see my career headed in the future.
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