Becoming a true digital citizen – a bit like a first date

Guest post by Michael Stafford, newly active digital citizen…

Becoming a true digital citizen was quite nerve-racking. After a workshop focusing on Digitial Citizenship, I was inspired to change the way I interact through digital media. 

After a quick self-reflection it was obvious that I fell under the label of ‘consumer’. I consumed goods through the platform of Ebay, I consumed professional resources through a range of teacher websites and I consumed a range of useless facts and irrelevant updates about people I hadn’t seen since I was twelve through Facebook. I wasn’t creating anything for others and there was nothing I could consider meaningful interaction. I guess I was ready for things to change.

Here is where I’d like to introduce my vehicle to becoming a true digital citizen – Twitter. This is where the first date similarities flood in. I was entering an arena where I did not know much at all. The layout, etiquette, basic functionality, hashtags, little @ symbols….. how on earth did this work? As far as I could tell everyone was an expert already except for me. I wanted to get involved but for some reason was strangely nervous. Self-doubt crept it’s way into my mind. What if I did a bad tweet? Would I come across as an idiot? Would they like me? How would I sound professional in my bio without sounding like I was big noting myself?

After asking the Twitter world a few questions and getting quick and informative answers, I could see the benefit of it all. First date going well…. not sure what I was so scared about. However, one of my questions threw me right in the old deep end. “Would anyone be willing to help out my class with their learning?”. Within a day I had attention from India, South Africa, China, Singapore and just up the highway in Melbourne. They were all keen to connect through Skype. This digital relationship was about to go to the next level. Besides the sweating, increased heart rate and mental over-preparedness, the first Skype call actually went really well.

The students’ learning has been amplified through rich, authentic and meaningful connections and we now have peers that we can reconnect with in the future. I am now extraordinarily excited to see what else comes out of it.

It all came down to risk vs. reward really. Risk a bunch of little ego related worries and the reward can be huge. I’m glad I took the risk.

@mstafford1988

10 tweets that don’t add value…

I’ve extolled the virtues of Twitter as a tool for connecting, learning and collaborating on many an occasion.

A mere ten minutes on Twitter often yields interesting links, book recommendations, thoughtful conversations, opportunities to collaborate, ideas that push one’s thinking…

Live Twitter chats, usually fast and furious, often add another dimension to the learning, as like minded (or better still, differently minded) educators bounce ideas back and forth.

I’ve watched the part Twitter has played in the learning of a young teacher I mentored last year and wondered how educators who don’t connect via social media can hope to keep up.

Sometimes a bit of light Twitter conversation and banter can be fun too!

But then there are tweets that add little, if any, value…

1. Self promotion – How great you are, how fabulous your presentation was, the awards you won. (Unless tweeted by someone other than you)

2. Requests to vote for you so that you can win the above mentioned awards. (Doesn’t canvassing for votes render awards meaningless?)

3. Your minute by minute life updates – where you went, what you ate, how far you ran…

4. Your kids’ minute by minute life updates – where they went, what they ate, how far they ran (even if accompanied by cute pictures).

5. Your popularity on Twitter – how many new followers you have this week, how many RTs, the extent of your reach (whatever that means).

6. Endless tweets with beautiful pictures and quotes about education, leadership or life. (Rather share your own experience and reflections on these topics)

7. Endless retweets of above mentioned posters with beautiful pictures and quotes….

8. Infographics that are more graphic and less info, often not proof read, not thought through and not particularly useful. (Looking good isn’t enough)

9. Lists of 100 best anythings (tools, blogs, ideas, lessons). Who has time to read all that? Did you read all 100 links before you tweeted?

10. This one’s yours. Anything to add?

Into the unknown…

How do you take blogging beyond the classroom? The brief for my session is to show teachers what’s possible in the hope of inspiring them to take their current practice further. It’s one in a series of sessions for the Global Education Project.  Some of the participants are new to blogging, others are further ahead… I like to encourage them, irrespective of where they are at, to take one small step forward and see where it leads.

Meet Lindsey Bates, Year 3 teacher at Serpell Primary…

The starting point for any good inquiry learning is the known. It is all well and good to begin there, but if the known is where you end up, well, it’s not really learning. This is true of our students and it is true of us as teachers and learners.

I recently attended a Blogging Master Class by Edna Sackson. The afternoon was engaging and inspiring and she left us with a sense of adventure and a challenge: to take the next step in our blogging journey, whatever that might be. I had to go from the known, to the unknown.

I had run a class blog for four years, we attracted a few visitors from around the globe, and I had even made connections with classrooms overseas via twitter. But I hadn’t actually tweeted. My challenge was clear.

Having just completed a blog post about my grade’s newfound fascination with Commander Chris Hadfield from the International Space Station (ISS), I knew that the stars were aligning. I followed Edna’s clear ‘how-to’ guide about how to get noticed on twitter and @ed Commander Hadfield into my tweet. The 120 characters sat on my screen- trapped between laptop and cyberspace. What if I finally spoke up, put myself out there, and no one cared to listen? What then?

After much hesitation I clicked ‘tweet’ and off my words went. Seven minutes later a reply came through. Within minutes my blog post was racking up views. The world did care to listen.

My students now feel themselves to be close and personal friends of Commander Hadfield and are delighted and inspired by the idea of the world watching us learn. It has only been a few weeks, but our virtual audience and connections continue to grow. Who knows where these adventures might take us?

Once you experience the authenticity that comes from learning and reflecting within the globally connected environment that educational blogging can provide, there is no going back to the once cosy and comfortable four walls of your classroom. Learning might begin there, but one can never anticipate where it could end up.

What’s your next step into the unknown going to be?

Twitter in the classroom…

A group of Jina’s Year 4 students sit on the floor and I show them Twitter. She is fairly new to Twitter herself, so I love that she has set up a class account and is keen to get them started, especially as this is the first class Twitter account in our school.

For now, the account can only be accessed if the teacher logs in. She plans to keep it logged in in the classroom, so that students can share their learning and gather data via their questions. Several articles in the past few weeks have covered dozens of ways to use Twitter for learning and we need to start somewhere to see where this takes us.

I start with a brief explanation of how it works and its purpose, then show them some Twitter streams from classes at other schools to give them a better idea. I had planned to have them practice expressing their thoughts in 140 characters first, but it turns out to be unnecessary. I model a couple of tweets with their input and, within a few minutes, we have a volunteer up at the board, typing a tweet about their Skype experience the day before.

To my surprise, the rest of the group spontaneously supports the Tweeter, with spelling and punctuation corrections as well as suggestions for content. There is some discussion about what aspects of the Skype experience to include and a few questions, most of which they answer themselves simply by watching. They quickly head to their seats to compile some tweets of their own about other learning experiences in the past few days.

Frankly, I’m amazed at how many skills are being applied here! These 9 year-olds are quite spontaneously…

• Writing for an authentic audience.
• Communicating with purpose.
• Reflecting on their learning.
• Making choices about what to share.
• Distilling the essence of each learning experience.
• Expressing themselves concisely.
• Applying their knowledge of spelling and punctuation.

I tweet from my own account for people to say hi from other countries and they receive responses from all over the world.

It’s the end of the day and they miss most of them as they rush off to pack up and go home. We have a few days off school, but I’m sure next week Jina will follow up and have them respond to the global tweets. It would be great if they spent some time looking up the places on the map.

It’s just the beginning…

DIY Professional Learning

Does your school run compulsory, one-size-fits-all PD? Are you ever bored, disinterested or unmotivated when attending?  Have you ever been to a conference where the presenter was dull, the audience passive and the content unengaging?

Fortunately, we have the power to create our own more effective professional learning opportunities. What’s yours? Daily connection with other educators via social media? Online workshops and webinars by educators for educators? Teachmeets, where educators meet and share practice informally? One of the many Twitter chats dedicated to different areas of learning?

Keen responses to a tweet from @wholeboxndice a few days ago motivated us to try and establish #pypchat, a Twitter chat for IB PYP educators. While the discussion will be PYP related, it’s all about learning and anyone will be welcome to participate.

A preliminary survey to assess the level of interest quickly attracted responses from every continent. It’s unlikely we can find a suitable time to accommodate people in all the time zones, but it’s encouraging to have so much interest expressed so quickly.

It’s interesting to note that nearly half the responders so far indicated that they would like to be part of the team of moderators. It’s an opportunity to create our own professional learning.

DIY. Why not?

(Survey here. Details soon)

Connections…

I enjoyed my day of professional learning with Alec and George Couros in the beautiful Ravenswood surroundings. A great learning environment, a few new tools, lots of laughs and loads of inspiration.

At the end of the day I spent some time trying to capture the essence of it.

It was lovely to spend a day out of school with members of my school leadership team. It was an opportunity to connect more closely with them, to talk about all manner of things and to learn. I highly recommend staff participating in workshops in groups, so they can deconstruct together, learn and think collaboratively.

The day was also an opportunity to make new connections. It was great to converse with and learn from teachers in a range of schools and from different backgrounds, to share and compare our teaching and learning experiences.

It was really special to engage in person with educators with whom I have previously interacted only online. In particular, my young friend George Couros, who feels like an old friend! We’ve connected via social media for a couple of years, learning from each other and taking each others’ ideas back to enrich the learning in our schools.

Alec shared many examples of incredible school-wide and worldwide collaborations, highlighting just what’s possible in our connected world. His wonderful 40th birthday video, created by 75 of his ‘closest friends’, many of whom he has never met in person, was a perfect example. My mind was buzzing with possibilities for learners in my school… and in the world.

It was heartwarming to hear Alec and George talk about the influence of their parents on their lives as educators. Their stories resonate for me. My own father was an inspirational educator and it stills thrills me when I meet people so many years later who talk about the way he touched their lives.

The essence of the day was connection. Connections between ideas and practice. Connections between new knowledge and existing thinking. Powerful global connections. Meaningful personal connections…. And the places where all of those interconnect.

10 ways Twitter has added value…

Dear Teacher who is still not on Twitter,

Maybe you didn’t receive my previous mail. Just in case it didn’t convince you, here are a few more examples of the benefits of Twitter… 

1. Continuous learning with and from a global community of educators, via countless links to interesting posts and articles, tools and websites, conferences and workshops. thoughts and ideas.

2. Year 5 students at my school are learning about Aboriginal culture. Twitter led me to @jessica_dubois, as a result of which classes at our schools were able to interact via Skype last week. It was an incredible learning experience for both sides!

3. Ongoing connections with PYP educators like @jessievaz in Chile, @maggiswitz in Switzerland, @sherratsam in Thailand and @garethjacobson  in Bangladesh (among others!), to whom I can turn for advice and ideas relating to learning in the PYP.

4. #Elemchat is a weekly Twitter chat for primary school teachers to discuss issues and share practice. It’s great to get different perspectives from all over the world and the connection with talented organisers @tcash in Morocco and @gret in Argentina is an added bonus.

5. Year 1 teachers at my school have recently started blogging and are keen to make global connections for their students. Via Twitter, I’ve found them a number of interested teachers and classes in Colombia, Switzerland, Canada, Indonesia, Chile and the US and inspired them further with the work of @grade1 to see what is possible.

6. Inquire Within, a collaborative blog about inquiry learning, has a range of contributors from twelve countries across six continents… all via Twitter. (Join us!)

7. Upper Primary teachers at my school were inspired by a Skype session on literacy and class blogging with @kathleen_morris and @kellyjordan82 a few months ago and the dynamic duo has agreed to do another session next term to inspire teachers in the lower grades too.

8. @toughLoveforX is a retired printer and design teacher in NY, who comments with interest on my blog and our school class blogs, giving valuable insights and asking tough questions about education that make me think (and act). 

9.  It was great to have @henriettaMi, who I know through blogs and Twitter, visit our school when she was recently in Melbourne to present at a conference. She graciously agreed to present an after-school session to further inspire teachers at my school with their class blogs.

10. Endless advice, assistance, support, collaboration, encouragement, inspiration, motivation … and friendship.

Why wouldn’t you want to be part of it? 

Let me know if you want help getting started.

Edna

By whatedsaid | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Dear Teacher who wasn’t on Twitter…

Partially inspired by Scott McLeod’s post  If You Were on Twitter.

Dear Teacher,

I know you don’t see the point of Twitter. I know you think people should have a balanced life and not be online too much. I know you think a great deal of time is required to find resources and create connections.

Last Sunday was a lovely, sunny day. Among other things, I went for a walk in the city, spent time with family, went out for breakfast with friends, cooked a pot of lentil soup, finished Seth Godin’s Poke the Box and read several chapters of A Man of Parts by David Lodge.

I also spent 30 minutes on Twitter participating in #elemchat, where primary school teachers around the world exchange ideas and share their challenges. Here’s some of what I got out of that half hour:

• A variety of new web 2.0 story book creators to explore and share with my colleagues.
• Inspiration and ideas from @dogtrax, like his environment project.
• The idea of using Edmodo for reading discussions.
• A promising collaboration with Tania Ash  in Morocco to start a world reading group for primary school students!
• The start of a connection with @plnaugle who shares my interest in inquiry learning.
• Discovery of another PYP educator @ctrlaltdeliver to add to my contact list.
• Potential collaborators for our unit about cultural beliefs.
• A comforting sense that educators worldwide encounter the same challenges that we do at our school.
• New contacts in several countries for future global collaborations.
• A reminder that there is no professional learning quite like half an hour on Twitter!

You should give it a try. I’ll help you get started if you like.

Edna

PS. There was a great #edchat session today on the role of blogging in 21st century learning, it’s value and the challenges, both for students and teachers. But that’s another story…

Just another tweet…

I don’t speak Spanish, unless you count the three lessons I had in Baños, Ecuador when I visited my daughter Mazz in December. So it amused me to tweet asking if anyone knew a Spanish song using the preterito imperfecto tense, which Mazz needed for an assignment for her Spanish teaching course. It was retweeted by Yoon, @doremigirl,  a music teacher with whom I collaborated last year on a project about celebrations, and soon there was a response from Abby, @Sra_Crespo, with an example of a suitable song. One thing led to another and Abby has since communicated a few times with Mazz by email answering a few other queries. When she found out that Mazz volunteers and coordinates the volunteer program at Arte del Mundo Foundation, which promotes literacy and the arts, she offered to send some Spanish resources for the kids who come to the foundation’s interactive library.

It’s just another example of the power of twitter to foster genuine global connections between people who otherwise would never have met.

The foundation is always seeking volunteers, both short and long-term, so if you know anyone who might be interested, please pass on the link to the website.

I’ve blogged before about the library, La Biblioteca Interactiva de Baños, its very special atmosphere and the great work that happens there. Here’s their latest video. I love the excited faces of the kids as they read, play and create …