Becoming a Connected Educator Power Up PD Module 10

The Power of Connection Describe a time when you got a great lesson idea from a colleague at your school. Discuss a time when you had something you wanted to try, but needed someone to mentor you through it.

Read about “Why Twitter?” Digitally Speaking / Why Teachers Should Try Twitter Can Tweeting Help Your Teaching?

Plug In Start your twitter.com account. Read these tips -Get a picture, write a bio, turn off notifications -Send a tweet & follow at least 30-50 teachers Connect with the online community for your professional organization (ie: iste.org, nctm.org, ncss.org, ncte.org, ira.org, englishcompanion.ning.com). Plug in challenges are small tasks teachers can usually accomplish quickly, in the workshop, to get more familiar with the tools. These are suggestions, but you can change and adapt them to work for your staff.

Crowd Accelerated Innovation Social media provides us with a way to access the hive mind of educational innovators. We learn from them, test out ideas in our own classrooms and share back what we discover. Chris Anderson, founder of TED, calls this “crowd accelerated innovation” (2010). When innovators have access to each other, they all innovate even faster. This happened in Italy during The Renaissance, and it is happening today in education because social media is connecting teachers and administrators who want to provide students with the best possible educational experience. We want you to share your innovations so that other educators can build from there.

Twitter Chats Twitter Chats, or Tweet Chats, happen when a professional learning network (PLN) tweets about a specific hashtag or topic at a regular time each week. We love #CAEdChat, Sun@8 Here’s a helpful Schedule of Edu Twitter Chats (tip: use an app like TweetDeck to manage the conversation)

Blogging for Other Educators Share your ideas in your own education blog. Here are a few other examples: PBS Mindshift blog.mrmeyer.com thereadinessisall.com litandtech.com diananeebe.com (tip: consider using a blog reader) At this point, we’ve taught teachers how to get kids blogging, so we didn’t review the tools. If they need a recap, go back to Module #5.

Power Up Setup your Feedly or other RSS reader. Start a blog of your own Use Tweetdeck and join a Twitter chat Suggested challenges that you can adapt to the specifics of your situation.