TWITTER
I am so happy that PLN's was an option for these modules. With my position changing this year to an instructional coach, it is an expectation with my management company that I have a professional twitter account to demonstrate and post what my team is doing in our school. I have never used twitter before and just created an account recently. I have used it very minimally and I don't think used it to it's full potential.
This week I started following a number of different people and educational groups, however, one that really stood out to me specifically for my middle school teachers is: NextGenLC. This group is specifically geared Next Generation Learning. This is a push for our school this year, along with blended and personalized learning. In middle school along with this shift towards blended learning we are building a whole new middle school community with PBIS. In the previous 4 years I have worked at our school, the middle school environment has been a negative one for the students. I loved the article I found on this page that discusses how we have been thinking about dicsipline has been wrong. This link about changing a schools discipline is one of my favorite resources. It is one that I will use in my first week back orientation with the middle school teachers. This is a culture change this year for us and one that is going to be hardest on the teachers.
I can see twitter being used as a start for me for a professional use. I can also see how it could be so cool for students to get to the point and use it as a classroom or assignment based tool in the classroom for students or parent communication. I would envision that being the goal for me by the end of the year, and have one of my teachers using twitter with their students and/or parents.
Just one teacher?! Get those teachers on board tweeting about their day!! This year I launched a Twitter feed for the school I am in (they never had one) and got some teachers on board with tweeting from their rooms. It was very successful. Imagine now getting more of your teachers involved in using Twitter and having an article discussion (aka book talk) over Twitter! Here's a link to a Twitter guide I developed for my teachers: http://zumpanotechlab.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-twitter-user-guide-for-teachers.html (if you search my site with the keyword 'twitter' you will find more). Check us out @CoonleyES (the school Twitter handle), @CoonleyRoom301 (4th grade teacher) and @2ndCougars (2nd grade teacher).
ReplyDeleteThanks Nicole! I really liked looking through the twitter guide!
Delete