PLN and #TwitterChats

        Technology is revolutionizing education, and each year that passes it seems like there's so much more for students and teachers than the previous year. Students equipped with Chromebooks or other devices now have the world at their fingertips. I've seen first hand students close the achievement gap by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, spending hours and hours mastering math skills on Khan Academy, growing from below average math students to the 90th percentile in just one year. I've seen social studies teachers transform a unit on culture, going from reading textbooks and watching movies about how people live in other countries to now actually having one-on-one conversations with children from all over the world through videos. With technology and a growth mindset, students have incredible possibilities for what they can accomplish in their education. The same goes for teachers. Anyone that is willing to research better methods of teaching and try out cutting edge technology as it becomes available will see major changes in their classroom and the way their students engage in learning. Most teachers I know do not have a whole lot of free time to keep up with the newest trends in educational technology, which is why is great to build a Professional Learning Network, or PLN, to get ideas from. When I moved from a school that I always planned on my own to a new school that required different teams of teachers to meet for weekly PLCs, it made the job so much easier being able to bounce ideas off of each other and see how other teachers were helping students. Even if your school does not lend you to plan collaboratively with colleagues, social media sites like Twitter are a great place to build your network and get great ideas from educators all over.

Image Source - @BrianMendler

Twitter Chats

Twitter is by far my favorite social media site to use personally. For years I have used Twitter to keep up with current events in sports, music and politics. If there is a big cultural event happening in the world I know that I can go to Twitter and get up to the minute updates from credible news sources and hear varying opinions on the topic. I run my school's Twitter page, @conradyjaguars, and had my own personal page for professional use only that I barely used (follow me @MrThompsonCJHS). I followed various education related pages and would check from time to time, and mainly was using Twitter as a "visitor". For this PLN project we were required to participate in a Twitter chat, forcing me to step outside of my comfort zone and get involved. If you just search #edchat on Twitter, you will immediately find an endless list of posts that will inspire you to try new things in your classroom. The Twitter chat that I participated in was called #ditchbook. The chat was moderated by Adobe Education Leader and Flipgrid Ambassador Claudio Zavala, Jr. (@ClaudioZavalaJr), and he would pose questions asking participants to share ways they have used video tools to ditch the textbook to revitalize their classrooms. In less than an hour I not only learned about a lot of great new resources, I heard from people in the trenches that shared effective ways they have used the tools in their classrooms. Below I've included my post in the Twitter chat, along with other posts that I found useful.

Image Source

 

Image Source - @jmattmiller

As the tech coach at my school, now I feel an obligation to participate in more Twitter chats to get as many new ideas for my colleagues as possible. A great resource that I will be going back to is a blog called Shake Up Learning, posted by @jmattmiller. The creator of the blog describes it as follows: "The purpose of this website and blog is to help teachers and students. That’s my bottom line. Here you will find resources to help you learn how to integrate technology meaningfully into your classroom, pick up some cool tips and tricks, and access free resources and ideas." I have already found a bunch of great ideas from this blog, like how to use Google Slides presentations better. Another cool web tool I learned about from the #ditchbook chat was ClipChamp, which was also posted by @jmattmiller. Teachers in my school are always looking for new movie making tools, so I look forward to showing them another one they can add to their tool box. The best part about this resource is being able to convert videos into .mp4 format, which is required when trying to upload videos on some sites.

After doing this project I have major regrets for not utilizing Twitter as a professional growth resource sooner, but I will most definitely be using it more moving forward.