Recently I hosted a day-long drop in session for teachers called "Leveraging Social Media". In June of the last school year, I made a year-long commitment to the teachers on my staff who indicated in great numbers, that they wanted more in-house PD to support the various technology needs on staff. I decided that the last Tuesday of each month would be dedicated to Tech Tuesday. I don't allow for field trips to be booked on this day to eliminate the need for on-calls, which frees up all teachers to come to the conference room on their prep (yup, you read right... they agreed to it...) and receive bite-size PD that they would find practical, yet manageable.
I don't determine the focus of these sessions. I use Google forms to generate ideas and the last round indicate a huge number of staff expressing interest in social media and how it could be integrated into the classroom. Staff expressed specific interest in Twitter and blogging and I added in Pinterest and Instagram because I thought teachers would find the curriculum connections interesting. I didn't expect for teachers to sign up for social media accounts during the sessions, although some did. A number of teachers expressed a hesitation because they felt that despite board policy and various statement from OCT and OECTA, they needed more concrete guidelines. So I constructed some. While there is still some misunderstanding as to why social media can be so powerful, a lot of good discussion was generated surrounding the importance for our students to have an online presence and the long-term implications for employment. Teachers in my school are starting to come around and I've been receive more emails from staff with links to blogs they're experimenting with and class Twitter accounts that are being tried out.
I'm really proud of how far some teachers are coming along and their willingness to take risks and try new things. It has nothing to do with age either, I'm finding. There isn't an overwhelming majority of young teachers delving into social media and the seasoned veterans are just as interested. I guess there just comes a point where you have to pull your head out of the sand and acknowledge the world we actually live in. Then you have to make a choice: will I be relevant or will I be redundant?
I don't determine the focus of these sessions. I use Google forms to generate ideas and the last round indicate a huge number of staff expressing interest in social media and how it could be integrated into the classroom. Staff expressed specific interest in Twitter and blogging and I added in Pinterest and Instagram because I thought teachers would find the curriculum connections interesting. I didn't expect for teachers to sign up for social media accounts during the sessions, although some did. A number of teachers expressed a hesitation because they felt that despite board policy and various statement from OCT and OECTA, they needed more concrete guidelines. So I constructed some. While there is still some misunderstanding as to why social media can be so powerful, a lot of good discussion was generated surrounding the importance for our students to have an online presence and the long-term implications for employment. Teachers in my school are starting to come around and I've been receive more emails from staff with links to blogs they're experimenting with and class Twitter accounts that are being tried out.
I'm really proud of how far some teachers are coming along and their willingness to take risks and try new things. It has nothing to do with age either, I'm finding. There isn't an overwhelming majority of young teachers delving into social media and the seasoned veterans are just as interested. I guess there just comes a point where you have to pull your head out of the sand and acknowledge the world we actually live in. Then you have to make a choice: will I be relevant or will I be redundant?
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