A quote from the Connected Educator video that remains with me, says,”I can’t see how you can be an educator in the 21st century without being a connected educator.”
Another quote says, “...surround yourself with passionate educators from different backgrounds.”
I have never been keen to use social media in my personal life. I have tried using facebook, but could not sustain going onto it regularly. I have created a Twitter account a few years back and haven’t used it until we needed it during the face-to-face sessions. The past nine months since the start of this course using Google +, has been the longest time I have consistently used social media and I have learned to appreciate the benefits of being connected with my fellow Mindlabbers. This has motivated me to look into joining the New Zealand Teachers Facebook to help me connect with passionate teachers all over New Zealand.
Our school have started to use Yammer - a social media tool - to share our successes in the classroom with our school community. It is still early days, but the tool is being used with varying levels of success by the different teams, which made me ask, “Why is that?”
To me the difference seems to be the teachers who are using the tool. For whatever reason, some teachers are putting more energy and time into adding content regularly, while it is just another thing to do for others. Not every teacher makes use of social media. According to Sharples et al (2016) the project falls flat unless the projects have experts to inspire and engage people, because no one is required to participate. Without the presence of at least one expert per team, it then stands to reason that it is highly likely for such team’s use of social media to fall flat.
I have been fortunate to be exposed to research to influence my opinion of social media and opened my eyes to the possibilities presented by it. I am far from being an expert so it will be a while before I will be using it in the classroom. Further, effective learning will vary from student to student according to their knowledge and competence of these platforms. (Mindlab class notes, 2017). This quotation refers to students, but the same could be said for teachers: Effective use of social media platforms will vary from teacher to teacher, according to their knowledge and competence.
The use of social media is here to stay and we need to familiarise ourselves with it. Joining platforms that connect us with other professionals is a great way to start.
Your blog highlighted a very important feature of 21st Century teaching and learning: collaboration in both teacher and learner perspective is of paramount importance. The days of the 'silos' are gone and we are mostly unable to solve our difficulties and problems without right forum. Thanks for a very relevant conversation on line.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nazmul. Teachers can and will only collaborate if the environment allows it. We therefore cannot have an education system which encourages competition between colleagues and between schools.
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