Response to a Comment on Mentoring Young Teachers on Building PLNs

Considered just posting a comment response to this comment from Reader Tom, but decided it was really worthy of a post -- both to get his point of view in front of your eyeballs and to better present reasons why I'm sticking by my original post.

Aside from generally taking this too seriously, I feel like you're being a little less confident about the future of social media than you should be. That is, there is no rush, because this stuff isn't going away. If you're getting ready to retire, you'd better figure out Twitter now, because it would be a shame to wait until you're in the nursing home to do it. But if you're in a nursing home in 10 years, you'll be twittering (or the equivalent). All these new teachers will be too. There is no rush. This stuff isn't going anywhere. Let people get comfortable.

For as much as I often get accused of being a Utopian, I think Tom's got me beat.

I agree with Tom that social media isn't going away, but I'm not so convinced that young teachers -- particularly in the range of 18 to 25 years old (i.e. those who grew up with social media, but never have experienced it modeled in the classroom, let alone for the purpose of PLN building) -- are going to suddenly 'get comfortable' with contemporary ed uses of social tech without a bit of guidance and mentoring.

As for whether or not I'm rushing this, let me just put it in this sort of perspective: young teachers are paying tens of thousands of dollars for ed school programs which by-and-large are failing them in delivery of the most successful professional development paradigm that perhaps has ever developed: namely, the PLN. I would think that after two years in a teaching program or a Master's track, most grads would have built a substantial and useful personal learning network. I was very surprised upon entering the ed school classroom as a teacher to find that in fact this is not happening.

If I were a young teacher, I'd be peeved.

And so, though I agree with Tom's general enthusiasm for social media, I don't think this situation is just going to fix itself by itself. We now have a very large community of teachers throughout Twitter who have years' worth of experience building and getting the most out of professional social networks. I say it's high time we make a conscious push to mentor young teachers in the ways of PLN building; it's time to give young teachers the tools they need to take control of the fate of their own professional development.