The Voice of a Young Teacher Coming to Understand Social Technology

Here are comments from another of the students in my weekly ed school course on paperless classrooms and social tech integration. You can follow his Tweets and help him to build his PLN at: @teacherben.

I'm particularly struck by his idea that whether or not you might be able to incorporate these tools into whatever current classroom situation you might be in, one of the important things to recognize is that eventually your situation is going to catch up... so you might as well get your brain around the new network now, lest tomorrow you wind up on the business end of your own kicking foot:

I always have the same three thoughts every class session: (1) Some of these social media sites are really cool and some creep me out (the "creep me out" thought is occurring less and less as I get more and more comfortable putting my digital self out there); (2) I wish I could use this in my classroom, but I don't have the resources/ certain useful sites are blocked; and (3) I'm glad I'm becoming more aware of this digital world. My sister is an archivist who some time ago, got into social media professionally (as a person who deals with information technology). Because I'm now more linked in to digital social media, we were able to have a conversation (about storing information on "the cloud") that we would never have been able to have before. Beyond the personal gratification of being more aware of the web 2.0, it has turned out to be a really useful way to build my PLN. The other day, I Tweeted (crap, did I use the right term?) a question about how to upload files on to the cloud, and got a response in minutes- so helpful.

The class has also been helpful from a more theoretical perspective. If digital social media is the wave of the future in education, I'm glad I'm becoming aware of it now so I don't drown in it later. Even if I don't stay in education, it's nice to know what education might be like for my kids (assuming that happens some day). Beyond that, I was really hit by the two videos we watched in class in which two guys spoke at conferences about the social and political affects of social media. I guess Twitter and blogging and all that isn't just "kids stuff," although that's how I used to view it. Now if only my students could use it...

We are in a transition period.

And this transition period is not the pinnacle of the social technology era. It's rather the very moment when the map of that era is being laid out for the first time for the generals in the field to examine.

The decisions we make now and the strategies we develop are going to have long-term consequences.

And so, in the context of teacher education, I urge all of my ed school colleagues and ed school students to campaign for the clear inclusion of 'social tech in ed' coursework to become a standard of teacher preparation and -- and this is the big one -- for the use of and modeling of social technology in the classroom to become standard practice in all ed school classrooms regardless of discipline.

Young Teachers Speak Out on Social Tech in Education

Just finished teaching a fall semester course on Paperless Classrooms and Social Tech in Education. And I can't help but say that I was completely moved by the experience of watching young teachers go from social tech newbs to PLN-building professionals.

I'd like you to hear what they've had to say; so over the next couple weeks, with their permission I'll be re-posting some of their thoughts and observations about being a young teacher lucky (or unlucky) enough to have been thrust into the digital revolution.

First up is a piece by @JefeGORavens, who incidentally has become a regular contributor to #EdChat:

This is a collection of quotes that I have heard myself, that I do now say, and that I look forward to saying in the future.


Where I was:

"Twitter? What the.....? Hell no I ain't freakin' tweeting and twitting or whatever. Do I look like Ashton Kutchner?"
"Diigo? What the freak is a Diigo? That sounds like some Star Trek vehicle!"
"I now have a blog. Great. I feel like a 12 year old girl with boy problems. Maybe I should start writing in my diary again."
"When is this guy going to understand, I am a simple and basic guy. I can't be tweeting until dawn, diigoing up a storm, and then weeblyin it out all weekend. I need some air!"


Where I am now:

"Seriously dude, I really feel like this stuff is the future. We need to start doing this with our students."
"I know man, I thought twitter was for celebrity stalkers too, but now, I realize that my twitter account is the best PD I have ever gotten."
"#EDCHAT is amazing. In the span of 2 hours I get ideas for the classrooms, best practices, worst practices, ideas for bettering the school, links to websites, and support. In 2 hours of PD, I normally get tired, bored, and frustrated."
"What the.....? You're not on twitter? How do you expect to run for office, when your PLN doesn't even exist!?!"


Where I will probably be in the future:

"Okay estudiantes. Log onto my blog to find the conversation I posted. I want you to find the 5 mistakes in the conversation, and then create a new blog post in your own blog that lists all 5 mistakes."
"Principal Powell, I would love to give a demonstration at tomorrow's PD on how to use twitter and blogs and pixton effectively!"

I look forward to sharing the voices of more young teachers both in favor of and critical of social media in education.

Fountain of Youth: Reflections on Teaching Uses of Social Tech to Young Teachers

Spent the evening leading my weekly Social Tech in Ed class.

And they are starting to get it.

We've shifted gears from demonstrations of how to use the tech and sessions building PLNs to the hard and vital work of actually integrating SM into daily classroom teaching and learning.

And I am so impressed with how far these young teachers have come in five weeks.

Some of you will remember the "I am scared of Twitter" teacher I mentioned several weeks back. Well, now she's taking part in Tweeted ed discussions and seamlessly using Twitter to complement our f2f classroom discussions. A young teacher who slammed Second Life as useless a while back just stopped by after class to talk about ways he wants to use it to simulate museum education in his classroom. Today, the teachers took the role of students in a social tech integrated AP English classroom; and to a person, even the most self-described 'math'-minded (as well as those just shy to speak) blogged beautiful reflections on the structure and meaning of T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'.

This is the power of social tech in action. And this is why I am so committed to teaching it's application to teachers.

Because we need our teachers to understand that it's not about 'using tech', but rather is about fully engaging in the reality of the 21st century. And we need them to understand that -- if anything -- social tech is a fountain of youth when it comes to learning and ideas.

Let's encourage teachers to drink from this fountain and re-enliven their teaching and learning.

I certainly don't mind handing out the cups.

A Young Teacher Reflects on Twitter in the Classroom

Been teaching a weekly course on Social Tech in Education, as many of you know.

Well, this evening I took a look at the blog of one of my students, a young teacher in Baltimore. Please, please, please read what he wrote yesterday about students' response to Twitter in the classroom and please comment on his blog.

I think it's a very powerful read.

And I think this is a great example of what students and teachers can do together when not hindered by the ridiculousness that is so much of our educational system.

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.

A Challenge to Teachers: Mentor Young Teachers in Social Tech

There is something wrong here.

This picture (and please, if you are viewing this on a feed where the pic isn't showing up, please visit the main TeachPaperless page to see this) is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable on so many levels. But let me give some context.

This is a screen capture of a Tweet that reads: "I am scared of twitter". It was not written by a 35 year veteran fearing that social media is undermining his or her career. It was not written by an overburdened administrator fearing another lawsuit. It was not written by an overworked IT guy or gal nervous about whether the local network will be able to withstand the pounding social media has the potential to dish out.

This Tweet was written by a twenty-something new teacher in an ed school classroom.

My ed school classroom.

This is unacceptable.

What have we done? How have we allowed social media to become so seemingly monolithic that a young teacher would write this as his or her ONLY tweet?

We have to do better. This one's on us.

This is the result of scaring our kids into thinking predators were the de facto users of MySpace. This is the result of banning mobile devices in our classrooms. This is the result of teachers being threatened with termination for using social media and kids being blocked from using email at school.

This one's on us. We have to take responsibility for this. We have to turn this around.

Now, maybe I'm just overestimating this. After all, I'm sure it was just a joke, right?

Well, I would think that, and I'd appreciate the joke, if it weren't for the fact that in this first week of building our PLNs, this particular student had a total of four followers and one Tweet.

That's unacceptable.

But it's not just the student's fault for being unwilling to try out the network; it's also our fault for letting it come to this. Because the way most ed school programs are currently set up, there's no reason WHY any young teacher would think they'd be expected to have a professional working knowledge of social technology.

We've got to change that.

So here's what I'm calling on my fellow PLN members and ed school teachers to do: find three young teachers in your building, in your ed school, or through your PLN. Mentor those teachers. Teach them WHY they should build a PLN. Teach them what it means to participate as a professional. Don't worry about teaching them every little gimmick and gadget that comes down the pike; just teach them what it means to be part of a network, what it means to be connected, how to use a PLN to grow professionally as a teacher.

Furthermore, contact your local ed schools. Contact your alma mater. Tell those schools that as a teaching professional, you demand they include mandatory courses teaching and modeling the integration of social technology into classroom instruction; tell them that facility with social media should be a qualification for earning a degree.

We can't afford to let young teachers slip through ed school without a working knowledge of social technology and a foundational PLN. This begins with us. Serious or not, this is no joking matter.