Week 29 - Social online networks for professional development
Personal Learning networks are a great way to engage with peers and add another aspect to your professional development.
Descriptive
If I'm honest, I don't really use social media for professional development in my teaching practice and I 'm not a big user of social media in general. Although I have subscribed to the primary teachers Facebook page, I tend to 'lurk' and cherry pick the threads that I find interesting and occasionally comment if I have something of value to add. However, the biggest benefit I find is when people share links to resources or other websites as this cuts down on time (as I don't have to reinvent the wheel) or sparks an idea that that is worthy of further investigation. Although I feel I could use social media and personal learning networks to a greater degree, I find my professional time to engage in this practice is limited.Comparative
Teachers by the very nature of the job are isolated and as Whitaker, Zoul & Casas, (2015) have described teaching is a lonely profession that lacks any significant adult interaction. Even from a simplistic view, the ability to share, connect and collaborate using social online networks brings about an aspect of interaction. Whitaker, Zoul & Casas, (2015) also eluded to the immediacy of social media and getting feedback in a timely manner and this aspect has only lightly been touched on. The fact that social media connects you to a wide audience that often expands internationally, means that often someone, somewhere, can potentially provide an answer or support you within minutes. Without social media, this would not be possible and can be a life saver for an isolated profession where teachers are stuck in classrooms for a vast proportion of the day (Whitaker, Zoul & Casas, 2015) without contact with other adults or professionals to bounce ideas off.Furthermore, teachers all have different interests, as a result, the staff within our school are sharing what they have discovered through their online personal learning networks (PLN's). For me, this has the advantage of sparking new ideas and providing me with new threads to follow which further grows my own PLN's that fit within the context of our school. With the wealth of information that abounds us, it is often the discoveries of my fellow peers that allows me to go on a new journey of discovery or expand my horizons.
Could not agree more, teaching can be a lonely place. Social Media is a good platform to interact with other adults and your peers. I have 2 Facebook pages. I keep my family and friends on one page and friends and colleagues on the other. Link sharing can be very beneficial, I know I have used some of the links in my teaching.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree that sharing links of interest which result in not having to re-invent the wheel are an excellent use of social media! None of us have heaps of spare time to trawl the web finding stuff and having pages we know that regularly share relevant tid-bits is just gold.
ReplyDeleteOut of interest.. have you ever wanted to consider the use social media with your class? either through blogging or google hangouts etc etc? I'm wondering why social media is not accessible during the day when you are at school??
I forgot to add - that this is why I ask... in one of the recent readings for mindlab... Magette, K. (2014) says
Delete"Embedding social media in the classroom helps equip students, beginning even before middle school, with the skills and judgment to help them become effective communicators in the spaces where it can count most. And now with well-designed policy, procedures, and professional development in place, you’ve opened the doors wide to enormous opportunities for teaching and learning citizenship skills—and so much more—in the digital world." and that's why I was asking about your schools rule of no social media :)
Magette, K. (2014). Embracing social media : a practical guide to manage risk and leverage opportunity. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Social media has become second nature to today's learners, so why not use it in the classroom?
ReplyDeleteToday's younger generation is hooked on social media. If given the choice between Tweeting or textbooks, I think we all know which would be the option the children would prefer.
In terms of sharing resources, It is pointless to reinvent The Wheel when there is so much online. The only difference for our kura we are restricted with the language, we also need to translate resources but it is still a great help.