ISTE 2010: Personal Learning

Checking out a session on PLNs led by a few masters: @bethstill, @mrplough07, @web20classroom, @bksmith, @rmbyrne, and @oswego98.

Similar to my feelings about the Twitter session yesterday, I really like the concept of this sort of session: it's neither about speaking to the choir nor about showing what cool stuff the speaker can do with tech, it's about teaching teachers how to actually use stuff to make connections on their own. And this session started up with a great question:

"How personal can a personal learning network be?" -- @mrplough07

Cory Plough introduced the session by discussing the fact that Twitter gave him something he didn't feel he had among his local colleagues: an ability to access solutions all the time in real time. This is really one of those things that separates where we are from where we were. And in school, it means we can spend more time on the questions "why" and "how" rather than "what" and "when".

Beth Still then described the ways that online colleagues becomes f2f friends; the PLN isn't a gimmick -- it's a real community. That community has the opportunity to meet at conferences like ISTE, but also via Skype and Google Chat and Facebook; these connections are different in "idea" and "form" from pre-socialmedia networks. It's necessary therefore to actively engage in understanding how the network works and explore avenues that make the most of the real-time aspects.

One of the first things most people come to realize is of course that the medium doesn't work so well for broadcasting; but it's beyond compare in its capacity to bring together folks of like interest together in a non-hierarchical discussion.

Many folks in the backchannel noted the amazement they have that they are learning from folks all over the world through their PLNs. That marks another shift: the ability to access knowledge and conversation where-ever it is.

Steven Anderson: "The 'Learning' part of PLN is the key". Steve also stresses the fact that this community is real. He also gets to the heart of it -- it's when your colleague asks where you got some info and you respond, "My PLN." and they say, "Your PLN-what?". It's essential therefore to bring people into the community and help them become an active part of the culture. We can't let the edu-twitterverse become exclusive; diversity of experience and opinion is key.

Because this is all part of a culture shift. It's about shifting hierarchies. It's about changing the way we think about geography and "place". It's about engaging in diversity (or it can be) in exponential ways. It's not just 'professional development' -- it's "personal learning".

Twitter Lists: EducationPLN

I'm liking the new List feature on Twitter. Really makes it easy to follow different segments of your Twitter crowd.

I invite all of our TeachPaperless subscribers to join the EducationPLN List; I think it's really going to turn out to be a great resource for prof development, networking, and teacher camaraderie.

Join and Tweet!

best,
Shelly


ps -- Do note that @TheJLV -- a teacher, Yanks fan from NYC, and member of the list -- is currently live-blogging the MLB World Series... so there are quite a few Tweets describing pop-ups and line drives.

Just don't get yr hopes up thinking our list is all major league baseball all the time ; )

An EducationPLN Twitter List for You!

I've started an EducationPLN Twitter List and I invite you to join.

Lists are the new thing on Twitter; they give members the opportunity to set up interest-specific networks and I think they are going to prove rather helpful as we move forward in demonstrating the value of social networks to our admins and policy makers.

So join in, and welcome in advance!

(Note: these lists are still in beta form, so if you have any problem adding yourself to my list, please let me know and I'll add you).

From the PLN: Teachers Speaking out on Social Media

A number of readers wrote back concerning our recent discussion of PLNs and social tech for professional development.

Reader Shaken writes:

I'm a new teacher (just into my second year) and have found the three months using a PLN of more value than my entire time at Uni. To have the knowledge, expertise, experience, ideas and thoughts of innovative educators at my fingertips is incredible. I am learning so quickly and have now found myself teaching my colleagues.

Reader Mel writes:

I'm currently trying to change my PLN behaviour.

For years I've been a lurker. I've read edublogs, been on Ning and been following my twitter feed. Now I'm attempting to be apart of the voice out there and I think what you're saying here is a big part of that but in reverse.

I've been following others but not giving of myself and is that fair either, no. I have something to contribute to help the network work better. Also, by doing so the network is making more of an impact on me.

Another reader commented on the changing nature of teaching itself in light of social media. Here's a particularly prescient selection from a well considered argument.

Reader Seth writes:

But there's another level to all of this that is worth thinking about: educating teachers to educate their students in public exposes the foibles of the students (directly) and of the teacher (at least indirectly, and sometimes directly) to public scrutiny. It's scary business. It requires some very real confidence in yourself as a person and as a teacher to be able to not know something in public -- or to correct a mistake in public.

For many teachers faced with social media, I think this is part of the very real threat that they feel: they are turning their classrooms open to (potentially judgmental) strangers -- and ceding centerstage, and ceasing to be the expert, but instead being a learner with their students.

It's big stuff, and technology is a symptom, and not the disease. In almost every case where we talk about technological issues, what we're getting at are fundamental questions of pedagogy and philosophy. The technology just exposes some of these more-buried issues.

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.