Start with a Question

Often connected educators advise their new-to-the- PLN (personal learning network) colleagues to create a separate Twitter/Instagram/Facebook account for professional purposes. While most are already connected to family and friends on social media, many are not yet using social media as a means to professional learning and growth. Dipping their toes into using social media for professional purposes is less intimidating if they get to start fresh with a brand new online identity, one that is separate from already existing personal accounts. But this is a myth. Make no mistake, a separate professional online identity might be a good place to start. It helps rookie connected educators learn the general etiquette and norms around sharing information, asking for feedback, and building a PLN. They can do all of this without feeling as though their personal life is suddenly public. The purpose of this post is not to discourage that practice. Crossing a Social Media Threshold The ...

By Dr. Henry Turner When Mark Zuckerberg started his book club in 2015 he kicked the year off with Moises Naim's The End of Power: from boardrooms to battlefields and churches and states, why being in charge isn't what it used to be . Naim's general argument is that traditional power systems--such as political, structural, corporate, cultural and even academic--are being challenged by the distribution of power towards smaller and more agile players. Where Clayton Christensen talks about disruption of society, Naim discusses the flattening of power. One area in Naim's argument that is relevant for us in education is the increase in human connection in our modern world. Naim argues that people are connecting more face to face than ever before and therefore more of them are empowered. An excellent example of the increase connection of teachers is through the development of teacher Professional Learning Networks (PLNs), where educators share and learn with ...

Educators who are already connected via social media and open education resources (OER) know how empowering it can be to have a network of peers, experts, and high quality resources available to them and their students. Some teachers want to experience the same benefit, but either aren't sure where to get started, or have been overwhelmed by social media before and are hesitant to go back. Getting Started But getting started on social media can be intimidating. Too often I have heard fellow educators say, "I joined Twitter, but I didn't really get it right away so I haven't used it." Coming Back Sometimes, educators dive right into social media for professional networking. But soon they are overwhelmed by the people and resources and aren't sure how to curate it all in a way that is helpful for their teaching and their students' learning. Some Solutions The Massachusetts PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovators came together last week for a webina...

This week I had the honor of working with my colleague, Julie Cremin , to facilitate our school's in-house summer EdTech conference. It is meant to help inspire teachers at our school to set new goals for engagement and tech integration in their classrooms. My intro to the PLN session. The thing is, although teachers know technology has the potential to change the way students learn, many do not know that it can change the way they develop as professional educators. Our teachers spend much of their time putting their students first, so Julie and I felt strongly that part of teacher EdTech training should be about the educators. After all, the students would benefit from their teachers' growth in the end, right? Near the end of our 3 day conference, the final session I facilitated was about the power of building a PLN (Professional Learning Network) through social media. First I defined PLN for the teachers who joined the conversation. The group of people a learner in...

As educators, we become accustomed to both operating as experts in solitude and collaborating with colleagues. In what is surely among the top collaborations of my career, I had the good fortune to talk and think and laugh and write with Larry Magid , CEO of ConnectSafely and established technology journalist with CBS News, Huffington Post,  San Jose Mercury News , and several others. He brought his expertise with the latest in privacy policy and the functional possibilities of the tools. I brought my experience from the classroom and how social media can connect students and teachers with the world outside their classroom like never before possible. The result is this comprehensive guide: Click to see the full text pdf of the guide. Educators can feel confident that the guide covers everything from communication with parents, to posting images and videos, to online harassment, to building a professional network. It is all in this easily-accessible document that is free. ...

If it had been possible for something to go viral in the late 1700s, Thomas Paine's Common Sense would have done that. His pamphlet was the catalyst that convinced a hesitant colonial public that rebellion for independence from the British Empire was the only answer. Of course, language that was considered engaging and persuasive in the late 1700s is not necessarily the same language that 21st century teens find engaging. Without doing traditional document analysis, how can students see how important this document is? As is often the case, I found inspiration from my PLN on Twitter. Greg Kuloweic and Lauren Putman were tweeting about blackout poetry, partly inspired by poet Austin Kleon .  Lauren challenged her middle school students to blackout the Battle of Salamis , with impressive results. Greg blogged about it and explained how to leverage iPads to complete and publish the project. He also took the project a step further and suggested a way for student...

Infographics are a visually stunning way to deliver facts and statistics to readers.  They have become incredibly popular recently on Pinterest, Twitter, and lots of other social media tools because users are looking for a quick way to get reliable information.  Great infographics answer questions that people are interested in answering. They also require lots of research, reading, and analysis to create. Sounds like a perfect activity for my students. Lesson Preparation Essential Question First, I needed to create an essential question.  Answering this question would be the goal of their infographic.  As an introduction to our Civil War unit, our essential question was: How did the differences between the North and South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War? Numbers to Crunch Next, I needed to provide the information and data my students needed to answer the question.  I found a few sources for statistics: slavery statistics I...

My students and I have tried a lot of different discussion formats in my class: Socratic Seminar, informal Q & A, bean bag toss, and everything else I could think of over the years. Some were too formal and students were almost too nervous to participate. Others were in groups that were too large and not everyone was heard as much as they would have liked.  Sometimes the success depended on the time of day: morning classes were super quiet while afternoon classes were hard to control.  In all cases, discussion was framed around teacher goals and not around student inquiry. We recently tried the EdCafe model.  EdCafe solves all of these problems. Here's how to get started: Learn About Being an EdCafe Facilitator The ultimate authority on EdCafe is  Katrina Kennett , she is the creator of the  What is an EdCafe?  website.  Within the website there is a guide for teachers and a guide for students.  There area also contributions from other...

My little family is fortunate this week because we are all still working.  Even though the 94% "non-essential" federal workers are furloughed, everyone we know personally who works for the federal government is considered "essential" and is still working and earning a paycheck.  That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not feeling the far-reaching effects of this giant Congressional tantrum. Day 1 of Shutdown First, on Monday, October 1 I tried to get onto the Library of Congress website to do some research for an upcoming lesson.  When I was faced with a government shutdown message, I tweeted out my frustrations. The #shutdown prevents me from researching historical information for the high school students I teach. #ebtl2 pic.twitter.com/7Q01uVNZAm — Kerry Gallagher (@KerryHawk02) October 1, 2013 To my delight, I got a few retweets from sympathizing teachers and a new follower.  Darin Johnston ( @AnIowaTeacher ) certainly isn't anyone I've...