Tag: twitter

1000th Tweet

It wasn’t so long ago when the thought of me using Twitter on a regular basis was something I wouldn’t have considered as likely.   At that point I considered Twitter as just another social media application, like Facebook, designed to allow people to post about what they had eaten last night (and I have a friend who does just that, insisting on photographing and posting any meal she has when at a restaurant, etc, prior to starting to eat), or for celebrities to show off, or in a number of cases embarrass themselves for the worlds media.

Then a colleague introduced me to the use of Twitter as a tool for professional learning and sharing teaching or other ideas around education with practitioners from around the world.    That was around 6 month ago and I haven’t looked back since then.   I have found myself regularly, and at stages daily, visiting twitter looking to see what ideas and discussions were out there.    That said, most of my contributions to Twitter thus far have been in the form of retweets of tweets which I have considered useful, interesting, insightful or worth sharing.

So this blog entry marks my 1000th tweet.   Not much when compared with veterans of twitter however for me it marks almost 1000 ideas, discussions or thoughts which, without twitter, I may not have had access to.

Thank you to all who have I have followed for the ideas you have provided and I look forward to further interactions with you.    I intend to do as my colleague did for me, and encourage others to engage in using twitter for professional learning purposes.    I also intend to contribute more of my own thoughts rather than just retweeting.    If you are reading this, do you know of educators not using twitter and if so have you introduced them to the possibilities?    How many professional development programmes can boast that they can provide as many, or as broad a range of, ideas as twitter can?

Keep tweeting, as I certainly will.

Twitter CAN replace professional development

I was sat this morning looking through twitter when I came across a comment and blog discussing how Twitter could not replace Professional development (http://readingbyexample.com/2013/09/25/twitter-for-pd-yes-twitter-to-replace-pd-not-so-much/).   As such I thought I would add my views to the discussion, deciding that 160 characters would be insufficient to clearly articulate my thoughts, hence my views are expressed here.

Professional Development

I think a key issue in the discussion of professional development and where twitter may or may not be involved, is what people perceive as professional development.   Matt’s post suggested the importance of collective instructional capacities and of what I will call traditional professional development in their development within a group.   This traditional professional development was deemed as not possible via Twitter.    Now I can see the point here in that a professional development programme may allow a group of staff within a school to receive the same information plus to discuss and agree on actions to be taken, however its usefulness relies on professional development being driven by the professionals themselves; the teachers.   In my experience a lot of professional development is driven by government, educational authorities or school leaders who believe they know what teachers need.   As such it can be inappropriate in terms of meeting teacher’s needs, too generic in terms of policy or just a total waste of time.

I also have an issue with the title of professional development.   The idea of development suggests that teachers are in some way underdeveloped or lacking in an area which requires development.    I much prefer the concept of professional learning, in that, as professionals we are always learning and trying to build on and improve our classroom practices.

But what about Twitter?

Twitter provides teacher access to a wealth of ideas and resources from teachers across the world.   It allows teachers to develop professional learning networks which are wide and varied, much beyond what is normally accomplished within professional development sessions.   Yes, this may mean individual teachers pick up different ideas and techniques however individual teachers are individual after all.   Each teacher has their own strengths and weaknesses in terms of their teaching as well as their own preferences and style.   A perfect example of this was a recent blog article which was critical of the use of De Bono’s thinking hats (http://www.learningspy.co.uk/myths/six-silly-hats-ok-mock-stuff-think-daft/.   The blog met with a number of comments from defenders of De Bono, who stated how they found De Bono useful while others argued that De Bono’s ideas were of no or little value.   This perfectly illustrates how teachers are individuals with their own perceptions of what works.   These perceptions are borne out of what works for them, as opposed to “what works” in impossibly general terms.

That being said, teachers as part of the learning community which is a school, and also as part of the learning community that is their department, subject or faculty, have a responsibility to bring new ideas, techniques and thoughts to their colleagues for discussion.    These discussions lead to the collective adoption of ideas and techniques, or not as the case may be.    It is these opportunities for sharing and discussion that allows twitter to potentially take the place of traditional professional development.

Like anything, twitter relies on its appropriate use.   Where used appropriately it can have a positive impact on helping teachers improve their practice through access to wide and varied professional learning networks.     Traditionally viewed professional development, also where used appropriately, can have a positive impact although it very seldom provides access to same variety of opinions and ideas as presented via twitter.

As such twitter could replace professional development however I say this with one contingency;   that opportunities are provided within schools for ideas gleaned through twitter to be shared, discussed and agreed upon.      Now I hear some of you saying that such opportunities are surely “professional development” opportunities however my perception of professional development sessions involves the delivery of specific topic area, concept or technique.    The opportunities I refer to would have more in common with TeachMeets where the topic and discussion is more open and creative in nature, however that may be for a later discussion.

Continual professional development

Once upon a time……

CPD or PD was all about either inviting an educational expert into your school or about sending your staff to an event, a PD session, at which an educational expert would present.   Your teachers would then, hopefully at the conclusion of the session, have new ideas, concepts or approaches which they had added to their teachers toolbox.

Since then improved teacher training, professional standards, etc. have helped to improve the general quality of teaching however this is based on an education system which itself has changed.   By the time improvements were made, the needs which these improvements were meant to address, had changed.     In addition the students we teach have changed, as has the world in which we teach, the technology we use to teach and the pace of change is not slowing.  If anything it is quickening.

So the old style CPD session no longer delivers what is needed.   The experts cannot keep ahead of changes.   Too many CPD sessions involve teachers hunting for the single idea of note, which would save the session from falling into the category of being a waste of time.  So where do we look to for the solution?

Could it be that teachers can no longer wait for the solutions, the professional development to come to them.   Could it be that, now as things are changing so fast, that they need to go looking for their own solutions.   But where do you look?

An article sent to me by a colleague suggested that one possible answer was twitter (http://www.teachprimary.com/learning_resources/view/use-twitter-to-improve-your-teaching).   It provides access to people all over the world providing ideas and thoughts which can be quickly accessed and reviewed.   It provides 24/7 access to CPD opportunities.    In a tweet I recently read an educator agreed with the above stating he had learned  more from teach meets and twitter than he had ever learned  in traditional professional development sessions.        I suspect we could add Google to this, as well as Facebook.

So why is this the case?    I liken it to the concept of cloud funding; using the cloud, the Internet, to allow people to fund a idea or project.  Using the cloud to deliver CPD gives us access to a wider volume of people with more varied experience and differing perceptions and conceptual models.    The only issue is that the delivery model differs.   It is not the passive approach of listening to a so called expert or doing activities in a training session.   It is a personal activity.   You decide on what and when.   You explore the information available, disregarding that which you feel should be disregarded while exploring that which you feel is of value.   It is interactive, inviting others to contribute, discuss and share.   It is social as it involves groups of people albeit not sat in a room together.   It is dynamic as the content, information and ideas available are always been supplemented, complemented, contrasted, evaluated and revised.   At no point does it stop.  But it relies on you to be motivated to get involved rather than waiting for the next PD session to come along, hoping that something good will be included.

So why have PD sessions?  Maybe we should focus more on asking teachers: How are you developing yourself as a professional?