Connected Educator Month

Gary Henderson — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 19:01:14 +0000

It was 2012 when I first created my twitter account however at the time I wasn’t sure why I had created an account or how I might use the account. Some months later it was a colleague who planted the idea of using twitter for professional development. This resulted in my logging back in to my, at that stage, dormant account and beginning to search for people discussing education and edtech in particular. It wasn’t long before I was hooked on the access to a multitude of new ideas, opinions and resources. Twitter proved to be a quick an easy way for me to dip in and out of professional development as and when I had the time and felt like it. I found myself stealing 5 or 10, or if very lucky 30, minutes of time during which I could quickly scan through twitter on my phone for interesting posts regarding educational research, edtech apps and software and other educational resources.

I quickly found that I was finding more articles than I had time to read in the limited time I had managed to put aside to access twitter. At this point I came across a number of twitter posts and through them blogs discussing how Evernote could be used. So I started filing the tweets and blogs I found in the few minutes I managed to steal using Evernote so that I could then access them at a later stage when I had more time.

I have grown to be an avid fan of twitter and its potential to help teachers grow as professionals. Personally twitter has allowed me to communicate with people I wouldn’t normally have been able to communicate with. It has allowed me to access new creative ideas, which in turn has helped and encouraged me to be creative in my work. Twitter has led me to work with others in sharing ideas, in discussing topics and in solving problems; I have worked collaboratively. It has also allowed me to see and discuss other viewpoints and ideas, often requiring a critical response. Basically twitter has helped and encouraged me to use the 21^st century skills we often talk about in terms of students.

Twitter has supported me to develop my 21^st century skills and in doing so model for students the traits we wish them to develop. It has also allowed me to access resources and ideas.

Tomorrow begins Connected Educator Month 2015 so I hope you will join me in sharing and in developing the teaching profession as a whole. I also hope you will share and promote Connected Educator Month with those colleagues who have yet to experience the potential of twitter so that we can increase the number of educators sharing and collaborating to ensure our students receive the best learning opportunities possible.

I look forward to connecting!

Connected Educator – Technology and Learning

Connected Educator Month