PLN's on Twitter...Something to Tweet About!

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So, I am not a really big Twitter person.  I have had an account for years and never really utilized it for anything but the occasional view of the few feeds that I began following the day I set it up, but then I took Integrating Technology in Curriculum and then I was really forced to take a second look at it.  I am glad I did.

What is the big deal?

I would like to have a large digital presence.  I believe that it is important being a school library to model digital behavior and collaboration for my students.  To show them the power of the digital age and encourage them to partake in all the opportunity that it affords; however, it is REALLY time consuming.  I suppose that you could just monitor twitter and read what you want and ignore the greater community, but I am a firm believer that you get out of things like this what you put into them.  That being said, if you are going to take from twitter, you are probably not going to get the most out of it.  Which brings me to PLN’s. 

PLN's through Twitter

PLN’s are definitely the most interesting part of twitter.  While you can find PLN’s just about anywhere, from the group that you completed your coursework with in grad school to the teachers that sit together during their lunch, twitter has the capability to connect professionals in the same field from all over the country within the parameters of their interests and that is pretty great!  When exploring options for chatting, I found #iolchat and got the chance to share ideas with them on distance learning and technology.  They were wonderfully friendly, asked me point blank my opinions on the topic of trends with students using tech and their approaches and we had a nice hour-long conversation.  They knew each other pretty well and it was obvious that they have gone to each other when they had questions or issues or needed professional support. At first it can be intimidating jumping in there and joining in, and the conversations can go pretty fast, but after a few minutes you really do get the hang of it.  By the end of the hour we were surprised, just like colleagues may be when their lunch hour is up after an engaging conversation, that it was time to say goodbye till next week.  Fun.

There is still the content!

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All of this is not to downplay the benefits of the content that gets placed on twitter and the retweets that are shared by those following.  One of the larger groups I am following, Edutopia, is really informative.  I am sure that most educators on twitter are following this website/twitter account and I have found some value in just about everything that they put out there.  This article (Comprehensive List of Digital Resources: http://edut.to/TdN4aQ .), was particularly great.  When they say comprehensive, they are not kidding.  There were tons of links on this broken down by category and some I had heard of, but many I had not.  Pretty valuable if you are just learning technology and how to integrate it into curriculum.  

By the way....you can follow me at @DawnMScuderi

Stages of Technology Integration

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Entry:  The Denial Stage…If I don’t acknowledge it, it is not happening. 

Adoption:  The Ok Stage…I will book my airline tickets, but that’s IT. 

Adaption:  The "My friend showed me this really cool presentation software.  I’ll give it a shot" Stage...  If I can’t get this to work, I can always go back to the overhead!

 

 

 

 

Ahhh....Those were the days!

It was back in 1982 when I remember seeing the neighbor’s Apple PC for the first time.   They were the first people I knew to have a computer in their house.  I remember thinking, “what are they going to do with that?”  I knew, from the school librarian, that you could play some games on them and that you could do word processing.  (In order to do anything, even run a game on a floppy, you had to be able to type some DOS.  If you messed anything up, it was a mess to fix!)  Computers back then were not nearly as intuitive as they are now and I think that stays with some people who did not grow up “digital natives”. 

The 21st Century

Thankfully, I believe that we are getting farther and farther away from the worries that came with those first PC’s and everyone (even my 79 year old mom) is getting more comfortable with technology.  It is really true that this is mostly due to technology getting more comfortable for us.  All you have to do is spend 5 minutes on an iPad and you have probably figured out how to play a game or look at pictures or find The Weather Channel.  Of course, there are some people, (like my dad who still has to call me when he presses the wrong button on the cable remote) for which, technology will remain a mystery, but those people are becoming few and far between.  

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Paving the Way

In my role as a school librarian, I expect to meet some resistance with regards to my colleagues when it comes to technology.  It only makes sense.  Just because I think something is terrific and will make the math teachers job easier doesn’t eliminate that learning curve for them.  I have heard many of my peers and professors say that when it comes to advocating for technology with teachers, less is more and that you have to just keep at it till you get some collaboration.  Many times, they say, you find a new teacher who is on board with you and then others may follow.  I am looking forward to that first tech collaboration and being able to help out a colleague.

Be Brave

For a lot of people who want to embrace technology, like myself, I think the best thing is to just “be brave”.  Don’t worry about messing things up.  Sometimes it is best to just jump in there and play around with whatever you are interested in doing.  Long gone are the days of DOS and worrying that if you type the wrong command you will never get your computer back.  You really can’t “break” modern technology, so just sticking with it can get you where you want to go and can actually be fun if you are in the right mindset.  I think this is where I am.  I might add a stage after adaption, like, experimentation:  the stage where you actually are figuring it all out on your own and having some fun with it!