Twitter and the Creation of Continuous Professional Development.

Teachers, Administrators, Teaching Assistants, Aides, and Staff all the pieces in which creates a school. We serve the students, parents, and our fellow colleagues and this is our profession. Sometimes educators tend to stray away from professional development. The reasons range from boredom, cost, relevance, and points in between. The truth of the matter is that our profession is also a lifestyle because it reaches beyond the brick that makes our buildings and reaches our students at home in their hearts and heads. We to must reach beyond the walls and continually strive to gain knowledge, strategies and yes learn from others mistakes. An informed teacher is a prepared teacher. You have fewer curveballs, and can remain relevant to your students and faculty. I have found the best way to continually develop as a teacher is to READ, just like we beg our students to do. Twitter and Educational Blogs offer insight, focus, and direction to educators looking to follow a continuous development. This method of development is cost effective, relevant, and paced by the individual. Due to the individual nature this must be a culture change and intrinsically motivated for the teacher to always be on the look out for new  information and articles. Teachers should be allowed to discuss articles and share teaching methods, this can be achieved online, through email, blogs, or google docs and also through face to face meetings and collaborations. 

          

Some Twitter Key Points and Strategies: Tom Whitby offers many more strategies on his blog My Island View

• Remember not everyone knows everything. You need to experiment, play around, and see what aspects of the program work best for you.
• Focus on your interests- Keep personal and professional interests separate this way your not missing information due to and overload of posts and also so that fellow educators take you seriously.
• Check out profiles and who people are following- this way you can expand you professional database and ensure you are learning. 
• #any word is known as a Hashtags eg. #edchat- these are places to post comments to questions and ask you own as well.
• Teacher Tuesdays- every tuesday twitter promotes teachers to talk and discuss current topics and trends in education. It is a great day of the week to start on twitter.
• Retweeting is when a person who you are following reposts a comment by someone else. If you are not following the retweet and you like what they have to say go ahead and follow them. Again, another great way to expand you educational database. 

Professional Development Responsibilities

• Reform is needed in a very real way both in effectiveness and bugetary reasons.
• Techers are just like students... we learn in many different ways and we are given choices and asked to work accordingly we can come up with some really good stuff.
• With the emergence of podcasts, slide share, virtural classroom platforms and yes TWITTER and other social networking sites teachers should have several options that are cost effective and collaborative.
• Administrators need to lead this effort and practice what they preach.

It is being used and results are positive...

Many Universities are turning to Twitter and other Social media sites to engage, inform, and interact with students at convient and effective ways.

• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Marquette
• Butler
• Syracuse
• Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare top the list as the most popular.

"Through social media, these four universities have joined the conversation, created a team, showed their personality, served their customers and called their audiences to action. As a result, they've built a loyal, engaged audience. They've shown students that they'll respond to their questions and concerns. And they've mobilized their community" (Roscoria, 2011)

The Digital-Admin- Teacher- Profesional- Learner 

"It’s about transforming yourself into a professional who can effectively research technology trends, monitor the uses of technology in your school or district, avoid the fear factor that can easily paralyze you, and empower student- centered learning to create vibrant, exciting learning projects."(Larson, Miller, & Ribble, 2010)

Some Educators Leading Teacher Development

Follow Me!!!

• @tomwhitby
• @nmhs_principal
• @CiscoEDU
• @ VirturalLrnAcad
• @baldy7
• @CoachB0066
• @courosa
• @ncara
• @auggie0513

Be Safe, Be Smart, Be Professional

Facebook and other social media sites are opening new exciting methods of teaching and providing genuine learning experiences. But please Please PLEASE Be Safe, Be Smart, Be Professional. New research "warns teachers not to "friend" pupils on Facebook amid concerns over the blurring of boundaries between school staff's professional and private lives." Facebook has become the most common social media platform however, with it comes several private features that can raise problems with communication between students and teachers on an inappropriate level again blurring the lines. Facebook was never intended to be used in the educational setting and never anticipated the technological age we are evolving in. I would say that if a teacher wants to use a social media platform, research them and try to use one specifically intended for education. One such site I am aware of is Edmodo but again look at a lot of sites, mess around with them, pilot them with a small group, and choose the best one for you and your students. As the teacher you want the passing of information to be as topical as possible and the security settings to be strict and tight. This is a large step in the creation of cyber students, policies must be in place and followed, and students must be disciplined and held accountable for actions online. Cyber-bullying will occur we must be ready and be able to take action against this. As the article points out avoid site like Formspring at all cost. Formspring allows people to post questions and receive comments as answers. This is not a bad idea as a teaching tool however, it is anonymous and that allows students the ability to bully free of retribution. 


In conclusion, we must be open to new technology, we must reach high and pull our students along, but we must remain guarded against common pitfalls, learn from others mistakes, and create cyber-students that are safe and respectful. So please don't be scared just Be Safe, Be Smart, and Be Professional.