Teaching tends to be a rather solitary profession. Which is strange, because we are surrounded by people all the time. Who we are not surrounded by all the time, though, are other teachers. We get, maybe, 30 minutes a day at lunch to meet with colleagues and possibly some collaboration time here and there. When you stop and think about it, most professions spend all day working with a large group on the same project or at least on the same type of project. Teachers often have only one or two colleagues in the building who are working on the same thing with their students at the same time. In order to stay on the forefront of the current pace of growth in education, teachers should regularly spend time seeking out new concepts and ideas relevant to their classroom. The pace our world is changing is remarkable, and education is not immune. In the past it has been enough to take a college course every few years and read a new professional book every year or so. We cannot expect that to be enough any longer. Just as a business cannot expect to be successful without engaging with its customers on social media, we cannot expect to stay on the forefront of our profession without becoming connected educators. I fear that last statement is alarming and presumptuous to some. Lofty ideas are thrown around for what a connected educator actually is. I believe many assume that you must post pictures of your students working regularly and that it has to be something flashy or new to have any value. Others believe that you have to participate in Twitter chats weekly. Still others believe they will seem braggadocious by posting all of the good things happening in their classrooms. These are not true, but I understand how teachers could think any one of them. This summer I asked Paul Erickson, Samantha Neill, and Jason Kohls, an exceptional elementary principal and two exceptional high school ELA teachers, if they would speak to Buhler's new teachers about Twitter and how we use it to share our story. We were discussing many of the same assumptions that I listed above about connected educators and how we could address them in order to remove inhibitions and help colleagues find the same value in connectivity that we have. Paul mentioned that he wished there was a SAMR model for connected educators and I could not get the idea out of my head. Frameworks like Bloom's Taxonomy, Maslow's Hierarchy, Depth of Knowledge, and the SAMR model help us define concepts so well. Here is what I came up with for connected educators. The ICT ContinuumInstead of using the word model I chose the word continuum. Continuum is defined as: a coherent whole characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by minute degrees The ICT Continuum as a whole describes connected educators. If you would place yourself on it anywhere, then you are a connected educator. Each step down the continuum varies slightly from the one before, identifying different elements that connected educators use to learn, collaborate, and share with the world of education. Notice that no specific tool is listed, so you do not HAVE to have a Twitter or Instagram account to be a connected educator, but you will be limited to a couple of steps if you do not. Also, it should be noted that you may flow from one step to another day to day. On the weekends I am often an incidental connected educator, and am a contributor a few times a week. Below I will describe each step down the continuum and list some tools that can help you with each. I would venture a guess that 75% (a total guess but I think a good one) of teachers are incidental connected educators. Essentially, incidental connectivity means that you are on various social media, like Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook, but you are there for your social life or other interest areas like sports or popular culture. When something comes across your feed, you read it and engage with it. You learn from it and, if it strikes a chord, you will share it with others either on social media or in real life. Funnily enough, this step does require you to have a social media account where education content can find its way to you. So the tools to use are all social media. Intentional connected educators choose to use social media and the internet to grow and develop regularly. They have developed a list of educators who post valuable blogs, ideas, and resources and want to continue learning from them. Besides simply following these teachers on social media, these connected educators may have a list of blogs or websites they go to regularly to learn and grow. These teachers may also simply be intentional about using Google to find ideas and resources. This step does not require a social media account, although it helps, as anyone is free to search hashtags on Twitter like #growthmindset, and Google is obviously free to use without an account. Curators have realized the power of connectivity in their professional growth and curate the content that matters to them. These educators use bookmarking tools like Pocket, Diigo, or Pinterest to save intriguing or impactful articles, blogs, or resources for later. They curate their social media, if they have one, by controlling their feed for the attitudes and ideas they care about. Using RSS readers like Feedly, they have found the blogs that help them grow the most and have that content brought to them automatically. You can curate content without social media simply by using an RSS reader and bookmarking tool. I use Feedly and Pocket and highly recommend both. Contributors are educators who are not just engaging in the content they have come across by hitting the "like" button, they share as well. A simple retweet or click of the share button is a contribution to the education world by continuing the spread of ideas that are worthwhile. Some contributors take it a step further and offer their own comment when sharing to further the idea or add a point of debate. Others share student work exemplars, pictures of their class on a field trip or engaged in a project, or even blog to contribute their viewpoint. A contributor helps to tell the story of education that so often is misrepresented or misinterpreted, something my district's leadership is passionate about. This step obviously does require an account on social media. If you are a tribe member, you will just know. One definition of the word tribe says, "a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest." Tribe members often meet on social media regularly, such as during weekly Twitter chats, and usually are passionate about a similar facet of education. For example, I participate in #edtechafterdark chat often and would consider the educators that meet there to be a group I trust with the similar interest of integrating technology into our schools. Another group I meet with that I consider my tribe is #leadupchat. This group consists of educators passionate about leadership, growth, culture, and shifts. Other tribes I see often are grade and content specific tribes like #3rdchat and #ELAchat, or fans of a particular book, for example #tlap is popular for lovers of the book Teach Like a Pirate. There is a tribe out there for every educator and you will feel so at home when you find yours. A pleaConnected educators, especially tribe members tend to be incredibly passionate about what Twitter and social media have done for their professional growth, and rightfully so. My plea for all of us is that we would stop saying things like, "Oh my gosh, you're not on Twitter?! You HAVE to be on Twitter! The most amazing teachers are on there!" Imagine how that might feel if they are not one of the amazing teachers just referenced. Instead, we must make a concerted effort to create the narrative that being a connected educator is about consistent, relevant, and valuable professional growth. We have all been given the gift of endless learning, resources, and collaboration and cannot continue to make it feel like a club to outsiders.
Now, contributors and tribe members, share this with your followers and tribes so that we can have a common language when we share about our experiences as connected educators. *Click here to download a pdf copy of the ICT Continuum. Let me know how you are using it with your fellow educators and any feedback you have for it.
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The iPad has always been a fantastic content creation device. Mostly thanks to developers love for the App Store. When Apple released iOS 11 it finally became an efficient platform. Lots of additions come together to make iPad a much more pleasant platform to work on. Drag and Drop The most significant improvement is probably drag and drop. You can literally drag and drop text, photos, urls, files, etc.. to any app that supports it. Developers have jumped on this ability so most quality apps already do. With this change I have been turned onto a new category of app called a “shelf” app. Shelf apps like Gladys allow you to drop content to be held until later to drag them into a new app. Watch the video below to see how this works to drop pictures onto Gladys and then drag them back out and into Pages. Floating Dock A feature you probably noticed in the previous video is the floating dock. The dock can now be brought up with a small flick from the bottom of the screen. You may also notice that it can hold over twice as many apps, including the three most recently opened on the far right. The video below shows dragging a link, pulling up the dock and dropping that link through and into the notes app. Screenshot Markup An improvement that I didn’t realize was needed was the workflow to markup and send screenshots. In iOS 11 when a screenshot is taken it will float to the bottom left of your screen. A swipe left will dismiss it, while a tap on it will open the markup screen. From here, mark up your photo and hit the “sharrow,” a name I heard for the share sheet that I can’t get out of my head, and send it to whichever app you need to. Tapping on done gives the option to either delete the screenshot after having sent it, or save it to your photos. The video below shows this workflow. Built-in QR Reader This next one is big time for teachers. Raise your hand if you have become so frustrated with QR code readers and their confusing user interfaces that you’ve given up on your students using them. (Raises hand) Good news! There is now a QR reader built into the camera app. Simply open the camera, point it at a QR code, and a notification pops down. Tap the notification to open whatever content is contained in the QR code. Watch below for the magic. Screen Recording Finally, the feature I have been waiting for the longest. In my job, I NEED the ability to make tutorial videos quickly and easily. That has always been cumbersome on iOS. I have used workarounds like Air Server in the past but those videos saved to the computer rather than the iPad or iPhone. FINALLY, screen recording is built into iOS. This option must be enabled from your control center customization settings in the settings app, but once it is all it takes is a long swipe up to see the control center, and a tap on the record button. Watch below! Those are just a few of the features that have turned iOS into a powerhouse productivity machine. It takes some getting used to to master the new gestures, but once you have them down your iPad will feel like a whole new device.
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AuthorKyle McClure is an Integration Specialist in Buhler, KS. He specializes in iPads and GSuite for education. Archives
November 2018
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