Social Media in teaching and professional development

The use ofd social media has been an uplifting and supportive network for me professionally for over a year. I have experienced a range of discussions through this forum that always leaves me energised and inspired to challenge my own practices and thinking. Based on these experiences, social media has become embedded into my practices as a key tool for my ongoing professional development. My intention for this blog is to elaborate on how social helps me to become the best teacher I can be. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), teachers are required to practice and evidence a set of teaching criteria over a set period of time. These criteria are called practicing teacher criteria or PTC’s.

In my opinion social media supports teachers in meeting our PTC’s through many varying ways. For the sake of brevity I will only focus on two.

The attributes I see as being linked to social media are Connectivity and Collaboration. I have used a Facebook page for sharing professional readings between TKAS staff over the last year. The purpose of this page was for staff to have a forum for reading, sharing and storing researched articles relating to education, to connect with each other online in a professional capacity and to generate a pool of resources that could be used for learning in our MYSY community. The most rewarding moments occurred while team teaching when we were able to refer back to these readings and potential applications within our day to day practices. What I have learnt is that through sharing our professional readings we as a team keep focused on a shared vision.

• PTC# 1. Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga 
•  PTC#4. Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice 

 Over the last 12 months Twitter has become a key tool for my own professional development. What I have experienced through Twitter (#edchatnz in particular,) is continued exposure to a wide range of current practices and professional opinions. These aspects have helped me to keep track of relevant discussions regarding current practices and professional readings. The discussions that occurred here were less directly related towards specific day to day practices (which facebook was helping with,) but instead more towards modern pedagogical concepts and general applications. In a way I feel that Twitter is providing me with a sounding board for my own growth that I would otherwise not have. 

• PTC# 1. Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga 
•  PTC# 5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning 
• PTC#12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice 

What has become apparent is while I’ve have used both these forms of social media in similar ways there are some key differences in the audience. Through Twitter I was able to connect with colleagues that were from a wider audience. While on Facebook the connection was mainly focused on staff/colleagues. In both instances I feel that critical thinking of my own practices and researched informed practices have increased because of the connections and collaboration achieved through social media.

Raising Teacher Collaboration both within and beyond our school walls.

Along with its well researched benefits for students collaboration is promoted as a key tool for effective Professional Development in NZ education. There are increasingly new ways to develop effective professional collaboration. Two methods that have grown in popularity over the last 24 months are in my opinion are #edchatnz and Educamps. Firstly for over a year I have been participating in professional discussions through #edchatnz on twitter. My perspective on this is that professional teams need at least one person to be connecting with professional forums from beyond their own learning community to keep updating and refining their practices and ideas. What I have experienced through #edchatnz is precisely that, continued exposure to a wide range of current practices and opinions. These aspects have helped me to keep track of relevant discussions regarding current practices and professional readings. Secondly I’ve attended 2 educamps. My first was #educampalmy in which i attended in person and the second #educampwelly, I watched through streaming. In both instances I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I experienced in #educampalmy was passionate discussions about modern practices, connections made through social media being re-inforced through kanohi kei te kanohi, sharing of ideas and co-constructions of new strategies. Educamp Welly was a more limited version yet still worth the time joining in through stream. While streaming is not really comparable to being at an educamp in person, streaming allowed me to contimue connecting with like minded teachers and leaders in real time from a distance. Upon reflection I feel these methods for promoting collaboration have been remarkably effective in developing a sense of professional camardery and ongoing inspiration. However I see this practice as potentially resulting in a satisfying sense of collaboration with colleagues from afar, which has clear benefits, but this distance can limit the opportunities for growth that can be gained through collaboration. What can I do better to raise the effectiveness of the collaboration currently used within our immediate learning community? What I would like to do is focus upon one teacher in our learning community and encourage them to join me on any of the social media based forums I plan on using this year. Recently I read a blog by Rose Maceachern about critical friendships (this blog was recommended to me by an #edchatnz tweeter). I see this professional practice as a real opportunity to develop in a more personal and professional way. Developing a partnership based on common goals and values is exciting and scary. As stated in the blog, the ultimate aim is to develop these critical friendships both within and beyond the school we are working in. I see this as a relevant goal for our own learning community. Promoting practices that are based on mutual respect,trust, critical thinking and partnership is a powerful and growth enhancing practice that will ensure that we develop effective collaboration both within and beyond our learning community.

One word for 2016

Connections: I am more than what you see...I am who I help and who I ask help from, I am what I create and what I destroy, I am who I love..

This year I am challenging myself to move out of my comfort zone again. I am focusing on making connections throughout both my professional and personal life aiming for that seemingly illusive state of lifestyle balance. The links with food is my commitment towards my foodie passion. I feel that my passion for food is only expressed when we have special occasions and for me that's not enough. I feel like thats not allowing me enough opportunities to master the skills. I'm committing myself to developing skills in charcuterie, pickling & preserving. I am passionate and somewhat skilled in cooking on an open fire. This is very likely to be included into learning programs at some stage this year. I'm calling this Kaiology. The study of Kai (Māori for food). The ecology/sustainability references relate to my passion for nature and the layers of connections that establish complex and yet balanced/harmonious systems. So much disharmony has caused a disregard to this balance. How does this relate to teaching? For me its about Ako. Ako (reciprocity) is about recognising the valuable learning opportunities that exist when we interact with others. The truth is the learners make me the teacher I am and my learning practices make those around me my teachers (whether they are aware of this or not) E-learning represents the new opportunities that have developed in this amazing age we live in. I am passionate about education and the potential we can achieve through the effective utilisation of technology to enhance our local and global connections. This is something that excites me and drives me to explore new ideas and critically reflect on common conventions. Finally and perhaps most importantly I am challenging myself to make new connections with my learners whanau (family) beyond what I have achieved so far. This is scary and exciting.. I need to not listen to my self doubts and lack of confidence and make the move..Thankfully we have a focused and likeminded team of teachers who feel the same as me. In his research paper Macfarlane, (2015) writes about how student success = whanau success. This is an amazing connection for me. For some illogical reason I was limiting the opportunities for learning by not fully utilising the value our surrounding whanau hold. This year we are inviting our learners whanau to create a list of contexts we can draw from for our learners inquiries. I feel confident enough in our practices to deliver an integrated curriculum within a set of contexts that are determined through co-construction with whanau and students. I don't really know what to expect but I am hoping an increase in these connections will be beneficial for our learning community..I am genuinely looking forward to making these connections. References. Macfarlane, A. H., & Macfarlane, A. (2015). Ngā tapuwae o mua mō muri : Footprints of the past to motivate today ’ s diverse learners, 20 (2), 27–38.

One word Goal

At the beginning of this year we were asked to identify one word that we will use for inspiration. I had just recently watched Sir Ken Robinsons ted talk titled "How to escape educations death valley." We were given a range of materials to create an artefact based on our one word. This was the presentation I gave at a staff presentation. 

An inquiry into collaboration

Goose bumps and Aha type reflections

Friday Reflection with MYSY learning community.

In Te Karaka Area School we complete each day with reflections on learning.  We often have a prompt statement linking to our TKAS Learning muscles or concepts based on Dwecks Growth Mindset. This practice has resulted in many wonderful and revealing sharings between all our learner community members. I feel its necessary to point out that our MYSY learning community is made up of learners from Yr6 to Yr13. Therefore the sharing is an amazing array of insights that often transcend age barriers.
Yesterday I used this...

 The reflection question is: How does the learning you gained this week relate to this picture?

The reflections are recorded individually on devices and after that our sharing begins. The statements shared included these learner responses;

• Walkway to success
• Freedom
• Path to growth
• Arotahi
• Pathway through the distractions
• The right path may be bumpy
• Appreciate the now
• Pathway towards my dream
• Achievement 

A range of Learners shared many personal insights with us. It reminded me of my own ponderings while tramping, that often lead me in my own life. Thats when i realised i was getting goosebumps..

This was an inspiring reflection for me because if this is how our learners are thinking when they see a picture like this, then I feel that together we are enabling our community to experience a life where learning is in everything we do and all that is around us. This to me is connecting very closely with the purpose of education.

Kia kaha koutou.

Matua_Morgs

Gamers..Gaming and Gamification..its all GamEd to me.

Its late… 1am…and I’ve still not succeeded in the task Id set myself to have completed by midnight. I know this situation isn’t unusual for us teachers…however this time was unique for me because the task was to complete a mission as a titan guardian/warrior on my sons PS4 Destiny game.  Destiny is a first-person shooter video game set in a "mythic science fiction" world, the game features a massively-multiplayer "shared-world" environment with elements of role-playing games.

Ive intentionally devoted time towards exploring gaming with the purpose of learning how these games educate gamers (like both my 12 & 14 yr old sons) to develop key skill sets and strategies to succeed in their games…(No really..Honestly, this is not just what I’m telling my wife.)

I have recently begun focusing on gaming for education because of the interest our learners at Te Karaka Area School have with games. During a course I was shown a short clip about gaming and its role in education by James Gee.  It’s a thought provoking insight into the culture of gaming and the divide between traditional education and gaming based education developed by businesses like Bungie (the creators of Halo and Destiny). I initially focused on his comparison between assessments of learning between conventional systems and gaming. Its well worth watching and only 5 minutes long.

As I begun to write this blog, my 14 year old son sat down with me and asked what I was working on. I replied Im writing a blog about what Im learning about through playing Destiny. I explained how Im thinking about how valuable games like Destiny can be for teachers. I immediately saw a flicker of interest in my sons eyes…”What will you be saying?” “Well I’ve seen how much time and effort you devote towards developing the skills and strategies you need to succeed in your game… and that’s an amazing blog in itself, but this blog is focusing on the obvious value you and your brother place on even the small and (in my mind less important) details like appearance and affiliations. You spend hard earned credits on making your guardian look colourful or upgrading armour based on style or clan instead of function or purpose. My son laughed at this..” Yeah its real fun..and they (the creators) are about to put a person on Tower whose whole purpose is to teach your guardian new dance moves….” Yep your Destiny guardian can save the universe and bust out the meanest dance moves at the same time… go figure. I said to K.. “ It must be annoying when teachers or adults talk about games as being irrelevant and of no real value when they are clearly so important to you..” My sons reply…“Yep..” I could see I got him thinking… “Hey Dad I read on line recently of a study that showed that people who played Portal 2 did better on spacial awareness tests that luminosity users.”  We checked it out..There is and its true. (Man am I setting his learning advisor up for a fun time next term.)

Gee describes games as a combination of learning and problem solving experiences. I am beginning to think that this is a simplification of the  deeper learning & problem solving experiences games like Destiny provide. My children have committed a reasonable amount of effort into their on line characters. This is clearly their online identity..not just in appearance but also in status, affiliations, reputation and style (as in dancing..) Why discredit this identity as nonsense or of no real worth? Who are we even to say such a thing? Perhaps most importantly how can we use this concept effectively when designing learning programs within our education systems? In asking these questions I have a short list of suggestions that have been had shared with me recently that may be a good starting point.

An online site called Classcraft appears to be successfully helping teachers to bring status and identity into the classroom. I haven’t yet tried it out but the more I learn about gaming and gamification of learning the more I return back to this as an option.

Digital badges are being used more frequently now for recognition of specified achievements. One site recommended to me is credly.com .  This again may be used as an indicator of progression (another key gaming concept according to Seth Priebatsch in his Tedtalk on building a game layer on top of the world.)

This last suggestion is referring to a suggestion that both Gee and Priebatsch make in their video about "leveling up". At TKAS we use SOLO Taxonomy for guiding learning within our programs. Levelling up can be used to incentivise our learners to progress towards extended abstract. I often explain to our learners that gaining extended abstract is not much more work than what they have already have completed for achieved. Its not about quantity but quality. Developing a rubric system that shows that achieved is <75%, merit 76% < 89% and Extended Abstract 90% + may better express this concept while helping with the level up idea.

Finally I would whole heartedly encourage teachers to take some time to explore digital gaming from a pedagogical view point. Ive had some amazing discussions with TKAS learners and clearly see their appreciation when I take time to listen to their stories and share my own gaming experiences with them. I know that I am only just beginning to experience the amazing learning oriented concepts being applied in modern online gaming. I know this is well worth staying up for.