Alien Pedagogy

Last year, I led a PLN session for my colleagues. It was not a mandatory meeting. Only a few people showed up. Here’s an update.

At first, I was a little disappointed because it didn’t seem like any of the staff were using their feeders to read educational blogs. However, at the start of the year, I passed on Scott Mcleod’s Push series and educational blogs are now in their feeders.

On top of this, our environmental science teacher is using social bookmarking and RSS feeds to bring current events into his classroom.

It’s a good feeling.

Intrepid Teacher posts here on how/ why teachers (especially literature/ LA) should be posting content online. It’s worth considering.

But aside from the argument, Intrepid Teacher is disappointed that he did not express himself as effectively as he could have. In my opinion, this happens when we do not take the time to practice presenting to a safe audience, which should be our faculty or department.

At my school, we spend quite a bit of time presenting ideas to each other. It’s something all of us should do more than once. What we currently lack is a feedback system.

Have you presented to your faculty? Do you have a feedback system?

I gave a presentation to my coworkers today on Professional Learning Networks (If you read this, you already follow Jeff Utecht whose presentation I attended at EARCOS).

I have long enjoyed being one of the only teachers on staff who knows about RSS feeds and PLNs (like when you hoard your favorite music and hope no one else discovers it), but felt it was time to share with others.

Method:

• POW – Used “how not to use Power Point” and some of the new Google search options to show how my PLN has influenced my teaching.
• Distinguished PLNs from Online Learning Communities (which my group has so far associated with a network designed for students).
• RSS Feeds. Introduced the idea of a feed and showed them my Reader and Bloglines feeders. I mentioned Feedburner, but I don’t use it.
• Microblogging – Introduced Twitter and Wefollow as sites that we can use to rapidly browse the educator’s online community.
• Social Bookmarking – Introduced Delicious as a place where we can rapidly store information and share it with other teachers.
• Provided the staff with some links to educational blogs and set them loose on the Internet. I also sent an email of the links we covered to them.

In review:

• I wanted this to be a completely optional session that teachers could opt into or not. So I tried to make it happen in just a half hour, which was too rushed. Having said that, delivery of content did not take very long; most of the time was spent surfing.
• I found the staff bought into the idea of using RSS feeds.
• I’m not sure that they saw the value of edublogs. If I were to do this again, I’d try to find some of Dy/Dan’s best posts.
• Twitter was adopted by some, but not all. I was not surprised by this since it took me quite a while to get into micro blogging.
• I tried to stress that a PLN is only as good as the time you spend working on it. So we’ll see how it goes.

If you use PLNs, have you considered sharing?

Before I attended this session, I’d read Jeff Utecht’s blog for several months. How could I skip his session?

(The Wifi was sketchy for much of this session, so my notes are incomplete. I got a chance to talk to Jeff twice after his session and have also included thoughts from those conversations here.)

Thoughts I Still Have From This Session:

• Too many people on Twitter are creating networks that are designed to create a flock of followers. It seems more practical to use a blog and to present at conferences to create a flock. Use Twitter to create meaningful PLNs.
• BTW, PLN – A network of thinkers that you interact with online. You can use this network of people to challenge your ideas. A real network would be one that you can draw upon for ideas and resources — that you can interact with. So if you ask a question on Twitter and don’t get a response, you haven’t created a very effective network.
• Face to Face Contact is important in creating effective networks. At the least, put your face on Twitter instead of a metaphorical representation of your personality.
• Social Tagging – I haven’t used this in the classroom yet, but am excited to try it. Essentially, create a unique tag and use a social bookmarking site like Delicious to collate the resources that are identified by a community of students.
• Wikipedia Deniers who are quick to criticize the project because “anyone can edit Wikipedia” should be using social tagging and advanced google search techniques for research. (Also, teachers that advise students to use external links, please remember that those links were added by anyone.)
• Twitter can be used for professional networking, though many people just record very minute details. An email is too tenuous to be effective in maintaining a professional relationship and facebook is too personal.
• Creating a personal learning network requires time and effort. Don’t wait for people to come to you: use wefollow and twit groups to form your own network. Before you go to a conference, look into the tags for that conference. If you can, find a Jeff Utecht Twitter user who already has a lot of followers and who is keen to help others create their own networks.

In closing:

The biggest myth that I encountered when talking to teachers about PLNs is that a useful network will appear overnight. A meaningful network requires a lot of maintenance before it will run on autopilot. Once created, it can be a powerful tool for teachers.

I left this session with a strong determination to incorporate more connectivism in my classes.

Dr. Kim’s session “Facilitating Self-Reflection, Development, and Growth of Teachers Who Educate Abroad” was intended to be therapeautic. I didn’t read the summary, so I was surprised to find myself in a room full of teachers looking for release — I was the youngest person there by at least ten years.

We started by discussing what we thought we did well as teachers, which I found difficult to do without feeling pretentious. I went for energetic, which I think is honest. I could also have went for humorous.

After this, the session moved on to sharing things that caused teachers stress.

Here’s a summary of things that causes teachers stress:

• “My administrators don’t listen to me” was said by more than one teacher. In fact, a lot of hostility and frustration about admin was vented during this session. I can’t imagine a more thankless job than being a principal, but sometimes they don’t seem to listen so well. Interestingly, Dr. Kim was quick to point out that teachers often fail to listen to students.
• “All I do is work” was said by many teachers, which is true for me as well. I work so much that the main goal I’ve failed to achieve this year is seeing Hong Kong. At one point, a neighbor started “when I go home, the first thing I do is–” and I interrupted “check my work email!” So that was a great moment for me. I was surprised to find so many teachers talking about how they’d neglected to form long-term relationships or had chosen not to start families. Is this what I’ll become?
• Then the teachers with families spoke up, wondering why they aren’t given more time to work with their families — or skip a meeting. I heard at least one single teacher grumble at this.
• No teacher blamed students for causing stress.

In review:

• Dr. Kim was friendly and professional. And funny! She has a lot of personal anecdotes that are engaging and hilarious. I would definitely have stayed longer to hear more stories from her.
• At least half of the teachers in the room came in late, but Dr. Kim patiently invited newcomers to join a group each time they entered late. I’m not sure whether anyone else caught it, but she trained us to invite new comers to sit down — pretty sly, Dr. Kim.
• Dr. Kim had four slides during her presentation, each of them a symbolic image that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. She used this to generate responses to her questions, which I enjoyed.

Ultimately, the experience wasn’t what I expected, but it was cathartic. It was the last presentation that I went to, but I was glad that I went to see her present rather than going snorkeling with my friends.