Collaboration and Professional Growth: Create or Build Your #PLN

Collaboration has changed in education as the mechanisms to allow this process to occur have opened up. Sure, you, as an Educator, have always had the ability to walk down the hall to tap the shoulder of a colleague and work on common assessments or co-plan a series of lessons. But with the roll out of some truly fascinating technology and a shifting school model that institutionalizes the practice, this is the golden age of working together to give students a rich and relevant educational experience.

And this greater connection with other professionals isn't limited to those that you see in the staff lounge at lunch or talk with on the way out to the parking lot after a long day. The availability of thousands of excellent, risk-taking, eager, supportive, and collaborative educators is as easy to find as turning on your phone. Not only are there swaths of teachers around the world willing to work with others, but they can also problem solve issues rather quickly.

Case in point. Not long ago I was asked by a colleague to help them access resources and programs specific to their subject matter. Their subject matter is in an area I am sorely limited in so one of the first things I did was "reach out" to a PLN of local TOSAs and Instructional Coaches I am apart of. We communicate with one another through a "walkie-talkie" service called Voxer. I opened up my phone, pulled up the app, and left a voice message for the group of about 20 educators from the Sacramento region describing my problem and asking them for help and guidance. Within the hour, I had a number of responses as many had been in a similar position once or twice in their time. Already I had many avenues to explore and I had barely begun my research on my own. To have answers so readily available and quickly was invaluable. To lean on others' expertise saved me time and energy.

We are all experts in our worlds. But there are limitations in that expertise as there are a number of areas we all can improve on. Maybe you're the Science teacher that can wax poetic on numerous topics, but you're having trouble unlocking a passion in your students for your subject. Maybe you're the History teacher that has been trying new things here and there but have pretty much been doing the same thing for the past 10 years because of the challenges of wholesale changes. The colleague who approached me for help is brilliant but understands their limitations and wants to grow professionally. I have a lot of respect for that.

We don't need to come up with everything on our own. We shouldn't shy away from risk-taking because of the unknown. We shouldn't use our expertise in our subject matter as some excuse not to grow and adapt to a changing learning environment.

As we brave this long winter of ours, the comfortable thing to do is to retreat to warm and cozy climes. Let's do the opposite in our professional lives. Below are some easy ways for you to get connected with other like-minded educators.

💁🏽‍♂️ Great Resource for learning how to set up a PLN

📰 Feedly - Great RSS tool to have all your blogs in one place. A lot of amazing educators you could contact to establish and develop your PLN use blogging as a means to communicate what they do in the classroom and discuss experiences

🎤 Voxer - start a local group with your peers so when you are not able to all get together you can still access their expertise. Supports text, images, gifs, but it's main function is to allow you to leave audio messages to the group for them to access on demand

☕️ Meetup - local groups meet up at a designated time to collaborate on projects and issues important to the group

🗯 Twitter - I've blogged about the virtues of Twitter. I'm a fan and using it to connect with like-minded professionals has been a game-changer. Search hashtags based on your subject matter or check out and participate in a Twitter chat

🙂📘Facebook - as if I needed to provide the link to this site. There a large number of educator groups on Facebook and with hashtag searches they're easily identifiable.

There are other platforms and resources out there that can get you connected to others. And the connection is key this day and age. Whatever your platform it will benefit your craft, it will expose you to new ideas, and it will help you grow as a professional. Ultimately, it will benefit your students. And that's what matters most.

Twitter: Not Crazy Twitter...Only The Good Stuff

I've been on Twitter since 2009. It was my first way to communicate with students outside of the classroom. For those that use Remind this was my Remind before Remind came along. I didn't really know what to do at first.  I really didn't know how to use it.  Back then, there weren't a ton of students using Twitter - it was all about Facebook...until we all killed that for them.  I used this tool sparingly at first and then as I became more comfortable (and more students began to follow me), I started using it much more.

I went beyond using it as a mere communication tool when I realized the power of it and the game changer that was the use of hashtags. I would have my Government students live tweet their reactions from a Presidential Debate. I had my History students try to raise awareness of a social issue that was important to them. I would get my students to do some wild things and they ate it up (not all of them of course...but, ya know).

Twitter helped me realize the power of "flipping the classroom" and publishing to a "global audience" ... long before I realized I was doing any of that in my classroom. Further down the rabbit hole I went as I sought out new technologies to help me engage students and be efficient the delivery of my curriculum.

I stopped using Twitter as my "student communication" tool when I discovered Remind, but Twitter then became something else for me. It became a Professional Learning Network. Again, before I could put a name to it. I was learning from other educators on what they were doing in the classroom, how they incorporated new technologies, how they curated History and Psychology resources in the classroom, how they were harnessing and leveraging the power of EdTech to expose students to new heights. I was impressed and awed and humbled to see what others around the world were doing with new technologies. And I got thirsty.

It was around 2013 I started to notice how social media was changing and growing rapidly. I still had my old students following me on Twitter (long gone into the sunset en route to their new post-Bear River lives) but now I was gaining new ones. Fast. Even though I wasn't using it in the classroom. Even students I didn't have in my physical classroom. Students at the school I'd never met.

Instagram got big, Facebook wasn't cool anymore, Ask FM became a place kids could cyber bully each other, Vine happened, and then other social media apps and sites were popping in and out of the awareness of students. All the while, Twitter was growing along with these changes....faster than others in some cases. More and more students were using Twitter and I found my role on it change once again to "father-ish figure" - posting random things that I was interested in while also chiming in on conversations my students were involved in where they may need some advice on or guidance with.

It was about student connection. Letting them know that in that vast world of online content and virtual connections with others, they still had someone physical in their lives that they could trust and lean on when things are rough. The latest example of this was just before break when, sadly, Bear River lost two amazing young men in a car accident. I really felt the disconnect with my former students since I left the classroom back in August. I'm there, but not "there." A couple tweets and replies later on Twitter and I like to think I may have helped them (even for a minute) deal with the emotional toll they were experiencing. If I did, the few seconds I took out of my day was more than worth it.

So this post...this post is about advocating for trying something new. If you're not on Twitter yet, go sign up. Make your account. Go find some other educators like you around the country that you can learn from (a simple search of "biology high school teacher educator" will get you loads of search results). Tell your students you're on there and see if they are brave enough to follow you.

If you are on Twitter already, push yourself to try something new. Join a Twitter Chat, start posting really cool things you're doing in the classroom, encourage your students to publish their work for more eyes than just yourselves and for a greater purpose than just a grade, or start a class hashtag and have all your students use it to publish their work on a given assignment or topic.

The uses of Twitter will benefit you and your students in the long run. It will help bridge the technology divide between educators and students. Incorporating publishing on social media in the classroom is engaging to large swaths of students, garnering more student buy-in to your activity, curriculum, and classroom. You can connect with other peers and educators around the globe to learn new things, processes, strategies, and open opportunities for yourself as a professional and your curriculum as a whole. I'm not saying Twitter will make you a better teacher, or it will fundamentally shift your relationship with your students. But you may find travelling down that rabbit's hole can be rewarding for your craft and your students. Go ahead...give it a shot.

Infographics: Great Product for Students to Create

I love infographics!! There's info!! And graphics!! What's not to love? They can be an instructional tool for you and a creative outlet for your students. Literacy standards dictate we need to teach reading, writing, researching, and critical analysis skills across the curriculum. There is also a greater emphasis on technical writing as well.

Having students create infographics allows them to not only develop, practice, and hone these skills, but they are creative ventures for them to produce their ideas in a different form and you'll also get more participation in revision and peer editing activities. These types of products certainly should not replace formal essay writing. However, they can be used to help practice skills related to formal essay writing.

And did I mention revision? It is a critical practice in any profession and should be promoted in the classroom. Because of the visual and graphic design component of the activity, students will take great care to ensure their infographic is ready for their peers to get a gander at it. You can even scaffold the peer editing and revision process by having peers focus on a certain aspect of the assignment - supporting data, argumentation, clear and concise statements, visually appealing - to be returned for constant and continuous revision.

Oh yeah...and because they are a graphic, they can easily be published on the web. Students love to publish all sorts of media on a daily basis. This component will give you an opportunity to focus on Digital Citizenship in your classroom. These graphics are great for student portfolios, social media posts, student created websites...drive them to publish to a global audience and they will put their best foot forward. A large number of students already know what this means....they never post their first selfie.

Below are a couple of templates done in Google Drawing of different infographics that you can push out to your students in order for them to make a copy of and own. Once they have their copy, they can adjust everything on the template they see fit to.

Template I created in Google Drawing
Template in Google Drawing from Ryan O'Donnell out of Rocklin Unified

Google Drawing Templates Here, Here, & Here

Infographic Toolbox - Change and use elements for Infographics

Step-by-step instructions on how to create one in Google Slides

AND, you can empower your students to create beautiful infographics using these services:
Canva
Picktochart
Venngage
Easel.ly


***All linked infographics in the blog post come from the amazing Alex Corbitt, English teacher from New York working in the Bronx. Give him a follow on Twitter

Digital Citizenship PD: Presented By Jason Bohrer

#whatsinthebeard?

Ever wonder what is hiding in that beard? I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it but every once in a while....

Anywho, the man smiling to the left is a Bear River CTE (Computer Science) & English Teacher as well as a NCSOS Instructional Coach with a wealth of experience in the world of EdTech. He is offering a 4 session workshop on Digital Citizenship, something he is extremely passionate about, and something we all should be teaching in our classes. The sessions are all free to Nevada County educators and it would be a great opportunity for you to see what you can do with your students (and children!!! - I have two small boys of my own who can benefit from this info). Check the flyer below and follow the instructions to sign up!

Go for the excellent (FREE!!!) opportunity to develop your understanding of Digital Citizenship and how to teach it.....stay to ask him "What are you hiding in that beard?" #whatsinthebeard??



Link to the above file

Great PBL Site: StoryMap

As a History teacher, I was always looking to incorporate more maps into my curriculum. Google Maps & Earth have come a long way throughout the years, but I always wanted students to create visual products that were relevant to them and the concepts we were covering in class, were engaging throughout the creation phase, were easy to use, and looked sharp when complete. I've looked for and utilized products that did a fraction of these requirements. Never really satisfied....until now! Enter StoryMap!

StoryMap, built out of the Northwestern Knightlab, is an easy to use Project Based Learning tool that can be utilized in a slew of different disciplines to develop geography skills in students and allow them to create something they could be proud of and have fun doing it!! It's easy to use, you use your Google Account to sign up for it, it's free, and did I mention it's easy to use??

Everything starts with a map of the world and a search bar. The search feature uses Google Maps and typing the name of a city, country, physical boundary will pin that spot. From there, it acts like Slides or PowerPoint in that you add slides for the order of "flow" and the student can add text, include links, and media to each slide. The media supported are web url & uploaded pictures, gifs, Youtube videos, content from Vine, Twitter, Instagram, and a few others.

Click the pic below to see what one looks like. The following example comes right from the StoryMap website.

Click the pic to see one of the greatest BAs on that show!!!

This opens up opportunities for students to compare and contrast life in the same location at various time periods, built around a concept you are teaching in class, using media native to them. For instance:

• The Visual Arts teacher may want students to research influential Middle Age artists and document their their journey through their life and career - documenting their physical movement, influential works, and a modern day connection (Tweets! Grams! Vids! Vines!) to the area and artist 
• The Physical Education Teacher may want to track the developments of various weight training and exercise programs (CrossFit, Yoga, The Scandinavian Squat...I made that last one up, but it sounds cool) and show media of individuals using it throughout the journey
• The History Teacher may....well....I'm sure if you're a History Teacher you've already left this post and are checking it out on your own
• The ELA Teacher can plot the various aspects of a character's journey through a novel tracking the arch as well as media that is related to their physical and fictional journey

And as with any great story created, it needs to be told!! Presentation skills are essential to be taught and practiced across the curriculum and this product is made for student presentations in mind! It looks slick on a big screen and you can have students create an informal or formal presentation based on their creative product!

Some drawbacks:

• Network issues and access! Building one at home is much easier than at school and they will have access to the media more readily at home
• Work Around: Have them plot each "slide" at school after the research phase, add the titles and text at school, and have them build the media aspects of the project at home
• When presenting, the students will need to present off of your laptop or Chromebook - they'll get stuck as the network here will iBoss them to death having Tweets, Instagram and Vine media on their projects

The possibilities and uses for this product are immense! Give it a shot and if you're interested in working with it but need some help, I'd be happy to sit down with you to show you the nuts and bolts or even conduct a mini-lesson and teach your students how to use it.

Below is an example I created last night with some minor edits today. I've included the link to view it in your browser and also how it looks and functions when embedded on a website.

Link to view it in your browser (Looks better there anyway and you can swipe on your screen if your Chromebook has that ability): Where I've Lived