Going Global: Unleashing the Power of Digital Connections in Teaching

Hey, you wonderful educators! Let's take a moment to chat about the power of connecting with other teachers in the digital world. Now, when I say power, I genuinely mean it because I see this as an incredible resource in our teaching repertoire that often goes under appreciated. This is not a new idea. Teachers have been doing this for a long while. Twitter was a hotspot for a long time before it took a turn for the worse. There are other places that might be better for the conversations many of us look for when using social media. To educators that have stayed away from connecting with others on social media, here are some thoughts on why you should consider joining other educators who are looking to connect. 

So, let's discuss the marvels that come with forming an interconnected web with educators all around the globe. When you start connecting with fellow teachers in the digital world, you unlock a trove of unique perspectives, fresh ideas, effective strategies, diverse classroom experiences, and above all, a sense of togetherness that cuts across geographical boundaries. Imagine having the ability to draw on the collective wisdom of educators across continents, with just a few taps and clicks. Incredible, isn't it?

Now, it's time to explore how this interconnectedness can be a boon for our students. You might be interacting with a teacher half the world away who shares a breakthrough experiment. The next day, you can bring that exciting new approach to your classroom. Or perhaps, you've discovered another educator who has developed an exceptional method to engage students who struggle with reading. You can adapt her approach to your own class. All of a sudden, your students are reaping the benefits of a globally influenced education without even leaving their desks.

It's time to broaden our horizons and connect with the global teaching community waiting for us in the digital world. You'll find a wealth of shared resources, camaraderie, and innovative practices, regardless of where you are in your teaching journey or the age group of students you teach. Your task for this week: Reach out and make a new teacher connection in the digital sphere. It might be the catalyst for some incredible transformations in your teaching approach. Keep being awesome, educators!

Hugs and High Fives, 

The Nerdy Teacher

Making Connections

I had an awesome opportunity to talk to some great English teachers the other day. We talked about digital tools and we also talked about connecting with other teachers. One teacher asked me how can they connect with other teachers. They were on Twitter, but they found it hard to reach out to teachers and engage them in conversation. I gave them some tips and tricks and I thought I would share them here so they could share them with other teachers in the school.

Step One: Establish a Social Media Presence

This can be through the creation of a blog and/or Twitter account. If people want to connect, they need something that will connect them to other people. Blogs are a great way to expand on your ideas and Twitter is a great way to share your blog with other people. It is the route that I used and it has allowed me to meet some of my best friends. By having a blog and a Twitter account allowed me to connect with so many other teachers that are active in the blogging community and Twitter. It was a slow start, but I did connect with many great educators.

Step Two: Lurk and Then Engage on Twitter Chats

Find a Twitter chat that resonates with you. There are many great chats out, so find the one that that meets your needs. Once there, take some time and see what the conversation is like and how the pacing for this chat works. After a couple of weeks, I suggest you start to engage the people in the chat. Answer a few questions, respond to others who are in the chat. Start to follow these educators and become a regular participant these chats. I became really involved in #EdChat and met so many great people through the chat. It was a great way for me to expand my PLN. #EngChat was another great chat I used to meet many amazing educators passionate about learning and sharing.

Step Three: Connect Outside of the Chat Stream

Once you have become comfortable in the chat world, it is important to start engaging educators outside that one hour a week time frame. These could be simple questions and friendly conversations. Twitter for educators is a very friendly space and many of are always looking for interesting new people to connect with and share great ideas. Also, now that you have started to connect with many different educators, feel comfortable to start sharing your blog posts with the Twitter world. If the blog posts lends itself to a specific chat, add that hashtag to your tweet. Personally, I am always looking to for new posts to read. I find most of them on Twitter and I add them to my RSS feed if I love what I see.

Avoid spamming people with your blog posts though. Time to time I think I am guilty of this, so it is important to have conversations and the sharing of other great posts and not just a one-way conversation where it is your work all of the time. If people like your post, it will be re-tweeted around the world multiple times over.

Step Four: Connect at a Conference

Once you have connected with many of these great educators, see if any of them are going to be attending any of the conferences you are interested. If they are, see if people would be interested in a Tweet-up. Tweet-ups are a great way to take the digital connection you have spent time working on and making it a personal connection. Three years ago, I went to my first ISTE in Denver and I had my first Tweet-up. It was awesome. I got to meet so many people face to face that I had only shared tweets. Many of these people are close friends now that I can go to for help, support or just a good laugh. Heck, I met my brother from another mother this way (@TGwynn). Connecting at conferences is a great way to take engagement with your educational peers to another level.

Step Five: Don't Give Up

Stick with your blogging and tweeting. Don't feel like you need to post every dar or tweet every minute, but make Social Media a part of your routine. Continue to engage more educators on twitter and write what you want. Don't let yourself get stressed over your Twitter stream. You can't see everything, so just relax and be patient. If it is really good, someone else will tweet it again. Do not get obsessed with the number of followers you have. Numbers will grow and varying speeds. Just focus on being you and let the numbers game play itself out. Lastly, be you. People will read your blog and follow you on Twitter because you are you and you are the only you out there. We have have very original ideas to share and educators need more voices, not fewer.

I hope this helps those of you out there that are on the fence when it comes to engaging on Social Media. It is not easy to put yourself out there, but we expect our students to do this to some degree, maybe it is time to practice what we teach?

If you have any questions or just want to connect with me, you can follow me on Twitter @TheNerdyTeacher or shoot me an email.

Social Media in Schools #EdChat

Today, an article was published by the New York Times about the use of Social Media in schools and how some districts are imposing very restrictive guidelines for their staff. I was interviewed for this article a couple of months ago. I talked with the reporter for close to an hour and this is what was published.

"Nicholas Provenzano, 32, who has been teaching English for 10 years at Grosse Point High School in Michigan, acknowledged that “all of us using social media in a positive way with kids have to take 15 steps back whenever there is an incident.” But he said the benefits were many and that he communicated regularly with his students in an open forum, mostly through Twitter, responding to their questions about assignments. He has even shared a photo of his 6-month-old son. On occasion, he said, he will exchange private messages about an assignment or school-related task. He said that in addition to modeling best practices on social media use, he has been able to engage some students on Twitter who would not raise their hand in class. 

He also said social media networks allowed him to collaborate on projects in other parts of the country."

There are a couple of things I want to point out before I go into more detail on Social Media in Schools.

1. I teach at Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI
2. I'm not sure why my age was really important to the article, but I am 32.
3. When I talked about exchanging private messages, I was referring to DMs of Twitter. Some students feel more comfortable asking, what they deem dumb, questions through a DM. They feel more comfortable asking those in private. No different than staying after class to ask the question once everyone leaves.
4. Yes, I have shared a photo of my beautiful 6 month old son (now 7 months old). I'm not sure exactly how that point fits in the paragraph, but I think I was trying to show that while Twitter can be a great place to connect and discuss school related issues, it is also nice to be able to show students you are a person too.

These are just a few of the things I wanted to clear up regarding the article that I was quoted. For the full article, you can find it here.

As for Social Media use in schools, here is what I think.

When it comes to Social Media, like any tool, there needs to be a clear goal in mind. Using Facebook or Twitter because the kids do is an awful reason if it is the only one. I chose to use Twitter with my students because I saw it as a way to connect with my students outside of the classroom. It is also an avenue for me to connect with parents. I created an account that is for my school only. @MrProvenzano is an account I openly use with my students, parents and other teachers in the district. My twitter account is on my syllabus and my school web page. I embed the feed onto my site as well so anyone can see the tweets that go out. I also use the hash tag, #MrPAmLit to specify class content. Over the past couple of years, it has been a great communication tool. My students have used Twitter as a back channel for class discussions and to ask me questions after school hours. It has been a great experience for me and my students. It is only possible because I put some strict guidelines in place.

I told students that I would follow them back on Twitter, but may choose to un-follow them if they use language or discuss topics I deem inappropriate. I have a discussion about digital footprints and the words they use could come back and haunt them no matter how well they think they are covering their tracks. I've only had to un-follow a couple of students because their language was just too foul. Sometimes I will say something to a student about an errant F-Bomb in a tweet and they are always apologetic and promise to be more mindful. I support their first amendment right to tweet what they want, but I always tell them people are allowed to think what they want based on their tweets. It's all about the modeling.

I know it is easier to block everything and punish harshly. I feel that is the response of lazy administrators. I say sit down and get your hands dirty and create a policy that works for parents, teachers, students and the district. Social Media is a new territory that needs to be explored in education, but like all new territories, it must be explored with caution and open mind.

Please feel free to share your thoughts below. 

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Walking the Walk

This is the video from Day 2 of the #140EDU Conference that was held in New York. There were many amazing speakers, but I want you, the administration of my district, to jump ahead to the 1:14:30 mark and listen to Eric Sheninger. Eric is the principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey. In 2009, he was against all Social Media in his school. Today, he is one of the biggest advocates of Social Media in Education. He has some exciting things to say.

I've met Eric a few times at conferences and he is just as passionate in person as he is on stage. He has given me great advice on how to use Social Media in my class and I think he makes some great points. To be honest, he makes so many great points I cannot go into all of them here. I will point out a few that I think we should be doing and can do ASAP.


Communication

Eric talked about the old way to communicate with the community. Snail mail and websites are not reaching the people they need to reach. Twitter and Facebook are great and free ways to reach parents and students. While we have a district Twitter account and one high school has an account, why not everyone? Why shouldn't every school have a Twitter account that can send out updates on the great things that are happening during the day? Are there sporting event today? Tweet out the information to the community.

Facebook is a place where our families, friends and students spend time. Why not have school Facebook accounts? You can connect Twitter to Facebook so updates are posted directly on the Facebook wall after you send a tweet. If we really want to reach out to the community and share information with them, we should be striving to put the information in places that people can find it instead of burying on a page on a website.

It's free. What are we waiting for?

Public Relations

Right now, everyone else is writing the story on education accept schools. Nobody is going to hear about the great things classroom teachers do every day if the school doesn't support. Why not recognize some of the amazing students, teachers and administrators in the district? Show off the amazing things that happen every day. We want the community to know about the amazing things going on and we shouldn't have to rely on Patch or other news sources to do it for us. Why are schools afraid to spread the good word?

Student Engagement

I want to end on Student Engagement because I think it is one of the most important elements of this speech. Eric says that his students are excited to come to class and use the tools that he has helped bring into the school. He says that math scores have gone up in one group of students. Not because there was technology, but sound pedagogy infused with social media and technology.

Now is the time to stop banning and blocking. We need to move to a more open technology policy and support the teachers and students that are excited to to try and do new things. My Assistant Supt has been pushing to do some different things and that gives me hope, but we need everyone on board. The question everyone would should ask their administration is why not? Why do we not share great things with the community? Why do we want others to control our image? These are the important questions as we move forward.

The time for talk is over.

If we truly want to be a leader in education technology, we need to walk the walk.

My boots are laced up.

Are yours?

- Nicholas Provenzano
English Teacher
Grosse Pointe South High School
@MrProvenzano

Social Media, Technology and Education

I was thinking about posting this on my blog that goes out to my district. Does this sound too harsh? Thoughts would be appreciated.
I was honored to be asked to speak at the 140 Character Conference in Detroit on Wednesday. I was asked to talk briefly about the impact Social Media is having on education. The interesting thing about this conference was that it was not an education conference. I was not surrounded by like-minded teachers preaching to the choir. I was surrounded by business men and women from all walks of life. These were people that were coming into this conference expecting to hear about best business practices they could incorporate into their work. I realized that I was going to speak to an audience that had already formed some opinion on education. If recent news is any indication, the opinion might not be a good.
The talk went really well and my ideas and lessons were well received. I was actually a trending topic on Twitter in Detroit. MLive.com even wrote about what I said here. I was shocked by all of the positive feedback because it was so quick through Twitter. People let me know how they felt as I talked. Imagine if our classrooms ran that way. Think about the possibilities of instant feedback from students as we lectured. Questions could be asked by anyone and everyone. Conversations could be had without speaking up while we talked. These things are possible through social media.
One thing that really struck me at the conference was how positive everyone was. I have found that too many teachers are negative when new ideas are presented. I know I have been guilty of this from time to time and need to work hard to stop. However, maybe it is time to start looking at how things could work and how we can try to make them work instead of all of the reasons things are going to fail. As a certain Science teacher said at a recent staff meeting, we learn as much from failing as we do from our success, if not more. Not every new idea is going to apply to every teacher in every content area. However, that does not mean that all new ideas should be blocked out. Education is getting a bad reputation because there are bad teaches out there in the world. These are teachers that refuse to grow and change. Education is a constantly evolving world. I'm not doing the same thing I did 10 years ago because the kids are not the same and I'm not the same. Yes, it will take hard work and some long hours. If you became a teacher expecting it to be easy, you are in the wrong job.

Lastly, I really think I started to understand why people have such an issue with education. We (The entire educational system) are usually the last adopters. We are the last ones to look at new ideas or technology and incorporate them into the schools. There is a struggle to get everyone on board. By the time it finally happens, the idea is old and something new is already here. As teachers, it is our job to accept some change and see how we can connect with our students. I'm not suggesting everyone throws out all of their amazing lessons and replace them with new ones centered on gadgets. Technology, ideas, innovation are not “all or nothing” concepts. Everyone needs to look at what works for them and take baby steps in the right direction. The problem as I see it is that too many people have their heels dug in.
Challenge

I challenge all teachers to pick one new tool out there and work with it. Play with it. Find out how it works and how you can use it in your class. By the 4th marking period (April or May) incorporate that tool into a lesson in your class. It doesn't have to be something super complicated. Everyone should choose a tool for their own skill level, but commit to mastering something and using it in class. No matter what content area you are in, there is a tool out there that can make class a little more exciting for your students. There is a tool out there that can inspire students to think differently about a project or idea. If every teacher picked one tool every year and shared that tool with others, we would all be masters of technology and students would be better for it. Who's willing to take the challenge?