Steve (our ed tech guy) has hooked me on Twitter. Pretty incredible. I was skeptical and actually registered months ago but did nothing with it. Now that i’m on I definitely see the potential. It is an absoultely essential tool for professionals who want to stay current in their fields. It connects you to like-minded people and they share in manageable portions the information you may want to investigate. Like any internet based tool it can be a time waster if you approach it without a purpose, but that is the beauty of having an experienced tech guy like Steve show the way. He came in, helped me set up, and then used his personal network to help me link with others. Then he sent out a notice that I was someone “interesting” and others may be interested…and voila. I am now building an incredibly valuable network of resources. I haven’t even begun to tap into its usefulness.
The sessions were mostly tech related though my particular sessions were on critical thinking. Though not tech related I consider critical thinking important to the development of tech in the classroom. Here is how I see the connection: one of the biggest issues relating tech in the classroom is that we simply replace old methodologies with high tech ones, i.e. more bells and whistles (to use an overworked phrase). In other words, we don’t do posters we do power point, we don’t type we word process, etc. CT is one of the first steps to get teachers to change their thinking. Once they can make this pedagogical shift, they can see how implementing new technology is not about doing old things a new way but a shift in thinking and an attempt to teach new skills among other things.
It is the day after professional development and I am both exhilirated and exhausted. I conducted three seminars on critical thinking and enjoyed working with my colleagues. One of the seminars (the one I repeated) was me delivering information, but the other involved some group work and the groups seemed to respond positively to the activities.
Today we are gathering feedback via the web and so far the results have been positive.