I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some feedback. Barbara had been in contact with a college professor who wanted to know the effect of Twitter as PD and it’s effect on student outcomes. That really got me thinking about PD and Twitter. I have heard many, many educators claiming that Twitter is the best PD that they have ever had. Others have said they learned more from Twitter than any graduate, or undergraduate education course they have taken. I would have doubts about both of those statements, or at the least questions about our higher education system if that were true.
Education has always been an isolated profession that called out for collaboration, but it did not have an effective way to collaborate. Department meetings and faculty meetings potentially provided limited collaboration. Education conferences were slightly more collaborative, but educators really had to put themselves out there to find ways to collaborate with other educators in an effective way. Collaboration is a very personal way for an individual to learn. It requires trusting other individuals, which is not easy for many, but it is also, for many people, the best way to learn.
Social Media is simply a conduit for connections. These connections then lead to collaboration. It enables connections to be made globally with ease and in numbers never before possible. It is this ease and quantity of connectedness that fosters collaborative learning on subjects that interest the connected participants. When educators are connected to other educators the natural discussion is education.
The way I look at it is that educators discussing education force each other to think and reflect on what it is that they do in education. Educators are a reflective bunch as a profession. It is the resulting change from all of this collaboration and reflection that enables educators to view what they have been staring at for so long with a new lens.
In addition to viewing things differently, a new level of relevance is added with technological advances being shared. Technology changes so fast that few can keep up with all that is going on. Collectively however, and through the power of collaboration, things are shared, discussed, and experimented with. This is all done with the safety net of collaboration. Failure becomes an option because do-overs become possible. It’s not about how many times you are knocked down, but rather how many times people help you back up. That is what educators do with Twitter.
If we were to measure anything, we would need to know what educators were like before Twitter to evaluate how they interact, reflect and teach or administrate after the Twitter immersion.
Can we measure how an educator views education differently after experiencing collaborative learning as a professional tool? If that experience changes that educator’s outlook, relevance, and educational philosophy, does it change that person as an educator? In what way do we measure that? How do we measure that in regard to its effect on the students’ outcomes? If a teacher is employing different methods of teaching that he, or she has never used before, how do we gauge that as effective or not? If a teacher has gained a better sense of confidence in the classroom, how does that translate to positives for students? Giving teachers the confidence in knowing that there are no longer boundaries to the questions they may ask, or the people they may ask them from may not be measurable. Twitter is more about ideas than titles. In the area of education Administrators, Authors, Teachers, Students, and Parents are all equals on Twitter. Exchange of ideas and experience is the currency of that medium. How do we measure the effect of that on education?
There is now a new gap in education. In a system riddled with too many gaps, this is not good news. Technology and social media specifically have provided tools that enable educators to connect, communicate collaborate and create. That ability makes a difference in individuals. It enables reflection and relevance. It is also creating two groups of educators, the connected, and the unconnected. The discussions of the connected seem to be focused on the future and moving toward it. The discussions of the unconnected seem to be steeped in the past with little or very slow-moving forward movement.
I do not think of Twitter as a tool for providing Professional Development, but rather a tool that enables collaboration. That leads to a curiosity, or more, a love for learning that takes some learners further down the road that all educators should be travelling. By any measure that must be a positive result for educators, that will impact their students in a positive way as well.
Twitter is definitely a tool for collaboration. Just a week or so ago, I was lamenting the need to better share new ideas with colleagues. A Twitter colleague pointed me in the direction of the book, Intentional Interruption. I read the book and now I have about 20 new ways to invigorate my skills and efforts related to collaboration, that will in turn positively affect my work with students. Just one example of the efficient, energizing connectivity and collaboration of Twitter. Amazing!
I don’t know if it’s “PD,” but I will say that I have been reading more educationally related articles and gaining more insights into my profession than I ever did by subscribing to journals on my own or sitting in PD meetings. Other than the rare times we get to use PD to actually collaborate with colleagues, I find most PD pretty pointless. Twitter allows me to pinpoint the topics about which I want to know more, thus making it more worth my time.
I understand your point about referring to Twitter as PD. It really is more of a conduit, isn’t it? Regardless, my experiences on Twitter have made me much more aware as a teacher and, therefore, a better educator.
Reblogged this on that MADDENing teacher.
Is not exciting, reflective, passionate life-long learning, and collaboration, PD? I suppose it is how one would define “professional development.”
I would argue yes. Our students could “sit and get,” but they are more engaged, passionate learners when their instruction is collaborative, inquiry and project based.
The same is true for teachers as professionals. Twitter allows us to collaborate and create new knowledge – it’s like project based PD for professionals.
Twitter IS a form of PD. I have been exposed to numerous ideas, resources and studies via Twitter. For me, twitter is a stimulating and inspiring space. It is the flat staffroom where walls are open and I have access to experts around the world. Thought challenging and prompting of thought is available for those that have a open mind and curious nature. The connections formed via twitter have been invaluable for both my learning progression and that of my students. Twitter is a 24/7 staffroom. There whenever you need it. Drop in and chat, learn, debrief, be affirmed or challenged or stay at your own desk.
I am incredibly thankful and appreciative of my #pln with my PLN I am @7mrsjames http://currentsofmyriver.blogspot.com.au/2012_05_01_archive.html?m=0
Twitter enables. PD enables. The rest, I feel, is semantics.
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[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
Twitter is PD if you actually connect/collaborate with other people on there and if you do something with the information/experiences you take from it. To just go out and say it is PD is going to be a hard sell to many – That is like saying the massive bookshelf full of educational titles across from my office is PD. It is not professional development/learning until I do something with all of that information/put it into action. I have learned a great deal through Twitter, but only when I have put some effort into it -> But I guess this is true with any other forms of PD.
On a side note, I must say that Twitter IMO (in recent months) has become a huge platform for many educators/admins to promote themselves/their work rather than share. For many, Twitter has become a contest to get the most followers and RT the most trending articles. It needs to be cleaned up a bit to get back to being as effective as it was/can be. I must say I even unfollowed the author of this blog for a while because each day it was “read my blog, check out my blog, comment on my blog, etc. etc.” It gets old and annoying very fast.
Kent
Sometimes the sharing that you seem to seek in your comment, requires some promotion. Getting some to move from the 140 of Twitter to the deeper and expanded ideas of a blogposts or books often takes promotion. Of course if the author does that promotion it is self-promotion, but that should not lessen the impact of the message that is being promoted. Thanks for following.
Tom W
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I think PD has become a collaborative exercise so Twitter feeds nicely into PD. When I’m allowed by the powers that be, I always run a Twitter feed when I’m giving talks, lectures, etc.
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[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
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[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
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[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
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You hit it right again- Twitter is not PD but it can be a key part of PD. my test when I participate or create PD is whether I do something different after the PD . I must DO something and too many on Twitter consider a retweet action. It’s not. If I follow a link and make myself aware of a new idea, that’s not PD. if I contact the author of a Tweet, have an exchange of ideas for a day or two, that might be PD. if after that discussion I actively decide to incorporate (or not use) some amount of an idea im my classroom and develop a plan to assess its impact, that’s reall PD. PD is about action. Without action and assessment there is no PD.
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[…] At the risk of beating my twitter drum one too many times, I would encourage you to check out another post from Tom Whitby titled “If Twitter Is Not PD, What Is It?“ […]
[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
If this is true,
“Twitter is not PD but it can be a key part of PD. my test when I participate or create PD is whether I do something different after the PD . I must DO something and too many on Twitter consider a retweet action. It’s not.”
…then the majority of “PD” we’ve been doing in education should never have been labeled “PD”. I can’t tell you how many traditional PD sessions I’ve attended where absolutely no growth took place; and yet it was labeled PD. And what about all those hours spent sitting in a classroom listening to a professor yap on and on about good instruction, followed by the almighty quiz or test…is that professional development?
For the first time in my life, I have control of my professional development. I get to decide how deep I want to go on any given topic. I decide when I’m going to learn more. I decide with whom I’m going to connect with to learn more about topics I’m passionate about. I simply cannot say that about the hundreds of hours I’ve spent in traditional PD. For the very first time in my entire life, I feel like a learner. The. First. Time. Ever. It is about the connections and the collaboration and the retweets and the meet ups and the sharing and the reflection. And that is what makes good PD. Can it be measured? About as easily as any PD can be measured.
Do I believe Twitter is a tool to help me grow professionally? You bet. And yes, I think it does and should shine a gigantic light on the inadequacies of higher education.
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[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
[…] If Twitter Is Not PD, What Is It? […]
[…] I was recently contacted by Barbara Madden, a Missouri educator with a Mississippi dialect, who is conducting a survey of educators, who use Twitter for Professional Development asking for some fee… […]
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