Week #5 Reflection - Am I A TWIT?

Social Constructivism  - MY AHA!

Aha Moment
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I remember my first core course in ADED – 4F31 and then my growth in ADED 4F32.  This is where I learned to understand or at least identify my teaching or educational philosophy.  I realized that I first needed to understand the meaning of an education philosophy and found it explained to me as ‘a philosophy of education is a normative theory "propound[s] views about what education should be, what dispositions it should cultivate, why it ought to cultivate them, how and in whom it should do so, and what forms it should take.” (Guthrie, 2002)

 I had been teaching for many years at a college level and my approach to teaching was always instinctive and without a name – that is until I had to student and eventually write my own teaching philosophy in 4F32.  When I was able to identify my approach to what I believed education was, and how learning actually transpired in a student, not until then was I able to finally made sense of what I was doing. 

This weeks’ presentation on PREZI - Social Constructivism by Alan Reed  reminded me of my belief and approach to teaching and it connected this course (ADED 1P32) to the Social Constructivism philosophy I so very much believe is my philosophy of education.  I was now able to connect how effective the concept and tools of PLN’s and PLE’s can be to giving students (both pedagogy and andragogy) the learning tools that can help them grow to their maximum potential and customize it to their interests and passions and all of this in a digital context!  

Digital Citizenship – Am I getting it yet?

I have been struggling to put my head around the full concept of Digital Citizenship and why this would have to be taught.  Perhaps I was being old fashioned and thinking the environment of a good solid home would give students young and old the tools to be good citizens – both on the street and in the digital world.  But I see now that what my generation learned, and even the generation of my children (now 27 & 24), is very different from the generation of current 8-15 year olds will grow up with understanding as the ‘norm’.  Then continued my own research and found an interesting article Making It Cool to be a ‘Good Digital Citizen’.  In this article, the author – Tony Songbird – share 5 points for parents to teach their children to be or become ‘Good Digital Citizens’ and presenting it to them in a manner not to be viewed as more rules (obviously something kids don’t want to hear more of).  One point was quite interesting to me.  (Songbird, 2013) Writes

                “Swap out the term digital citizen (forever) with leader. Begin inserting leadership qualities—  such as courage, consistency, knowledge, compassion, and respect—into conversations. Kids understand the ‘why’ better than the ‘what’ sometimes. Pose some hypothetical situations that the two of you can work through together to sharpen her online leadership skills. When    scrupulous situations arise online, ask her what she thinks a leader would do.”

Why do we have to swap terms?  Is the term ‘leader’ a substitute for the term digital citizen?  Is that how we should see it for the future?

I then viewed the assigned videos ‘Effective Classes’ and ‘Collaborative Learning’ and this helped to remind me why I am in this class.  I am here to build tools, and learning to become a better teacher and if this means introducing a new term into my vocabulary to describe myself, then ‘Good Digital Citizen’ it would be.  I found both videos inspiring and motivating – I want my students to remember me as George and Joe described their learning AHA moments – LOVED IT!

Dickens, S. (2012, Feb.). How to Build Your PLN (Seth Dickens), was extremely helpful to me this week.  The video really highlighted the two questions I must ask myself now as I build my PLN.  I want to do this right one time and build and mold as I continue the journey and the two questions to help me with this are 1. What can I offer? (insights, 2^nd opinions, n=knowledge, expertise and ideas), and 2. What will I learn?  I was also reminded that it is not 1 tool or resource but a collection of things to help me learn.

So I then headed back to our digital ‘tools’ learning for the week.  The assigned exercises with Twitter were interesting and once I re-established my account (I had opened one years ago but never used it) I thought I’d at least explore the possibilities on Twitter.  The youtube video by Brad Flickinger, B. (2011, March). Building a personal learning network, was both interesting and boring at the same time.  I did like his reference 10-5-2 to help build your PLN (follow 10 people on twitter, follow 5 blogs and 2 podcasts).  My struggle again is…who has the time for all this??  I am still struggling though to put all the tools into their ‘use’ perspectives as it relates to my own PLN and PLE.  I continue to experience information overload and struggle to get everything read and processed properly.  Perhaps I have too many other “non-digital” things in my life that are making this too much?  I like sports, I love to cook and bake, I love my garden and I love spending time watching television (yes I am a Judge Judy fan…wonder if she is on Twitter? J)

Crazy Twitter Bird

Now back to Twitter. My approach to Twitter was really one of ‘who cares’ what time you ate or what movie you watched.  I see a lot of self-promotion in the Twitter world and that makes me question why I should follow certain people.  Are their beliefs better or more interesting than mine are?  What really is the point?  I revisited Brad Flickinger’s video and thought to try it.  I also connected with three classmates, two hospitality industry professionals, one Digital Health and Wellness twitter-er (right term?), and some personal friends.  I also created several lists as I do not want all the same information going to all those on my list.  I now have several followers as well and will take the next week or two to evaluated where the world of tweeting fits into my life – or if it does.

I am an active LinkedIn member.  By active I mean I have over 500 followers, host 2 groups and am a member of at least 10 groups.  I find this digital tool useful to my needs and perhaps I can incorporate some of my new tools into the LinkedIn world without creating more work.  This will be my to do over the next “reading week”.

References:

Collaborative Learning. http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/light/light5/light5.html

Dickens, S. (2012, Feb.).  How to Build Your PLN (Seth Dickens). http://youtu.be/A667plNCzwA

Effective Classes. http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/light/light6/light6.html

Flickinger, B. (2011, March). Building a personal learning network.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LQYiWu67ys

Guthrie, J. (2002). "Philosophy of Education". In W. K. Frankena, N. Raybeck, & N. Burbules, Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference.

Reed, A. (2010) Social Constructivism http://prezi.com/yt-t0hwfa7ab/social-constructivism/

Songbird, T. (2013, July 25). Making It Cool to Be a ‘Good Digital Citizen’. Retrieved from blogs.mcafee.com: http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/making-it-cool-to-be-a-good-digital-citizen

Weisgerber, C. (2011). Empowering students through personal learning networks.  http://www.slideshare.net/corinnew/empowering-students-through-learning-networks