Using digital-age communication and collaboration tools in education - Reflective Post #9

This week's readings focused on communication and the tools that can be used for collaboration among a variety of groups, e.g. new instructors with mentoring instructors, parents and teachers.

Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence

Joanna Dunlap and Patrick Lowenthal wrote this article suggesting that Twitter can be used to encourage social presence in learning. The authors explain that effective learning is a somewhat social activity. M. Knowles' The Adult Learners: A Neglected Species was quoted in the article, to prove the point learning is social, "The more people feel they are being treated as human beings—that their human needs are being taken into account—the more they are likely to learn and learn to learn." Getting to know fellow students and instructors on a personal level is more likely to develop this social presence. Twitter can be a tool to allow this connection to take place. Twitter encourages—as the article describes—an "informal, free-flowing, just-in-time banter and chitchat" online. LMSs aren't as effective as most interaction is asynchronous and formal. Twitter also simulates the instructor-student interactions that occur, on occasion, face to face while walking around campus.
The article also addresses some of the benefits of using Twitter as well as some recommended guidelines to consider when interacting with students.

The Design of an Online Community of Practice for Beginning Teachers

The article, written by Anthony Herrington, Jan Herrington, Lisa Kervin, and Brian Ferry, starts off with a gloomy tone that teachers quit and leave the profession at an alarming rate. The authors cite sources of dissatisfaction for the rationale for new teachers rethinking their career path. New teachers become overwhelmed with: student management, lesson planning, large classes, unmotivated students, work/life balance, compromising pedagogical beliefs; all of which can be avoided—suggested by the authors—with a mentoring program. The article identifies support programs and resources that help new teachers become successful during their first year. The the main focus of the article is focuses on online learning communities which the authors refer to as "Internet Cafés." These communities are websites for new instructors which allow them to communicate and collaborate with mentors. The authors state that "the innovative use of online technologies to deliver collaborative support and professional development could help to remove the sense of professional isolation felt so acutely by many novice teachers."

What Parents Want in School Communication

The Edutopia article, written by Anne O'Brien, focuses on the exchange of information between parents and teachers. Parents are very interested in receiving information about their children, their child's teacher or the school. O'Brien breaks her article down into three parts: how parents want school news, what news they want, and when they want it. Parents are becoming more and more tech-savvy so it is no surprise that internet communication received the highest rank for how parents want news—O'Brien pointed out here that social media was not highly ranked among parents. The news parents wanted to be informed about were performance indicators, learning objectives and homework. And lastly, parents wanted to know the information at varying degrees however the majority wanted to either know as soon as possible or within a month of the occurring news. Less than 20% of parents surveyed wanted to be notified of news at a duration longer than a month of the occurring news. O'Brien reflects, in the closing of her article, with the possibilities social media could play in notifying parents of news however experiences seemed to vary. However, teacher created class websites, such as this example, can be a great way for K-12 teachers and parents a place to find a lot of valuable information about the expectations of the class. Obviously, this site is not a secure portal for releasing student information but homework and class resources can be easily shared with parents.

Five Steps to Better School/Community Collaboration

In this week's second Edutopia article, written by Brendan O'Keefe, relates to community in education. A community is needed to ensure schools and education are successful. In some cases communities need to come together to transform educational systems. O'Keefe lists the necessary steps for this transformation to be successful.

1. Expand Your Vision of School to Include Community - The surrounding community features a wealth of experimental learning opportunities. Finding ways to connect these experiences to the classroom is important
2. Reach Out to All Stakeholders - Ask for community member support in accomplishing goals and making dreams a reality.
3. Create a Community Resource Map - Sharing community resources and/or skills, and making a list will help others understand what is available and what could be possible.
4. Connect with Curriculum - Students claim that they will, "never use this," or they want to know why they are learning something. Finding businesses and other community subject matter experts will help connect learning to real world experience.
5. A Design Challenge for the Community - Creating a project where community members and schools can collaborate where everyone benefits allows to relationships to develop.

O'Keefe believes that the answer to education/school transformation is, "strong, authentic community connections and actions. When families, community groups, business and schools band together to support learning, young people achieve more in school, stay in school longer, and enjoy the experience more."

In Summary

This week's articles had themes that blended between each other. The overarching theme of the readings were tools that create collaboration between people. Each article featured a unique aspect that related to another article but may not have been a direct correlation to all of this week's readings.

I've learned that learning is a social phenomena. When used properly, social media can be a way to connect with classmates in new ways just as you might encounter someone in real life which is an interesting thought. I only got to know a few of my college professors personally but being able to follow the others on Twitter may have allowed me to make a more meaningful connection with each of them. This could have possibly led to me getting better grades, but probably not. Social media is also a way for communities to be developed to transform educational systems as seen on a variety of Facebook pages such as Chicago Students Organizing to Save Schools or to Stop Common Core. Social media can also be a cost effective way to communicate with parents. I could see the immediate advantages of a teacher created classroom blog as a parent looking for as much information as possible. School districts could also leverage Twitter as a cost effective way to simulate text message alerts. Since non-Twitter users can subscribe to Twitter feeds via text messaging, parents and students could receive the latest news or even closing/delay schedule for their school.

After this week's readings and working closely with the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at The University of Findlay, I can see the importance of communities and mentoring programs for new teachers/instructors. The university features a few programs and leverages tools to make these communities a reality. Blackboard organizations can be easily requested and created for a space for individuals to gather that offer the benefits of "Internet Cafés" that were discussed. The CTE has created a year long Teaching Partners program that pairs up new faculty with a mentor to help ease the anxiety of teaching in a new environment. The CTE also has a FIRST program (Faculty Introduction to Research, Service, and Teaching) to introduce faculty to research, service/experiential learning and teaching at UF.