On being a Connected Educator, Part One

My friend (and fellow Iowa native) Gordon Dahlby has asked me to submit a professional profile as part the U.S. Department of Education initiative –Connected Educators. This initiative is described as:

...promoting and fostering the benefits of educators being networked and connected through online communities and social networks.  ... In collaboration with a wide range of educational organizations, the Connected Online Communities of Practice project is increasing the quality, accessibility, and connectedness of existing and emerging online communities of practice through several activities including undertaking case studies of both interesting communities of practice and of individual educational professionals’ use of online communities and other forms of social media. 

Part of the profile is to select and answer three or four questions reflecting on what it means to be a connected educator. While my friend Joycie Valenza and I did this a few years ago for School Library Journal, it's always kind of fun to revisit a topic - just to see if one's own thinking has changed.

So here are my answers to the first two of four questions for Gordon...

Q: How do you plan to get more connected in the next year (or two)? Each year I find new and more effective means of getting “connected” to other educators – local, national and international. My first real online personal learning network was LM_Net, a highly interactive mailing list started by Peter Milbury and Mike Eisenberg in the pre-WWW Internet days. A group of about 100 school librarians (a number that increased rapidly) used the list to share resources, questions, problems, empathy, and humor on a regular basis. While the tools have evolved and grown in number, the essence of connectivity has not really changed.  Connecting is about peers being supportive with physical distance not being a limitation.

While I already feel well-connected, I plan to explore more formal experiences in interacting and learning from others this year. I will increase my involvement with projects like the Global Education Conference <www.globaleducationconference.com> and Library 2.0 <www.library20.com>. I am also planning to participate in a MOOC. I'd like to do more online sessions like the one I did for Steve Hargadon's Future of Education program. 

Locally, I am upping my game in using our district's Moodle server to offer and take online PD experiences. For the past two years, three districts in our area and our local state university have offered a two-day, face-to-face “Innovation Zone” conference to share best practices in the use of technology. Our commitment this year is to extend that learning by having participants “connect” throughout the year. 

Q: How do you think the definition of a connected educator will change in the next five years? I anticipate that the term “connected educator” will be redundant – every educator will participate in both formal and informal online interactions as a matter of standard practice. There is no area in education in which the pace of change, the release of new best practices and research, or cutting edge methodologies is so slow that educators can afford to wait for an annual conference or the editorial process of a print journal or book.

The best research going on in education is “action-based” – teachers trying new practices that lead to better learning. While our district offers teachers two hours a month to gather as “professional learning communities,” we also have to gather with educators outside our district and for more than just a few minutes each month!  

For our younger teachers, the Web has always been a two-way street – a place to share information in social networks as well as a place to find information. The “connected educator” is not just a reader or viewer, but an active participant in ongoing discussions and planning efforts. The same level of interest and activity we now see on personal social networks will transfer to professional social networks very, very rapidly. I am seeing this happen already in our district as teachers start joining and using the Google+ part of Google Apps for Education.

Professional development will not be a special event, but woven into every educator’s daily routine – like having that first cup of coffee, checking one’s e-mail, or updating one’s Facebook page.  

Questions three and four tomorrow.

Comments

[Norman Constantine]

Before the internet teachers did not like to connect. Why should the internet make any difference. Making something easier to do that people do not want to do will not encourage them to do it.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Norman,

I guess your experiences differ from mine. As a school librarian, I was the only person in my building who did what I did and had no one else to turn to for advice, sympathy, or ideas. I believe many teachers are by nature "connected" educators and technology just makes it easier and expands the reach.

Thanks for the comment,

Doug