Ed Tech Can be a Firehose! This will help.
Just a year ago the President of the Catholic High School at which I work suggested that another colleague and I attend CUE Conference in Palm Springs. He was an old school advocate for technology, working with Apple to bring computers into the classroom in the late 80s and 90s. While the tech has changed, his advocacy hasn’t. When there wasn’t much of a budget, he pulled some strings and got us in.
This was my first encounter with an Ed Tech community beyond my own school walls. My twitter interactions were focused around personal interests and photos of food and cute goats (sorry cat people, hard pass). I discovered a vibrant ecosystem of teachers from all walks of life, from public Kindergarten to Carter Middle School. I even encountered a few other Catholic school teachers. There was electricity in the air. People were busy connecting and chatting, often for the first time face-to-face. They all seemed to know each other. There was some balled-guy and a Rabbi looking man that lots of people seemed to know and talk with—come to find out they were Matt “Ditch That Textbook” Miller and “The Tech Rabbi,” Michael Cohen. There were a lot of creative ideas on instruction, integration of Google in the classroom, and all sorts of inspirational things. It was without a doubt, drinking from a firehose.
Since then, I have connected with many of these teachers and practitioners on twitter and their blogs. I created an RSS feed of many Ed Tech influences via Feedly (a great RSS aggregator) and Unread (a clean and easy-to-read RSS reader for iOS). I marvel at how easy it is to connect and learn today. Personally, I am always looking for practical tips, strategies, teaching ideas, and tech integration. I find a lot of that on Twitter. Fellow teachers are providing creative ideas, workshops, Google tools, and all sorts of Ed Tech and Pedagogy resources. While I don’t have much to share yet, I love that I can take from one teacher, adapt or remix it, and share a repurposed version of it to another audience of teachers. Indeed, many of the teachers at my local school site look to me for inspiration. In turn, I find it from other teachers. Sharing our thoughts, strategies, and resources makes for a more speedy and robust transformation of education.
So, I, in turn, share some resources I have found helpful.
Here are a few helpful places to start in on the conversation with other Ed Tech practitioners. In particular, this list of top education RSS feeds and this top 10 education tech blogs are quite helpful. While I’m sure these aren’t comprehensive, the amount of experience, knowledge, and resources being freely shared online is incredible.
It might also be helpful to follow some of the top education hashtags on Twitter. They are as follows, but be sure to check out the full explanation of each Teach Thought.
#edchat #cpchat
#edtech #ntchat
#education #mlearning
#lrnchat #elearning
#edapp #engchat
#classroom #sschat
#teaching #mathchat
#playoutdoors #scichat
#edreform #artsed
#globaled #stem
Are there any hashtags or influencers that should be added to the list? Let us know in a comment below!
