Inquiry Blog Post 2 - Professional Development

    As educators, it is important that we are continuously learning and improving our skills to improve student learning. I also believe it is important for students to see their teachers engaging in learning and modeling lifelong learning habits. Most of my professional learning outside of traditional PD days currently takes place both in my UBC Teacher Librarianship Diploma courses and in meetings with my grade level teaching team. I am fortunate to work on a team of 5 grade 3/4 teachers that regularly co-plan, share resources and ideas, and support one another in our learning. It will be important for me to consider how I will continue to learn and grow professionally after I am finished my diploma courses, and potentially move to a smaller school and/or to a teacher-librarian position where I am no longer a close member of my current team. One tool that I think will be helpful to me as I continue independently professional learning is Twitter.

    When I first began teaching, I was active on Twitter, regularly posting and reading the Tweets of others. My engagement on Twitter has dwindled over the years for a few reasons. One reason is because I was struggling to find my purpose for engaging on Twitter, another was the impact I noticed it was having on my mental wellness. Finally, the pandemic had an impact on my passion and I felt less engaged in what I was sharing. For the purpose of this blog post, I did some research on teachers using Twitter to build their PLNs and have found new excitement for the professional learning opportunities Twitter can lead me to. I was also reminded of the positive impact Twitter had on my teaching and learning when I was more actively engaged. My inquiry has helped me to learn strategies to ensure Twitter meets my needs and doesn’t negatively impact my wellness. Through this research and reflection, I feel prepared to take on Twitter for my professional learning in ICT with a fresh new perspective, and multiple purposes. 

Why Twitter?

    While I truly value my teaching team, connected with others on a social media platform, such as Twitter, will allow me to hear new perspectives from others in different schools, cities and countries. Learning from a more global PLN on Twitter will lead me to have more ideas to bring back to my team. LaGarde and Whitehead (2012) advocate for teachers building their PLN through social media, “the access the access that we have through technology enables us to stretch our PLNs beyond the limitations of our physical spaces or cohort of coworkers. Social media afford us the ability to form instant connections with other people globally” (p. 9).  Another thing that I like about Twitter as a tool to use for professional learning and building my PLN is that while browsing Twitter, I stumble across ideas and resources that I wasn’t looking for or didn’t realize existed. Trust, Carpenter, & Krutka (2018) discuss this experience of “serendipitous learning . . . when users are exposed to novel ideas that they were not intentionally seeking out” (p. 148). For example, I was able to attend a PD session on Swift Playground, a coding app, a few years ago that I wouldn’t have been aware of if I hadn’t opened Twitter and saw a peer post about it. 

Why now? 

    As I explained, I became less engaged in Twitter over time for a variety of reasons. Through my readings and after taking some time to look back at my old Twitter posts, I feel more prepared to find solutions to the reasons I pulled away from Twitter. One reason I felt discouraged about Twitter during the pandemic was because I felt as though every time I opened the app, I was not learning about education anymore. Rather, I was being faced with more COVID related news, or political posts. I also became discouraged by educational influencers who I felt were “teacher shaming” in their social media posts. LaGarde and Whitehead (2012) recommend educators on Twitter “focus on following people who are sharing quality links and ideas, people who are going to have an impact on your learning and, in turn, impact your students’ learning” (p. 13). These same thoughts are shared by Common Sense Education in their video, Starting a PLN on Twitter: A Quick Guide for Teachers; “the key is following people who you think will inspire you and help you grow as an educator” (2018, 1:13). This helped me remember that I do have some control over the content I see on Twitter by who I am following. I have now spent time unfollowing accounts whose content didn’t positively contribute to my professional learning. 

    The pandemic and the constant challenges and pivoting that came with it have led to me feeling less passionate than I used to. Now that school seems to be returning to normal, I am eager to reignite my passion and to bring more excitement into my teaching and learning. When I looked back on my old Twitter posts, I could see how excited and passionate I was about what I was posting. I remember learning new ideas, especially related to technology, from other educators on Twitter and being excited to try them with my students. For example, I also had the opportunity to make a connection with a teacher in my school division who I had never met before in-person because she Tweeted about a project that interested me. We had a Teams call and she taught me how to integrate Minecraft Education and Flipgrid into my Rocks & Minerals unit. I’m ready to get back into that excited and passionate mindset. Trust, Carpenter, & Krutka (2018) explain, “because most educator PLN activities online are voluntary, those who participate generally tend to be motivated, enthusiastic, and passionate” (p. 138). I look forward to being a more motivated and passionate member of my PLN, both in person and on Twitter. 

Photo: Screenshot of Wendy Wakeman's Tweet that inspired me to reach out to her about Minecraft Education. https://twitter.com/mswwake/status/1370136010567397377?s=20&t=WTJpt6VwkhaVvkg0WmhX2w

Photo: Screenshot of a Tweet that demonstrates my excitement for an example of an idea I learned on Twitter, Mystery Skype.

Resources:

LaGarde, J., & Whitehead, T. (2012). Power up: Your professional learning. Knowledge Quest, 41(2), 8-13.

Starting a PLN on Twitter: A Quick Guide For Teachers. (2018, January 3). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HegF3hezF4

Trust, T., Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2018). Leading by learning: Exploring the professional learning networks of instructional leaders. Educational Media International, 55(2), 137-152. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2018.1484041