7 Ways My Classroom Is Better Because I Connect (EdSurge News)

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Being connected is not easy. I’ve spent three years on Twitter building relationships and co-moderating and participating in education chats. I am constantly reading (and writing!

Kelly Christopherson‘s insight:

Connected Educator in the US begins today. The idea is to advance the idea that educators need to be connected to other educators and tehnology allows for this to happen. Twitter is one of the primary ways for educators to connect and this artcile provides 7 postive ways that Twitter impacts the classroom. 

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2 Comments

  1. Reply

    Kelly I’m blown away by the connections I’ve made in less than a year on Twitter. It’s totally evolved the way PD works now. If I have a question I simply tweet it out and instantly I have a response. It’s amazing!

    • Reply

      I know. Having been here for over 5 years, I’ve made some great contacts. I think that being connected goes through stages and I’m past the “Wow, look at what I can do” and “who I can contact”. It’s more about bringing balance to what we do that I’m looking at now. I see so many teachers now being caught up in this move to be connected, I worry about the impact this will have on teachers in the short and long term. I’m concerned because I know the time I’ve put into the online world. Now, things have changed drastically in the past 2 years and we’ve seen a huge change in the upswing in the number of educators becoming connected. I believe that this will only continue but it will impact teachers. Some things, the PD and growth, will be a positive while things like work balance, work expectations will be impacted by the online access which will in turn impact the work-life of teachers. We are seeing more teachers leaving the profession within their first 7 years than ever before – they give work stress and the expectations as leading reasons. I know that it also has the potential to cause a bigger gap between teachers creating even more division within schools/divisions/districts as we see more pressure being placed on teachers to increase student performance.
      We live in a great time within the profession but we have to be aware of how these many things impact people. As I personally go through a huge change in my life, partially created by the changes taking place in schools and expectations, I know that we don’t pay enough attention to the impact on the lives of teachers. But you are right, the connections is great when it comes to seeking input and finding ideas/information/answers.

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