Family Time
I was first introduced to the Twitter Chat world
with #edmodochat. Before then I didn't really see why I would want to get
involved in one more thing on social media. After all, that just takes more
time which is something I have "tons" of (LOL - Not! seriously!)
Edmodo has a workspace / learn space called the Hub. It really is a Hub to
learning, growing, sharing, playing and connecting. A challenge was presented
to "Come to the #edmodochat". Out of all the groups of people I am
connected to, I would say I feel the safest with my Edmodo family. For me, they
are encouraging, informative, timely and current. For these reasons, I stalked
like a ghost my first chat. Of course, I had to set up a Twitter account first (Bardehar!)
Step by step, I get where I am going. I "opened" the door to the chat
room, peered inside and found many of my Edmodo family had already arrived.
Even though they are family, I was still timid to join the chat. I saw there
was vocabulary I did not know, extra places to log in before and after chats,
back channels, navigation, and technology. What the heck was all this stuff? So
I followed as best I could turns out that was something else I needed to
learn. How was I supposed to comment, retweet, message and so on? Talk about a
roller coaster. My journey thus far has taken two years. I am sure I have not
learned everything there is to know about tweeting, but now I can follow
multiple conversations and chat with people from all around the world who are
all interested in making education better. I need these kinds of positive
conversations to help keep me encouraged motivated, current and creative. We
have to keep these skills honed or we are going to be standing in a field of
weeds in what was, not what is or what will be. If we are teaching to students
futures, we have to be cutting edge in strategies and technology.
My Learning
Virtually every month there is a #edmodochat. Now I am at the
point I want to "go" to the chat to "see" everyone and of course
what they have to say about the topic of the chat. I can safely say I learn
something at every chat. I am always drawn into a chat from a topic I love like
Culture, Service Learning and Global Collaboration which are like candy to
me! I have found though that I should attend chats that stretch me to think
more about the way I teach like Digital Citizenship, Project Based Learning and
Whole Child Development. Additionally, I learn what my peers are doing within
their sphere of influence and it challenges me to do more than I had dreamed
before.
Impact
There are many
more #edmodochats I have attended this year, but let me share some of how what
I have learned has impacted my school - not just my classroom.
I applied for
our school to be a Global School of Service with
Youth Service America. We were accepted! This opened the door to eligibility to
apply for grants. I applied and we received two grants $1500.00 each. We had
the single biggest day of cultural shift in our schools history on September
11th, 2017 for the Day of Service and Remembrance. A week later I debriefed
with the principal about the event and we could feel the shift in the
atmosphere. This is significant as we are an inner city school with 100% free
meals, a large percent of the student population are in displaced homes and
recognized on national news in 2017 as the 18th worst neighborhood in the
nation and low performing school. At the end of the year I applied to become a
certifying organization for the President's Volunteer Service Award and was
accepted. This week, as part of our summer service project, we completed
our first elevated bed with trellis. We plan to augment an addition 9 beds to
the same style. This will help with weeding, shade, climbing plant and
aesthetic beauty. I helped my students experience and learn more
about global collaboration by participating in Global Collaboration Day, Global Maker Day International Dot Day, and MLK Day of Service to mention a few.
Discussions
from #edmodochat about Digital Citizenship have encouraged me to look into
technology and literacy, learning how to influence and transform a student to
be a respectful, responsible and resourceful citizen on and offline. I have
used the Edmodo Spotlight resource
center to search for creative lesson resources, used KQED to
strengthen my media literacy skills and get ideas to teach students, ISTE to learn about student and educational leader
standards, EverFi for
self-paced courses and Common Sense Media to help
with discussions about digital citizenship, character just to name a few. I
worked with my school academy team to add a Digital Literacy & Citizenship
element into capstone projects for graduation requirements.
The focus on
Project Based Learning has been fuel to service learning projects where
students discover the need, do the research and implement a program. Two 8th
grade students wrote and applied for a grants for a recycling program and
breakfast program. Their passion lead them through research, data collection,
budgets, team building, leadership and impact. Together they received $1500.00
for their projects.
I was accepted to present
at ASCD Empower18 in Boston and the #edmodochat about Whole
Child Development were informative and made me feel even more prepared for the
conference. The Whole Child
Initiative is a focus from just
academics to the long term success of all children. I was able to attend the
Global Leadership Summit pre conference in Boston and finally met Lucy
Gray, part of the Edmodo Family, #edmodochat and global guru. I went to a
session with Barbara Boroson and did my first full session sketchnote, a method
of communicating I learned via twitter chats. I was exhausted from so much
information processing, but pretty excited. When I shared with Barbara, it
turned out to be her first encounter with sketchnoting and was pretty excited
to use it as an additional method to encourage students with autism to take
their notes and share what they learn. Additionally, I applied for a
grant to support Social Emotional Learning (SEL) for students in our school. As
I went through the grant writing process I reflected on the Whole Child and SEL
needs of our school.
Participating in each
#edmodochat challenges my metacognition to give reflective responses that
contribute to the chat conversations. This process helps develop me as a
learner, leader and innovator. I am able to apply digital literacy and
citizenship, build my personal brand, add to my portfolio and inspire others.
This journey which started with #edmodochat gave me the confidence to take on
building and managing our school twitter account @ocmhsbison. It also was a
foundation for our administrators to start a school #TheBisonHerd to help
teachers grow, collaborate, celebrate, share and strengthen a positive school
culture of digital citizenship. I recently explored a new chat with #aussieed
and have started a new PLN family on the other side of the world. The adventure
continues.
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