Guest post from @inquirebook in the #Edchat Category & other 12noon NYC summaries found on Berni Wall’s blog!

Today’s #edchat topic, How do we bring students into the discussion on how to improve the school environment? was intriguing. In the discussion, most participants pointed out that we cannot invite students to the table unless we are also prepared to work with their suggestions. A few focused on how a shift in culture needs to occur, one in which students take ownership of their own educations and learn to advocate for themselves. Some pointed out that students who are allowed to make their own choices often make bad choices, but others argued that the only way to learn how to make decisions is to make many decisions. The group generally agreed that if students are invited to offer suggestions, they should also be part of solving the problem, not just leaving adults to do the solving.

At a future #Edchat I’d be interested in discussing, What alternative models would allow the government to ensure school quality without relying on high-stakes testing?

Main Themes of the Chat

• We need to listen to students.
• We need to help students develop a sense of ownership in their educations.
• To do so, we need a shift in school culture.
• Students need to make decisions–many of them–and mistakes in order to learn to be problem solvers.
• Digital solutions could give everyone a voice and provide students a format they understand.

Thought-Provoking Comments

With such a vibrant discussion, it’s almost impossible to do it justice in a summary, but I’ve picked out some of the comments that inspired me and made me reflect.

@TJwolfe_: First of all, let students speak!! Stop lecturing and start listening! #edchat
@tomwhitby: We cannot invite students to the table unless we are willing to accept what they have to offer. #Edchat
@inquirebook: I think we first ask students what the goals of school should be–a guiding question for their inquiry. #edchat
@TheresaShafer: Have open forums for students, not just elected student councils. #edchat
@jessievaz12: We recently asked our 6th gr stdts to brainstorm ideas on how to improve transition from 5th. Amazing what came out. #edchat
@tomwhitby: We need the leadership to accept the fact that the learning environment needs change, and opinions for that change. #Edchat
@davidwees: If our schools are to be representations of our democracy, they must be more democratic. All stakeholders need a voice. #edchat
@Aaron_Eyler: How about realizing that just because they are kids doesn’t mean their ideas aren’t better than those with degrees? #edchat
@davidwees: Students learn how to make decisions by making decisions, lots of them. #edchat
@tsocko: Put the discussion in a format that kid communicate…digital! #edchat
@inquirebook: If students take ownership of their education, it ceases to be something *done* to them. #edchat
@tomwhitby: Teaching kids HOW to learn seems more important than WHAT to learn. Involving kids in the decision process is a HOW to learn thing #Edchat
@jheil65: Hard to change the environment w/o first changing the culture. . .Create the kind of school you want and the environment will follow #edchat
@21stprincipal: Students have to believe they have a say in what happens in their school. #edchat
@tomwhitby: If kids own an idea, they are more likely to support it. Works for teachers as well. #Edchat
@shfarnsworth: We must teach our students to transform their voice into a mean for change. How to inspire/create action! Responsible Citizen #edchat
@monicaannebatac: Students must learn 2 be activists & advocates for themselves – in school & beyond. – & also listen 2 and consider other voices #edchat
@jaluribe: Participation has to start in kindergarten. Older students can be like birds in open cages. Believing they can’t fly. #edchat
@CTuckerEnglish: Including all student voices is logistically challenging. Using an online forum might allow for equity of voices in convo #edchat
@TJwolfe_: We need to make school decision making into a teachable moment for everyone! Students included. #edchat
@ShellTerrell: Getting students involved in edreform begins with a question & continues with implementation of ideas #edchat
@Aaron_Eyler: It is totally a heretical thing. Ppl in charge didnt get listened to in school so they don’t listen to kids today. #edchat #breakthecycle
@CTuckerEnglish: If we engage students in process of determining how to best improve schools, that creates buy in & accountability. #edchat

To follow the complete discussion visit the transcript here!

More Resources

As ever, there were some great links shared:

@readingrockets: What makes a school good? http://ow.ly/6gDjp
@Inga_Ros I spoke about that at the #140edu You can see my presentation here http://t.co/TIKYnXo
@edutopia: Worth a read. RT @kylepace: What Schools Can Learn Frm #Google, IDEO, & Pixar http://t.co/42W2sfz

New to Edchat?

If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every Tuesday on Twitter. Over 3000 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!

• Edchat: Join the Conversation
• Tips for a Successful Edchat
• Using Tweetdeck for Hashtag Discussions

More Edchat

• If you would like to join others in transforming the discussion into action, please feel free to join the Edchat group on the Educator PLN ning.
• Jerry Swiatek does an incredible job of posting each archived transcript on the Edchat wiki created by Steve Johnson. This way you can look back at your favorites!
• Find previous summaries here on this blog – see edchat category on right sidebar
• Follow other Edchatters and make sure you are on this Twitter list if you participate in Edchat!

Challenge:

If you’re new to hashtag discussions, then just show up on Twitter on any Tuesday and add just a few tweets on the topic with the hashtag #edchat.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment!

______________________________________________________________________________

I’m Rob King, lead author of Inquire: a Guide to 21st Century Learning. It’s a student handbook that teaches 21st century skills, study skills, inquiry, and project-based learning. I’m also editor in chief at Sebranek, Inc., the parent company of Write Source, UpWrite Press, and Thoughtful Learning. To learn more, go to www.thoughtfullearning.com.

Guest post from @USCTeacher in the #Edchat Category & other 12noon NYC summaries found on Berni Wall’s blog!

Today’s #edchat topic, What effect has social media (SM) had in your development as an educator? Is SM for every educator?, was intriguing. The topic pulled in both personal reflection for participators to think about their usage of social media as an educator as well as think about social media globally as a part of their profession. What was also great about this topic is that it made participators think not only about their usage of social media, but their colleagues, giving them a broader perspective on social media in general and in the education world. Personally, social media has changed my world in regards to professional development and building a PLN – I’ve been able to connect with educators all over the world as well as watch students in the program I work for (the MAT@USC) connect and share across oceans. Social media might not be for everyone in the “first person” sense, but at a minimal, is necessary to use and develop with colleagues.

At a future #Edchat I’d be interested in discussing, How can we encourage using SM in higher-ed? — Are there benefits?

Main Themes of the Chat

•  Social medial allows professional development amongst educators
•  Professional development has become global and personal thanks to social media
•  Twitter can be used as a springboard to other things – depth, collaboration, projects
• Social media may not be for every educator, but it effects all educators
• Teaching both students and teachers how to use social media will help us learn
• Social media must be taught by doing

Thought-Provoking Comments

With such a vibrant discussion, it’s almost impossible to do it justice in a summary, but I’ve picked out some of the comments that inspired me and made me reflect.

1. @tomwhitby: How can we hold kids responsible for misusing SM when we refuse to teach it to them responsibly? #Edchat
2. @monicaannebatac: YES! Safe, responsible use of SM is necessary from teachers and students alike #edchat
3. @drdouggreen: You convince others what they are missing by having them sit next to you during an edchat. #edchat
4. @davidwees: SM is a tool WE can define edu reform & transform #edchat
5. @CTuckerEnglish: SM can be overwhelming 4 new user. Trick is to start slow. Find a tool that works & appreciate benefits then branch out #edchat
6. @jessievaz12: I love SM because it has awakened my passion in my prof. It makes me want 2B more progressive & find something to share w others #edchat
7. @MrMatthewRay: The world has changed rapidly – education has not. It must. SM is huge component. #edchat
8. @isteconnects: All educators should have basic understanding of social media. It’s ignorance that breeds fear of the tools #edchat
9. @teewhyare: that’s exactly what social media is intended to be: one large classroom w/ no tuition. This is my playground and class. #edchat
10. @davidwees: What would happen if every school was connected by at least 1 person through social media to every other school? #edchat
11. @courosa: i don’t know if SocMed is that which is unforgiving – it’s ppl that are. SocMed just exposes our raw humanity. #edchat
12. @timbuckteeth: we teach kids to cross street safely, must do same with SM – they’ll be using it anyway. #edchat
13. @inquirebook: I like the immediacy of Twitter. I get my breaking education news here. #edchat
14. @cybraryman1: I love the fact that when I do not know something there is always someone in my PLN who has the answer. #edchat

To follow the complete discussion visit the transcript here!

More Resources

As ever, there were some great links shared:

• 140 Conference Videos
• Vocab Gal On Twitter: Education Link Love
• That’s the way we’ve always done it…
• 5 Essential Tips for Introducing your Students to Twitter

New to Edchat?

If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every Tuesday on Twitter. Over 3000 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!

• Edchat: Join the Conversation
• Tips for a Successful Edchat
• Using Tweetdeck for Hashtag Discussions

More Edchat

• If you would like to join others in transforming the discussion into action, please feel free to join the Edchat group on the Educator PLN ning.
• Jerry Swiatek does an incredible job of posting each archived transcript on the Edchat wiki created by Steve Johnson. This way you can look back at your favorites!
• Find previous summaries here on this blog – see edchat category on right sidebar
• Follow other Edchatters and make sure you are on this Twitter list if you participate in Edchat!

Challenge:

If you’re new to hashtag discussions, then just show up on Twitter on any Tuesday and add just a few tweets on the topic with the hashtag #edchat.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment!

______________________________________________________________________________

Sarah Fudin currently works as a community manager for the University of Southern California’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, which provides aspiring teachers the opportunity to earn a Master’s degree and teaching credential online. Outside of work Sarah enjoys running, reading and Pinkberry frozen yogurt.

Part of the #Edchat Category

#Edchat turns TWO this week!

For the last 2 years #Edchat has been the birth of  conversation for over 2000 educators weekly on how to improve education worldwide! #Edchat has created real change by igniting new projects, adding more educators to the conversation, inspiring over 400 educational chats, inspiring a new school, inspiring a free online conference with over 4000 attendees, and so much more. The conversation began 2 years ago with 3 educators- (Tom Whitby (@TomWhitby), Steven Anderson (@Web20Classroom), and (@ShellTerrell))- who desired education transformation and saw the need for educational stakeholders to discuss, debate, explore, reflect, react, and act on various issues which impact education. For this reason, I would argue that #Edchat is one of the most powerful hashtags creating real change in schools.
You can engage in the movement by:

• suggesting topics on the poll
• voting for topics
• engaging in the discussion
• blogging about the conversations
• inviting friends to the conversation
• presenting about the educator communities that exist
• transforming the conversation into action at your schools

In it’s two years, #Edchat has inspired, motivated, and transform educational stakeholders. We have a diverse group of student teachers, parents, students, administrators, and community leaders who participate weekly in order to collaborate on improving our education systems worldwide!

This was last year’s Wallwisher! Please continue the tradition by adding how Edchat has impacted you!

Helpful Edchat Resources!

Edchat is transformational because of you! Here are helpful resources to become more involved or to help introduce educators to Edchat!

• Edchat: Join the Conversation post- Read about the origins of Edchat and how to participate.
• Video: Edchat: Join the Movement!

• Tom Whitby explains the origins of Edchat and the motivation!
• Grab your Edchat Edublog Award to embed on your blog!
• Edchat Wiki with all the Archives!
• Edchat Facebook page!
• Edchat Group on The Educator’s PLN Ning!
• Edchat Post: Tips for a Successful Edchat
• 7pm NYC EDT: Edchat Weekly Summaries by Steven Anderson.
• 12pm NYC EDT: Edchat Weekly Summaries by Berni Wall.
• How to Participate in Edchat Using Tweetdeck
• Several Edchat resources on @Cybraryman1‘s website!
• Edchat Twitter Participant List.
• Edchat Poll to vote for topics.

We’d like to thank the following for their weekly dedication to Edchat:

• Regular Weekly Moderators- Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1), @rliberni (Berni Wall), @kylepace (Kyle Pace), @mbteach (Mary Beth Hertz)
• Jerry Swiatek (@Jswiatek) archives all the Edchats
• Steve Johnson (@EdtechSteve) maintains the Edchat wiki

Challenge:

Get another educator involved in the Edchat conversations which take place every Tuesday at 12pm NYC EDT and 7pm NYC EDT! Participate by engaging a few and adding #Edchat to the end of your tweet.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What would you like to see from Edchat this upcoming year?

Part 1 of the Education Transformation Through Collaborative Voices series

In a recent #Edchat discussion I reflected, “There are more educators than politicians involved in education, yet politicians make the majority of education policy decisions. How do we change this dynamic?” One of the drawbacks of undergoing training as an educator is that we rarely get training in the art of spreading messages. We don’t learn how to connect with an audience, how to make our presentations/workshops memorable, or how to get a message to be viral through various media outlets. Fortunately, I started off in the business field. I went to a magnet school for 4 years that focused on business and weekly I gave presentations to persuade top business leaders to fund our school. I was a part of Toastmasters, marketing clubs/classes, and competed regularly in speech competitions. By the time I had entered college, I had already given presentations to an audience of over 500. In college I graduated with a minor in Communication and spent years studying communication theory and public speaking.

Why Educators Could Do With Some Marketing Training

This training has helped me immensely as an educator who cares about transformation, because the reality is that the media and politicians have a firm grounding in this type of training, therefore, know how to persuade their audiences into their beliefs. They may only be a few compared to educators but clearly this training and their connections provide them with the ability to be heard by audiences worldwide and implement various education policies. They spread their messages about what education reform should be, which include “firing teachers and focusing on standardized tests.” Examples of these messages include the recent Waiting for Superman documentary watched by millions, Michelle Rhee making the cover of Time, and Oprah’s various shows with John Legend and others voicing their opinions about education reform.

The Damage

Educators have seen how these policies harm children and the learning process. The typical child worldwide attends school 180 to 200 days a year. The typical child sits in a desk at least 4 hours a day and is drilled with information as the teacher lectures. Rarely do our children get to move, play, explore their interests, experiment with knowledge, or communicate what they have learned. Drilling, worksheets, and sitting in desks being silent does not motivate children to become lifelong learners. Instead, it kills their creativity and curiosity. Without a voice to question and figure out the meaning of what they have learned, students begin to lose the ability to problem solve and critical think effectively.

So How Do We Begin to Spread Our Message of Education Transformation?

As an educator who cares about transformation I believe we need to collect our voices worldwide and collaborate to impact education policy worldwide. We can do this through social media. With Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter alone we have the ability to spread a message to millions and impact an audience of millions worldwide. We have the ability to impact our world in a positive manner. In a series of posts, we will explore various ways to spread a message through various social networks in order to transform current education systems. I describe this in my Keynote that I gave for the Plymouth E-Learning Conference in April.

5 Tips to Keep in Mind When Crafting Your Message

Although we will explore how to craft our messages in the various social media outlets, there are some tips to keep in mind for spreading any type of message. These include:

• Remember your audience- We have a tough audience, because parents, students, community leaders, administrators, and other educational stakeholders have experience in the education system. They have formed opinions based on them getting through the traditional style of education and believe often if they did it then our students should be able. Even if they should, why educate this way? When we craft our messages we have to step into their shoes, figure out the arguments and preconceived notions we have to combat.
• Appeal to the senses- We live in a multimedia world. Our presentations should be visually appealing, drive to the point versus being littered with words, and include effects that reinforce the media. The Shift Happens videos have 20 million views and have had an impact worldwide. You will notice they are professionally done with great music, visuals, and effects.
• Share stories- Stories and examples of what you do in your class and how students respond are powerful. Often seeing students excited about learning changes many minds.
• Craft your message according to the medium- Remember that each social media forum has its own language. The way we impact an audience on Facebook is different than the way we send that message on Twitter. On Twitter we have hashtags but this won’t appeal to many Facebook users who do not use Twitter. Knowing the language of the medium helps us understand the best way to craft our messages. This is why I take time to lurk and observe the way people communicate on the medium.
• Convey Your Passion- The most important tip to remember is to believe in your message and inspire others with your passion. I have seen presenters speak without any of the 4 above but had so much passion their audience was held captive. Passion impacts and transforms opinions. If you lose your passion then move onto the message you are passionate about.

I believe that when enough of the educators in social networks gather and begin to spread their messages of what education transformation looks like to the rest of the world, we will begin to see the transformation take place. We will drown out the voices of the politicians, celebrities, and media who think firing teachers and focusing on standardized tests is education reform.

What tips do you have? What do you believe education transformation should look like? How will you spread that message?

More Resources

• Two: The Power of Educators on Social Networks
• Education Transformation Through Collaborative Videos
• The Idea Virus by Seth Godin- Get your free pdf copy and see the slideshow. Seth Godin is a must read if you want to be a viral educator.
• Blog4Reform Project- Join educators and others in spreading the word of education transformation!
• Blog 4 Real Education Reform – The Sequel
• Wallwisher of Education Reform Posts initiated by Tom Whitby

Yesterday was the last #Edchat of the year and it definitely ranked as one of my favorites. During the 12pm EST/ 5pm GMT #Edchat, we discussed:

Is the idea of digital native really a myth? Do most kids today already have the skills and knowledge to master technology for learning?

We were fortunate to have students join this conversation. I would like to thank Tinashe Blanchet (@Mrsblanchetnet) and Angel Gelle Dozier (@Gellesastar) for having their students join the conversation. This was a unique opportunity to get the student perspective on the idea of the Digital Native Theory and some of their responses were quite surprising. I hope they will join us again for another #Edchat because discussions about education need to have varied perspectives from the various educational stakeholders involved.

What Do the Students Think?

As a moderator I took the opportunity of interviewing the students during the discussion to get their ideas on the use of technology in schools. These were some of the insights from the conversation:

• The 6th graders seemed more excited about using Facebook and cellphones for learning
• The high school students seemed to believe that these tools would be abused
• Both groups confirmed that their parents for the most part were unhappy about the impact of technology in their lives

These insights suggest we need to educate both parents and students in the use of technology in schools. Gellesastar‘s 6th graders suggested we involve parents by having online PTA meetings so that the parents see how effective technology can be. I think teachers can be very proactive about getting parents and students to understand the benefits of using certain technologies for learning by holding parent workshops that demonstrate what technologies will be used and how, blogging about student projects, publishing student work, creating video tutorials that show parents how to use the technologies, and being transparent about how they use technology to help students learn.

Here are the responses from the high school students and 6th graders:

@Gellesastar‘s 6th graders were so excited about the idea of learning through Facebook and cellphones they stood up and applauded in the classroom! They were even motivated to add more responses in a Google Doc. Here is the screenshot of that Google Doc:

Challenge:

Ask your students the same questions. How do they feel about using cellphones or Facebook for learning? Do they believe they are digital natives?

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your thoughts about the students’ comments?

Screenshots taken from the collected conversations aggregated by Bettween.com!

Tom Whitby recently challenged education bloggers to post about positive education transformation in the midst of the teacher bashing occurring in the media. The teacher bashing has upset me, too, especially after hearing teachers at the recent televised Education Nation broadcast resoundingly shout, “Fire bad teachers.” Education transformation isn’t easy or else the education system would have improved immensely within the last 100 years. Maybe we have better facilities and more children receive an education, but we still have numerous problems to fix.

Current Education Roarers

Every field has employees who don’t perform according to certain expectations. Smart business folks will tell you that not only isn’t firing cost-effective, but usually it isn’t the employee who is the problem. If many employees are failing to meet their job expectations it is a training and management problem. My business background has taught me this, but apparently most of the general public worldwide doesn’t realize this when it comes to education or they wouldn’t cheer the mass firing of teachers or candidates and celebrities who support this. These unfortunately are the roars that are being heard worldwide in the sudden movement for education reform.

These aren’t the voices that the public should be listening to or hearing. Instead, I would love for us, our educator Passionate Learning Network (PLN), to be the voices that are heard.

How We Roar

During the Education Nation debate I commented, “If every educator in our PLN shared, shared, shared their best practices on social media we wouldn’t be a voice we’d be a roar.” Right now over 50,000 educators participate in Social Networks worldwide for professional development (Just check the membership of the various educator Nings, Facebook educator groups, and Educators on Twitter).

I believe our whispers are getting louder, but we can have more impact if we….

Have daily conversations with all stakeholders

Continuous conversations with all educational stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, administrators, community leaders, and support staff) are the way towards positive education transformation. We need to get all sides to listen to each other and collaborate.

The problem is that we aren’t being heard by the majority of society. Parents haven’t seen how we are educating students and preparing them to problem solve and collaborate with technology. Other educators we work side by side with don’t know we blog or read our blogs even if they do. Our progress with students isn’t being noticed by the media only our test scores. Our administrators aren’t seeing the potential of social networks. I’m talking about the majority of our situations. Let’s face it, most educational stakeholders don’t collaborate with us in our social networks. You’ll find them on Facebook, with Youtube accounts, and contributing to social networks for personal reasons but they just don’t collaborate with us.

But we’re growing…

I’ve been on Twitter for a little over a year and I can see a movement growing. We are adding educators worldwide to our online educator communities. I believe this is because so many of us are sharing with our school communities. We are providing online professional development, sharing through several social networks, and even getting noticed by different media sources such as Mashable, the Huffington Post, and TV news. I love when my PLN tweets they have been in the news. I tweet these resources because we should spread good press to combat the negative press. These sources are where the majority of society tunes into so we should spread the word and try to get ourselves in these various media outlets.

Share, Share, Share….

We need to have daily conversations with stakeholders and share what we do with our students. We have to be transparent and not be afraid of letting the public step into our classrooms. We need to have faith that what excites us about how our students are learning will excite their parents, our staff, and the public. If we invite stakeholders to see what we do then we get them to evaluate us based on more than test scores. Unfortunately, we will be evaluated by standardized test scores for a long time as we have been for decades. However, if our community knows about the work we do with students then we have other measures in place to show our students development.

Projects To Help Us Roar

Our ideas for positive education transformation need to be heard. As long as teachers continue to be scapegoats no real education transformation will take place and the millions of children who fail to receive a proper education and enter into poverty will continue to escalate.

So how do we collect the voices in our PLN so we can become a roar?

Several projects have begun that you can participate in to help us become a collective voice:

• Participate in blogging calls such as this one by Tom Whitby, Ira Socol’s Blogging For Real Reform Challenge, and Scott Mcleod’s annual Leadership Day Blog Challenge
• Join the Youtube Educator Stories project where we are aiming to get over 1000 videos of positive practices
• Participate in the Reform Symposium and other free virtual conference for educators and invite your entire staff to them
  
• Participate in educational chats like #Edchat and invite another educator to join. Here’s a list of all educational chats and times by @Cybraryman1
  
• Join the 30 Goals Challenge and learn how to use social networks to spread your best practices! Invite teachers new to online educator communities to join this free community of mentors and read the free e-book.
• Share all these free presentations with your community and invite teachers, students, administrators, and community leaders. It’s time we had conversations with all stakeholders.
  
• Create news blurbs about your innovative practice and share with the local media. Often they are looking for stories and if they can film you and your students they will jump at the opportunity. Ask several till one says yes! Here are some tips for getting on the news!
  
• Send out media waivers and publish your work in a wiki, blog, or free school website. Share this on your Facebook account or other place where the public has access and can see the great things you are doing!

Hear Our Voices Rising…

As I finish this post, I am so happy to note that Tom Whitby’s challenge was met with great success. Over 100 educators have written about reform today. Check out their posts in the Wallwisher below Become part of a movement. We need your voice! You have something to contribute!

Challenge:
Participate in one of these projects and have a conversation with someone you haven’t about what exciting thing you do with your students!

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What other projects do you know of that help educators gain a collective voice for positive education transformation?

#Edchat turns ONE this week!

THANK YOU!

It has been an incredible year of opening a conversation to over 2000 educators weekly! The conversation began a year ago with 3 educators (Tom Whitby (@TomWhitby), Steven Anderson (@Web20Classroom), and I (@ShellTerrell)) who desired education reform and saw the need for educational stakeholders to discuss, debate, explore, and reflect on various issues which impact education. This was how the hashtag, #Edchat, began but really it has been an amazing year because you contribute each week by:

• suggesting topics on the poll
• voting for topics
• engaging in the discussion
• transforming the conversation into action at your schools

In it’s first year, #Edchat has inspired, motivated, and transform educational stakeholders. We have a diverse group of student teachers, parents, students, administrators, and community leaders who participate weekly in order to collaborate on improving our education systems worldwide!

In the first year, Edchat has seen great moments, such as:

• winning the Edublogs Award for Most Influential Tweet Discussion
• involving guest speaker Alfie Kohn!
• being a trending topic on Twitter!
• inspiring several blog posts from educators worldwide
• birthing collaborative projects, such as The Reform Symposium E-Conference

Please leave a message of how Edchat has impacted you on this Wallwisher by clicking anywhere on the wall!

Helpful Edchat Resources!

Edchat is transformational because of you! Here are helpful resources to become more involved or to help introduce educators to Edchat!

• Edchat: Join the Conversation post- Read about the origins of Edchat and how to participate.
• Video: Edchat: Join the Movement!
• Tom Whitby explains the origins of Edchat and the motivation!
• Grab your Edchat Edublog Award to embed on your blog!
• Edchat Wiki with all the Archives!
• Edchat Facebook page!
• Edchat Group on The Educator’s PLN Ning!
• Edchat Weekly Statistics and Contributors!
• 7pm NYC EDT: Edchat Weekly Summaries by Steven Anderson.
• 12pm NYC EDT: Edchat Weekly Summaries by Berni Wall.
• How to Participate in Edchat Using Tweetdeck.
• Several Edchat resources on @Cybraryman1‘s website!
• Edchat Twitter Participant List.
• Easily follow Edchat participants with Blast Follow.
• Edchat Poll to vote for topics.
• Edchat Twitter Parade.

We’d like to thank the following for their weekly dedication to Edchat:

• Regular Weekly Moderators- @rliberni (Berni Wall), @kylepace (Kyle Pace), @mbteach (Mary Beth Hertz)
• Jerry Swiatek (@Jswiatek) archives all the Edchats
• Steve Johnson (@EdtechSteve) maintains the Edchat wiki

Challenge:

Get another educator involved in the Edchat conversations which take place every Tuesday at 12pm NYC EDT and 7pm NYC EDT! Participate by engaging a few and adding #Edchat to the end of your tweet.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What would you like to see from Edchat this upcoming year?

One of my favorite movies is Jerry Maguire, because he suddenly wakes up one day and realizes that the way things are don’t have to continue to be that way. He realizes he has the ability to change his environment and he develops his manifesto.

Developing our manifestos for education reform…

I believe events like The Reform Symposium Conference and Edchat inspire educators to wake up and begin developing their manifestos whether it be for abolishing grades, getting rid of standardized tests, or helping students find their passions. I believe these events inspire passion and transform schools. However, not all believe they do and would try to convince you that what you believe and the transformation inside of you doesn’t matter. I would like to encourage you to ignore them and instead begin to lend your voice to the conversation. The education systems in your countries need your voices and your passion.

The sad reality I’ve seen…

I have worked in low-income schools, with at risk students, at alternative schools, with gang members, homeless children, etc. I have entered several school environments and have seen teachers who are worn down by the system. Educators often allow themselves to be fed with negativity and surround themselves with people who do not support them. Their administrators may complain about them, the parents may blame them, the media bashes them, education policy doesn’t support them, bureaucracy overburdens them, and the students disrespect them. I do not believe teachers are bad. I believe they are weighed down by the lack of support.

If several educators across the world feel this way this impacts the school culture and environment. Dispassionate teachers aren’t motivated to inspire passion in their students and they aren’t motivating their students. The problem is we need educators to motivate students. Too much of the world is living in poverty. Too much of the world is inadequately educated. Too many students grow up to repeat poverty and crime cycles. Too many students never achieve their dreams. Too many children stop dreaming in schools.

That is why we need you to be passionate! We need you to inspire other educators! We need your voice in the conversation about education reform! We need you to contribute and develop PLNs. When we begin to develop our Personal/Passionate Learning Networks we become inspired to write our manifestos and we do act!

Passionate people don’t sit still!

Instead, passionate educators inspire their students, try to engage parents, and try to implement change. This is how transformation and reform are created, by those who speak up and fight for a better way. We witnessed this at The Reform Symposium free virtual conference! We were inspired by passionate educators who had transformed their students’ lives. We witnessed what many say is impossible in schools taking place. We began to think about the possibilities! I was so excited to see many new faces and connect with educators I had never had a conversation with before! Thank you!

There will always be people who disagree…

Here’s the thing about passion and movements, there will always be those who believe in the status quo, voice their criticisms, or who would rather close the conversation. Beth Still recently wrote a fantastic post, Are We Our Own Worst Enemy?, regarding this topic. I find opposing opinions refine our beliefs and passions. I believe opposing opinions help us to determine if we really are passionate about the movements we follow. However, I want to challenge those who would say our voices are not creating change to join the conversation. Only when we choose to quit the conversation do we guarantee we never transform the system.

What professional development should look like…

The Reform Symposium managed to do amazing things in its first year.

Image Courtesy of Orlando Falvo via Twitter

I’ve been privileged to collaborate with one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with in my life! Chris Rogers, Kelly Tenkely, and Jason Bedell are amazing!

Important Reform Symposium Resources

• Download the free podcasts of the presentations on ITunes.
• Download the recorded sessions, chat transcripts, and slides by clicking on the presenter’s profile.
• Access the links that were part of the presentations by @billbrown and @beckyjoy.
• Quotes from the conference by @Jenverschoor.
• Follow the hashtag #RSCON10.
• Follow people using the #RSCON10 hashtag by using Blast Follow.

Challenge:

Go spread the passion and transform your schools!

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

Edchat recently won the Edublogs Award for Most Influential Tweet Series 2009! 155 of you voted for the tweet series which has really filled Tom Whitby, Steven Anderson, and me with pride. You can read about the origins of Edchat here! When we first discussed the creation of the hashtag and collaborated how we would approach this we never expected any of this. PLN, you have blessed us this year.

Congratulations to you!

Really you earned this award. Therefore, we encourage each of you to wear the badge proudly on your blogs, wikis, or anywhere you would like. Just copy then paste the following html code in your sidebar:

<a href=”http://edublogawards.com/2009/most-influential-tweet-series-2009/”><img title=”Best Individual” src=”http://edublogawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/most_influential_tweets1.png” alt=”" width=”173″ height=”173″ /></a>

It will look like this:

Note: If this does not work, you may have to download the zip file and follow these directions by Sue Waters, http://edublogawards.com/winner-badges-are-now-available/.

Edchat is a Community

A project like Edchat runs on a community and that community is made up of your enormous contributions. Every Tuesday, you debate, share resources, ask difficult questions, and collaborate with others on how to improve the condition of education. Above and beyond this, you propose and vote for the questions we discuss, blog about the topics discussed, and participate in the Edchat group on the Educators PLN ning. If you haven’t yet, please join! In the group, you can find out more about Edchat projects like the wikipedia article, Edchat wiki page, and various interviews and articles that have come about!

If you haven’t had the chance to join an Edchat conversation, please watch this video which explains more and read this post to help you participate!

I look forward to continue working with Tom Whitby and Steven Anderson on this project! They are amazing. More accolades:

• Jerry Swiatek, @jswiatek, does an incredible job of posting each archived transcript on the Edchat wiki created by Steve Johnson, @edtechsteve.
• Berni Wall, @rliberni has done an amazing job helping me moderate the 6pm CET/ 12pm EST Edchat discussions! She also writes some of the Edchat summaries.
• Follow other Edchatters and make sure you are on this Twitter list if you participate in Edchat!

A special congratulations to all winners, runner-ups, and nominees. Just to be nominated by other educators with such amazing educators in the field is a reward!  Thank you readers for voting for this blog. Click here, to view all winners!

Challenge:

Wear your badge! You deserve it.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for free to receive regular updates!

6pm CET/ 12pm EST Edchat Summary

In this week’s Edchat we tried tackling this difficult question, “Are teachers leaders in education? Should real change involve teachers or those that have “real power” such as Administrators?”

Although many agreed changed was needed in schools across the world, we came up with many different conclusions on where this change should begin.

What some #edchat participants had to say…

j_allen I think change has to involve teachers…they need to buy in for it to be legit
WPrettyman First time: Don’t teachers have “real power” with students?
dlourcey For real change, to change a culture, it has to happen at the model in chief level. Admin must lead and learn.
johnmclear A good leader will inspire teachers to lead their own dept decision making processes
ShellTerrell Are teachers leaders in education? I would say definitely but they need support of parents, admin, students
Tamaslorincz Good evening from Dubai. I think admin know how to run an institution but know little about education, they need teachers.
cybraryman1 Unfortunately many admin & upper level decision makers are too far removed from the classroom.
fernandocassola Leadership should be shared by both, because som things need to be worked by admin and others by teachers and dont forget students..
nashworld In our district, admin directly supports “middle level leaders” in a leadership symposium of teachers who naturally lead by actions
olafelch @WPrettyman The smart answer would be, “yes, if the students let you!” ;o)
dlourcey Absolutely agree. Teacher leaders are the movers and the shakers. The early adopters will help influence the naysayers
MatthiasHeil Admins are good admins if they stand in bad teachers’ way…
MissCheska Teachers as leaders in Edu? Yes, they are the ones in the classrooms; they know what works/what doesn’t
foes4sports Ideally, real change involves both, but if your admin. isn’t techy, you don’t have any choice but to push for change personally.
olafelch @aeringuy Then why is change / modernisation in teaching so slow?
WPrettyman @olafelch Granted! Good Admins will teach through their own ways of interacting with students and faculty.
elanaleoni I’ve seen change happen from the bottom up, starting with parents and also from the top down w/ admins. (Depends on the culture)
MissCheska Who says there must only be one body of leaders in Edu? Structure of edu relies on collab b/w all parties involved
raffelsol Teachers that lead the change are those that USE technology OUTSIDE of school and see the impact on their lives.
esolcourses IMO, impossible to implement real change without admin involved. IME, getting them on board isn’t always easy
dlourcey Teachers who are less comfortable need to get in the sandbox, play, get dirt, mess it up, and relearn.
elanaleoni Yes, if you get a groundswell of movement around it, anything’s possible.
olafelch @esolcourses I agree. But progressive admins also have problems getting teachers on board. It cuts both ways.
cybraryman1 You cannot leave out student and parent input into these changes.
esolcourses getting admin to shift their viewpoint can be a problem. Esp. with subjects traditionally taught without using tech
MissCheska Good admins give their teachers room to grow and lead, but give the support they need to be successful in all they do
ToughLoveforX Are teachers leaders in education? || Yes in discovering what works. But for sustainable change, it must be admins.
daylynn Teacher leader has ability to guide admin to approp tools/methods & show how successful & relevant.
tomwhitby system makes too simple for Admins & Teachers to develop an “us & them” mentality that hampers cooperation/ collaboration.
MrR0g3rs all r impt, but if u don’t get the admin, u might as well bang wall w/head
Mattguthrie Teachers have to innovate & admin sometimes necessary to make it policy on schook level to drag along resistors/late adopters
rliberni @tomwhitby here schools expect new teachers to have a view at least on tech
infodivabronx Do the research, start w/ a small pilot project, gather data, and get admin to buy in. No small task

Some questions & points that arose:

ShellTerrell If admin’s vision is different than the teacher’s vision, is real change realistic?
elanaleoni Q: How many of you can say that you have a close relationship with your admins?
olafelch Then why is change / modernisation in teaching so slow?
tomwhitby Do educators defeat themselves by trying to involve everyone in decision making?
MissCheska @dlourcey What kind of incentives would admins enforce to get less comf teachers on board??
reportertanya Does real change have to mean technology, though?
fernandocassola Don’t you think that the community needs to be involved in the school planning / admin? It makes sense or not?
olafelch the question I hear most often from Admin is, how are you going to get the staff to use it?
foes4sports Perhaps we need to consider this: Is it STUDENTS that lead the change?!
dlourcey How does this change take place if teachers have the attitude, “just leave me alone and let me teach?”

Links that were shared:

nashworld Teacher leaders can effectively tap on admin shoulders by the use of open media. Example: http://twurl.nl/g7zwus
nashworld Again… skip down to “administrative support” on this post for my opinions on this: http://twurl.nl/ybv26j
fernandocassola I thnk the model of leadership proposed by the school2.0 is the most fantastic method of teaching. see this http://bit.ly/4Qmccd

Note: Read the entire transcript by clicking on @jswiatek’s archive

New to Edchat?

If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every Tuesday on Twitter. Over 400 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!

• Edchat: Join the Conversation
• Using Tweetdeck for Hashtag Discussions

More Edchat

• Every week, @rliberni or myself, @shellterrell, will be providing you with summaries of the 6pm CET/ 12pm EST Edchat discussions!
• If you would like to join others in transforming the discussion into action, please feel free to join the Edchat group on the Educator PLN ning.
• Jerry Swiatek does an incredible job of posting each archived transcript on the Edchat wiki created by Steve Johnson. Jerry has even added clickable links! This way you can look back at your favorites!
• Follow other Edchatters and make sure you are on this Twitter list if you participate in Edchat!
• Read summaries of every #Edchat including the 7pm EST/1 am CET Edchat discussions.
• Want more links? Check out these Google Docs of previous Edchat topics!

Challenge:

If you’re new to hashtag discussions, then just show up on Twitter on any Tuesday and add just a few tweets on the topic with the hashtag #edchat.

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for free to receive regular updates!

Do you have a great project/event that is creating change at your school? Leave a comment!