Engaging in Digital Communities (ISTE Standard 5)

While investigating the standard for ISTE 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership, I noticed that a lot of the provided resources involved Twitter as tool for professional development. The first subheading of ISTE 5 is to "participate in local and global learning communities" so it just makes sense to use the internet as a way to exchange ideas. One problem- I have never used Twitter before.

I decided to make figuring out "What's the big deal with Twitter?" my research question for this module. I watched Twitter for Teachers (Hill, 2010) on Youtube, and got Twitter account set up. The video describes exchanging ideas online as a constant stream of thought, and it says that Twitter is an effective way of "hooking" the ideas that relate to you or that you want to investigate further. I also read an article found by a classmate called Modern Professional Learning (Davis, 2015) that came from the excellent teacher resource Edutopia. In this article, Davis examines the difference between a PLC (professional learning community) and a PLN (personal learning network). A PLC is usually face-to-face, and it most likely involves individuals at the same school. A PLN is wider, and usually happens through online connections. It is more informal, but just as valuable. Since I teach at school where the social studies department consists of 4 people, including me, and I am the only one teaching 9th grade history, it could be nice to engage in a PLN where I could find more similar people to bounce ideas off of.

While these resources were great, I wanted to find some research that was more study-based about the use of Twitter for academic purposes. I found an article published in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education called Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). This was great, because it almost exactly matched my research question! I learned that the social studies participants in the survey "tended to use Twitter more for PD than for communication or class activities" (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 46) but I did see some cool ideas, including tweets from Enlightenment thinkers. I don't think I will be using Twitter in class any time soon, but I am enjoying learning how to use it and seeing what is out there. There is a weekly chat under the hashtag #sschat where teachers exchange ideas about social studies. I also registered for a Google webinar. There is more to be learned, but I know that I will get some great ideas from engaging with others on Twitter. Follow me! 

References

Davis, V. (2015, November 11). Modern professional learning: connecting PLCs with PLNs. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/modern-professional-learning-plc-pln-vicki-davis

Hill, P. (2010, August 27). Twitter for Teachers [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tT6N_8wcn4

Krutka, D.G., & Carpenter, J.P. (2016). Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 16(1), 38-59. Retrieved from

https://citejournal.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/v16i1socialstudies1.pdf