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Link to Main Connected Educator Site
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Ten Reasons to be a Connected Educator
Tips to be a Successful Connected Educator Connecting Educators Benefits Students |
Five Ways to Connect -Edutopia
1. On Twitter: Follow the conversation during Connected Educator Month on the #CE14 hashtag. New to Twitter? The CEM Starter Kit (linked above) includes step-by-step instructions for getting started. Other useful Twitter guides include these Google docs: "The Weekly Twitter Chat Schedule" and "The Unofficial Index to Educational Hashtags." Are you a school leader? Read Elana Leoni's post, "8 Tips to Create a Twitter-Driven School Culture," for tips on encouraging connected culture through Twitter use at your school site.
2. In Online Communities: Online communities are another great avenue for connection and collaboration with colleagues, since they generally support deeper discussions in groups and threads on specific topics, issues, and questions. Connect with other educators in Edutopia's community or via other learning communities listed in the CEM Community Directory. Connected Educators also provides a match-making tool called edConnectr that can be used to find and connect with colleagues.
3. With Parents: Share online with parents about what's happening in the classroom or think about hosting events for "connected parents." As Joe Mazza discusses in "A Parent's Guide to Twitter and Education," parents and teachers alike can benefit from transparent collaboration via social media tools. Read "Old School or New School, Keep Parents Involved" for more tips about strengthening the connection between parents and teachers and for information on useful connection tools like ClassDojo and Remind. For even more advice on the range of one-way and two-way digital-communication tools, see Gwen Pescatore's "Parent Communication Toolbox."
4. With New Tools: Experiment with connection tools and technologies. If possible, find a colleague to join you. The Connected Educator Starter Kit guides you step-by-step through many of the ways you can connect and collaborate via social media, wikis, blogs, and multimedia tools. Here are a few other ideas to explore:
1. On Twitter: Follow the conversation during Connected Educator Month on the #CE14 hashtag. New to Twitter? The CEM Starter Kit (linked above) includes step-by-step instructions for getting started. Other useful Twitter guides include these Google docs: "The Weekly Twitter Chat Schedule" and "The Unofficial Index to Educational Hashtags." Are you a school leader? Read Elana Leoni's post, "8 Tips to Create a Twitter-Driven School Culture," for tips on encouraging connected culture through Twitter use at your school site.
2. In Online Communities: Online communities are another great avenue for connection and collaboration with colleagues, since they generally support deeper discussions in groups and threads on specific topics, issues, and questions. Connect with other educators in Edutopia's community or via other learning communities listed in the CEM Community Directory. Connected Educators also provides a match-making tool called edConnectr that can be used to find and connect with colleagues.
3. With Parents: Share online with parents about what's happening in the classroom or think about hosting events for "connected parents." As Joe Mazza discusses in "A Parent's Guide to Twitter and Education," parents and teachers alike can benefit from transparent collaboration via social media tools. Read "Old School or New School, Keep Parents Involved" for more tips about strengthening the connection between parents and teachers and for information on useful connection tools like ClassDojo and Remind. For even more advice on the range of one-way and two-way digital-communication tools, see Gwen Pescatore's "Parent Communication Toolbox."
4. With New Tools: Experiment with connection tools and technologies. If possible, find a colleague to join you. The Connected Educator Starter Kit guides you step-by-step through many of the ways you can connect and collaborate via social media, wikis, blogs, and multimedia tools. Here are a few other ideas to explore:
- Connect on Skype. In "How Are You Connecting Your Students With the World?" Suzie Boss discusses how to use Skype in the classroom to post projects and connect with collaborators.
- Share ideas with other educators on Pinterest. Start by visiting Edutopia's boards and make sure to check out Pinterest's teacher hub.
- Try out tools like Feedly that allow you to organize, read, and share content from the blogs you follow in one central place. Beth Holland has written a helpful blog post about other potential curation tools called: "Tools for Professional Learning: Curate, Share, Connect."
- Collect and share curated social media, news, and media content with other educators or parents using a content aggregation and magazine-creation tool like Flipboard.
- Connect with others in your PLN by "voxing" via the walkie-talkie app, Voxer. Joe Mazza explains more in his personal blog, in the post, "Create Your Own Personalized Podcast Using Voxer."