Activity 5: Professional connection map...
Professional connections: an evaluation of the impactof these on my practice and professional community.
1. CGTA and Social Sciences Department...
The Canterbury Geography Teachers Association and the relationships I have with the people involved in this association contribute 100% to my off-line subject PD. Without this group I would not have access to most of the connections/information needed to effectively support my curriculum delivery. Acces to research, academic experts and overseas connections have all been made through the CGTA. As HOD, this learning is fed back into my Social Sciences department; Best Practice Workshops, University Days (links with tertiary providers such as UC and Lincoln University), subject advisory days and subject conferences.
As part of this group, confidence in the "delivery" of subject content to senior students has increased. University lecturers can be called on to share relevant subject based presentations to senior students, because I now know them! CGTA is an organisation which has a long history of supporting and advocating for teachers with links to other subject associations e.g. AGTA and the National body (NZ Board of Geography Teachers). A weakness of this connection is that my own personal growth tends to occur only when we are able to meet face to face (up to 10 times per year for CGTA and once a year for BOGT). The meeting times we do have are very much valued and professionally important, however due to the frequency of their occurences, other forms of PD are in the running to overtake this style of connection.
The Canterbury Geography Teachers Association and the relationships I have with the people involved in this association contribute 100% to my off-line subject PD. Without this group I would not have access to most of the connections/information needed to effectively support my curriculum delivery. Acces to research, academic experts and overseas connections have all been made through the CGTA. As HOD, this learning is fed back into my Social Sciences department; Best Practice Workshops, University Days (links with tertiary providers such as UC and Lincoln University), subject advisory days and subject conferences.
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| Geography Teachers' Day at Lincoln University 2015 |
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| Farm Day for students at Lincoln University 2015 |
2. Social Media (Twitter @smurphlee) and eLEARNING...
The best 'til last! I would never have believed that seven years ago, when I joined Twitter, how much of an impact "social" media would have on my teaching practice! I've been teaching since (ahem) 1987, but in all those years I have never connected with people or associations in this way. The instant, global, nature of feedback and conversation is mindblowing to me. I remember one day commenting on a post by an educator in USA, when she tweeted that the graphic I had commented on was originally from a teacher in Australia and she copied his twitter address into the conversation. He tweeted instantly back saying "glad you liked my diagram" - this was all in less than 5 minutes and the conversation went half way around the world - twice! Eh? This was during my lunch hour, when I was on gate duty! Unbelievably awesome!
I love the connection with such a huge range of professional bodies. The Ministry of Education, the Irish Summer Reading "Buzz", UN Human Rights, TEDLearn are a small selection of the 100 twitter accounts I follow; they all add another dimension to my practice, whether it's a cool youtube clip, an evolving disaster or a recently released book review, I love being able to share these with my students. This is the world that my students exist in and becoming aware of the possibilities for application inside the classroom (such as global connection) is very exciting for a Social Science Teacher! Opening students' eyes to the world outside Aranui has been a passion, so many of the clips shown have been random, with students commenting - "where'd ya get that from, Miss?"
Educational tweeters such as Sam Gibson, Kevin Honeycutt and Tom Adams have supported my eLearning journey with their 'spot-on' recommendations, video clips and observations about all things technological. The fact that these educators are telling their stories from the chalk-face is inpirational, authentic and relevant to my context.
The dark side of this media? The bias in what I see. Information "self-delivered" or censored?. Like going through a newspaper with a pair of scissors and a highlighter before I hand it over to my husband to read. On reflection, most of what I traditionally teach is 'censored' by me to a certain extent, in that I choose the resources or activities that my students are exposed to on a day to day basis - so why should Twitter be any different?
I'm very happy to report that there are sent tweets in my account as well! My tweets include proud acclamations of success at school along with advertisements for events about to happen of relevance to the twitter followers. Twitter has become a roadmap of my professional online learning and I'm the cartographer!
The best 'til last! I would never have believed that seven years ago, when I joined Twitter, how much of an impact "social" media would have on my teaching practice! I've been teaching since (ahem) 1987, but in all those years I have never connected with people or associations in this way. The instant, global, nature of feedback and conversation is mindblowing to me. I remember one day commenting on a post by an educator in USA, when she tweeted that the graphic I had commented on was originally from a teacher in Australia and she copied his twitter address into the conversation. He tweeted instantly back saying "glad you liked my diagram" - this was all in less than 5 minutes and the conversation went half way around the world - twice! Eh? This was during my lunch hour, when I was on gate duty! Unbelievably awesome!
I love the connection with such a huge range of professional bodies. The Ministry of Education, the Irish Summer Reading "Buzz", UN Human Rights, TEDLearn are a small selection of the 100 twitter accounts I follow; they all add another dimension to my practice, whether it's a cool youtube clip, an evolving disaster or a recently released book review, I love being able to share these with my students. This is the world that my students exist in and becoming aware of the possibilities for application inside the classroom (such as global connection) is very exciting for a Social Science Teacher! Opening students' eyes to the world outside Aranui has been a passion, so many of the clips shown have been random, with students commenting - "where'd ya get that from, Miss?"
Educational tweeters such as Sam Gibson, Kevin Honeycutt and Tom Adams have supported my eLearning journey with their 'spot-on' recommendations, video clips and observations about all things technological. The fact that these educators are telling their stories from the chalk-face is inpirational, authentic and relevant to my context.
The dark side of this media? The bias in what I see. Information "self-delivered" or censored?. Like going through a newspaper with a pair of scissors and a highlighter before I hand it over to my husband to read. On reflection, most of what I traditionally teach is 'censored' by me to a certain extent, in that I choose the resources or activities that my students are exposed to on a day to day basis - so why should Twitter be any different?
I'm very happy to report that there are sent tweets in my account as well! My tweets include proud acclamations of success at school along with advertisements for events about to happen of relevance to the twitter followers. Twitter has become a roadmap of my professional online learning and I'm the cartographer!
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| @smurphlee |
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