Social Media & Education

After reading, #SXSWedu: Bill Gates calls for more connected educators by Melissa Greenwood, I have to agree with a few things that were stated by Bill Gates:

“The fact that these platforms let you categorize and talk about what your challenges are and sort of reach out to experts anywhere in the country who will be able to give you examples of what works with that type of student, it’s really breaking down that isolation in a really strong way,” Gates told attendees.
“What’s born out in the data is that there is a set of teachers who are absolutely phenomenal, and it’s interesting to me how little study has been done of videotaping and talking with them — understanding what they do well,” he said.
“Obviously as we learn more about that, and we do need to learn more about that, either we need to have them as the lecturer or capturing those ideas and having teachers watch those and learn from them and be evaluated on those characteristics. That will raise the quality of the profession as a whole.”

A few years ago, I was named Technology Teacher of the Year for Region IV.    One of the prerequisites of "winning" was that I agreed to have a lesson of mine video taped for future trainings.   I don't know if they ever used it - it would be interesting to watch now that I have "grown" so much more with technology.  Anyway, the lesson incorporated the use of technology with a video platform called Vidyo, with some ornithologists from Arizona State University.  Vidyo allowed us to connect with several different locations - much like that of the way Google Hangouts & Skype.  I think the quality was a lot better and back then - the capabilities of multiple "hookups" were expensive.  During our lesson, we back channeled our questions with the use of Today's Meet.  The learning was authentic and powerful and I am so fortunate to have randomly called a number of off a Google search and have them return our call with a vested interested in making a difference in this world. With so much technology out there - it is crazy to know what to use and when.  To be able to communicate live, is so much more powerful than tweeting or posting to Facebook - especially at the elementary level...   

I still speak to my friends at ASU and will be "hooking up" with them again soon with the use of Vidyo with my class.