The social web. What is it? Why should educationalists give a damn? Why should #PGCE and #NQT teachers in particular give a damn? Three simple benefits, time efficiencies, professional mentoring and personal reflection.
The social web emphasises the social relations that link people through the internet. Websites, platforms, networks, groups, streams, reviews, ratings, +1, likes, shares, recommends, hash tags, updates, embeds, hyperlinks, all designed to foster and encourage social interaction between people with similar interests.
So amid all the lesson planning, assignments, professional lectures, focus projects, where should #PGCE and #NQT teachers be distracted? Disrupted? And distracted and disrupted by what exactly?
In true Bulleye’s fashion (perhaps a poor choice considering the majority of #PGCE and #NQT teachers who wont recall Jim Bowen) What’s Bully got in store tonight?
“In 1!”
Twitter: Real-Time Information
Best described as CPD. No, not ‘Career Professional Development’ but rather ‘Constant Professional Development.’ You might need a little encourage at first as your Twitter benefits need a little time to mature, but its worth it.
- Sign up
- Create a full profile with a few extra clues (eg teacher or PGCE or NQT, primary, secondary, your subject and edu interests).
- Follow others – #ukedchat is a good place to start, then see who follows, the tweets you follow.
There is unlikely to be a scenario that a teacher tweeter has not come across before. Gone on, ask. Use the hash tag #ukedchat to focus the tweet. In time, you will find there is so much ‘good’ stuff on Twitter it will become part of your infostream and save your significant time.
“In 2!”
Blogs
Reflect. Blogging is more than a professional diary. It’s about opening up your practice to wider scrutiny, certainly wider than one teacher that observed a particular lesson. It’s about exploring your ideas, sharing them, and taking part in a larger community. It the Socratic ideal of
the unexamined life is not worth living
The true value of a blog comes much later down the line, when you look back and see where you once where.
What is really useful, is to define categories at the start, and then tag your posts with your standards. As you record your experiences and share your ideas, the tags naturally create a visual representation of your teaching achievements. See The Life and Times of a GTP Student. Its very quick and easy and FREE to get started. WordPress.com, Blogger, Posterous, Tumblr. All dead easy and if your can update your Facebook status you can use a blogging platform.
If you wish to be tech challenged, you smart phone wielding uber tech teach – then mo-post. Mobile post. Most smart platforms will post from a smart phone.
Still not geeky enough? Then use, voice to text, to email, to blog post. Surely that should keep you tech teach junkies happy for at least an hour?
“In 3!”
RSS – Don’t worry what it stands for, just what it can do for you and the time it will save you.
RSS is simply news or content delivered to your INBOX. Read it, share it, favourite it, all the social gumpgh. Post to Twitter or your blog if you like in just a few easy clicks. All you need is an RSS Reader. Is there anything better than Google Reader? Possibly, but Google is a tough competitor.
Totally free (as if there was another kind of free) Google reader works in most modern browsers, without any software to install. (Google)
What is more, your Google Reader account can then be read on most mobile phones, not just the smart ones, or push to more whiz bang reading apps such as Flipboard or Zite. Subscribe to all the news feeds you think you need. All the major news corporations and government agencies have an RSS feed. Just look for the little orange box. (Even your blog has a feed!) What some feeds to get you started? Help yourself.
Google Reader RSS List
“In 4!”
Be a Curator. Collect, Share and Collaborate.
I moved my website favourites ‘to the cloud’ on the 31st October 2007. I have 1877 education links to share. Of course they follow my interests, so ICT, English, Education, Learning, Edugaming, Moodle all feature highly. Most links are tagged by subject, by Key Stage and key words.
What is mine is yours. In fact here they are – simply import then into your new account.
Download 1877 Linkes
Now I know there should be eight prizes on a Bully board, but IMHO with these four social tools alone you will get more than enough positive professional distraction and disruption to make your PGCE and NQT years a success.
“In 5!”
TES Resources
Don’t reinvent the wheel. The TES is proudly sharing 100,000+ educational resources and rising. My only plea here is to actually please sign up and rate the resources you download. The old guard do not seem to have that crowd sourced, peer referenced rating thing going on…. yet.
And Bully’s Special Prize
Well that is simple, you are the special prize. Go forth and socialise.
PS, if five is not enough then Jane Hart has a top #100 tools. If I am honest, I currently use 15 out of the top 20 but trust me, this year and next, the five above are more than enough.
This post is dedicated to, and written for a former student, now undertaking his PGCSE at Southampton University, who continues to inspire me and confirms that becoming a teacher was one of the best decision I ever made.