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New Year's Resolutions in May
by Elizabeth Helfant


Yesterday was our last day of school. For me that’s the equivalent of New Year’s Eve. For most in education, the last day is at least a professional New Year’s Eve of sorts; a time for reflection on the year just ended and a time for goal setting and resolution for the year embarking. The proverbial ball drops and as soon as we celebrate the year’s end with graduations, we begin to make our resolutions about what we must do to be better in the upcoming year.

As I reflect and celebrate the year just ended, I would tag it as a year of tremendous growth - growth in knowledge, skills, and network. It is the addition of network that made this year such a year of growth. It is the fact that what was once my network

network 2

has transformed into

networked more

 

Developing my network resulted in much of my growth and it now provides a source of great opportunity. I would encourage everyone to make network development a “New Year’s resolution.” From the diagram, you can see many of the tools or categories of tools that are useful in professional learning. I am happy to note that my network includes each of these. I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about some that deserve special mention and to share a few lessons learned.

Blogs.  I read a variety of blogs but the majority of them are written by librarians or educational technologists. I certainly learned a lot when I just participated as a reader only. When I began to comment and interact on them, when I moved from passive to active participation, I achieved a new level of learning. As you develop a network, become an active participant. My resolution in this area is to read more blogs that are discipline specific, more that are good examples of teachers blogging about their discipline. Since my job is to help teachers of all disciplines to integrate technology into their classrooms and since I know from experience how powerful a network can be, I’d like to identify some good examples of discipline specific blogs and begin to help my teachers create their own networks. I’ve identified these excellent blogs as starting points: ehoffman’s AP Biology Blog, snobles’ AP English Lit Blog, Darren Kuropatwa’s AP Calc Class Blog, and Miland Brown’s World History Blog.

Twitter. Twitter is considered a microblog but it is part social network as well. I started using twitter near the beginning of the school year. I remember thinking I’d have trouble following 50 people and now I’m following over 300. I don’t read every tweet but scan them for interesting ideas and links. I have gotten curricular ideas, found people to collaborate with, and discovered links to very useful Web2.0 tools. I have also found twitter to be the best avenue for quick tech support.

UStream.tv. Ustream.tv combines chatting and video conferencing and can be used in conjunction with Skype. We realized the power of network and ustream for professional learning (I like learning better than development) when we held our last faculty meeting and skyped in educators and students from my twitter network and ustreamed the meeting for others to be included. It was a powerful learning experience for all involved. It should be emphasized that producing a ustream is simple and it is important to share but the real value of ustream is in allowing participation in all kinds of workshops, conferences, and meetings that bring ideas from all over the world to your laptop. I have been to Canada, Korea, China, New Zealand, and Australia this year without needing to get out of pajamas. We have global expertise to teach us if we are willing to engage with new tools.

I’m not sure you can give the gift of a network but I certainly tried. I created accounts and purchased the headset, microphone, and webcam for a thinking partner at my school who is embarking on a career change. I included a link to Stephen Downes’ excellent advice for networking. I told him, he would have to develop it but it was a gift that offered significant opportunities. He will be assuming the duties of Head of School and as an administrator, I believe it is important for him to understand the power of a network. I further believe personalized learning networks are the future of professional development learning.

Because of this belief, I have settled on three “New Year’s Resolutions:”

I will do what I can to help each faculty member develop their own network. I have started by moving them all to Del.icio.us bookmarks and will shortly have all of them set up with a Google reader accounts with a handful of blogs to begin following. In a way, I’m outsourcing my responsibilities for creating professional development opportunities to the greater wisdom of the masses.

I will provide faculty with a step by step guide to creating a network. I’ll do this in part by blogging about tools and tips that support network creation on a blog they will all subscribe to and by bringing people from my network to campus to help spread the message. We are fortunate to have Vicki Davis, Julie Lindsey, Darren Kuropatwa, David Jakes, and Alec Couros joining us and are hopeful we will add a couple of others next fall.

I will continue to learn and grow with my network and to filter out links and opportunities for my faculty. I will do what I can to make us a networked community of learners who actively participate with our peers around the globe. I am looking forward to having many of us participate in the K12 Online Conference 2008.

Opportunities abound in the networked world of 21st century learning. I am essentially resolving to push my faculty towards them. I am pretending that they are graduating from an old way of doing things and will begin a transformation into a richer way of learning. They have gotten stuck in the middle passages of Dr. Suess’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

 

You can get all hung up

in a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang will fly on.

You'll be left in a Lurch.

 

You'll come down from the Lurch

with an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

that you'll be in a Slump.

 

And when you're in a Slump,

you're not in for much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

is not easily done.

 

Many are stuck in the slump of “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” It is time for faculty to get networked and embrace the opportunities before them. It is time to rewrite the opening stanza of the Dr. Suess classic graduation text as

You have brains in your head.

The world in your hands with nothing to lose

You can connect yourself

however you choose.

You're not on your own.  You can share what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide how to grow.

 

They need to make the journey to networked, social learning themselves so they can lead their students there. Care to join us as we decide the places we’ll go?

 

 

 

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Helfant is the Upper School Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Mary Institute Country Day School, a JK-12 institution embarking on a 1:1 adventure. using Tablet PCs and DyKnow.

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