Let's just say, I have really been enjoying reading What Connected Educators Do Differently. As I am reading each chapter, I am gaining a better understanding of how to communicate in many different ways. I'm also learning how to build my PLN. With that being said, after reading chapter 3 I was able to gain more ideas on how to get information out to parents, teachers, and students.
Communication
Under the heading, Communicating with Purpose, I liked how the author discussed different ways to communicate your stories. It is important to share what is going on in your classroom and school. I have a class weebly site where I share pictures of students learning, what we are learning, and celebrations. With my class website, I can see how many visitors have visited, which is usually the amount of kids I have in my class. I have my own personal and school Twitter account. With my personal account, I tweet out what is happening in my classroom with our 1:1 iPads. I don't have that many parents that follow me on Twitter. I also send out a weekly newsletter for parents that may not have internet access to view our website. With the school account, I tweet out pictures of students that have won awards and reminders for any upcoming events. One thing I would like to work on getting is a hashtag for our school. Any ideas? I'm going to have to search the website the author mentioned to make sure it has not been taken.
Collaborating
I have always enjoyed collaborating with fellow colleagues. In this section, Collaborating with Passion, I liked how the author mentioned that "nothing can compare with working and collaborating face to face with other educators." The iPad collaboration days are one of my favorite days to meet with my iPad academy friends to share ideas or to even ask questions on how they might deliver a lesson the their class. It's always nice to collaborate with other second grade teachers across the district. I remember when we used to meet with other second grade teachers at their school to share ideas and see what their classroom looks like. One other way to collaborate is to create a personal blog. In this chapter, the author said it is important to give back. This is my first blog and I love being able to share my thoughts with everyone. I have a separate blog for my classroom which is titled 1:1 iPads in Second Grade. I have yet to share but, I plan on working on it. It was nice in this chapter that they gave ideas for what your blog should include as well as the purpose.
Communicating
When your thinking of Community-Building with Pride, this is where parents should be able to go to the schools social media accounts and be able to find out anything they need. Like the author said, this is a good way for parents to get a glimpse of what is happening in our schools. Which I need to do better at tweeting out on our school's Twitter account more often. We may not have that many followers right now but, maybe I need to advertise our Twitter handle more as well as getting a hashtag.
This post may be on the lengthy side, but I have learned so much about the three Cs. It has opened my eyes a little more to get out there and share my/our school's story.
