Twitter is such a powerful tool for connecting and learning. Conferences in other cities can be attended virtually through following a simple hashtag. Links can be shared, while also following conversations that educators are having about certain topics. I really believe that it is always better to be face-to-face, but when we don’t have those opportunities, we can still be opened to a world of learning.
For an example of this, I am going to share links from watching, via Twitter, the IT Summit in Saskatoon that is happening right now. You can actually follow the information and conversation that is happening as it happens over the next few days by searching the #ITSummit12 hashtag on Twitter (whether you have a Twitter account or not). Here are some of the links that I caught from my brother’s keynote this morning.
1. My Favorite Liar – This post starts off with, “One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar.” An interesting statement about the methods used in this course to keep the attention of students, while also promoting them to challenge ideas and critically think about the information being shared. This is a great skill we need to teach our children as move them away from an education system built upon compliance and subversiveness. Thinking is a skill that can be continuously honed and crafted, and this method helped sharpen the saw for many:
“This was an insidiously brilliant technique to focus our attention – by offering an open invitation for students to challenge his statements, he transmitted lessons that lasted far beyond the immediate subject matter and taught us to constantly check new statements and claims with what we already accept as fact.”
Definitely an interesting article and something teachers should consider in their classroom.
2. Digital Storytelling (Resources) – This compilation of resources and articles on Digital Storytelling created by Alec Couros is a great way to not only discuss the topic of Digital Storytelling, but it is also a great way to display how a Google Doc can be used to quickly make a webpage to share and link resources. Making a webpage years ago took quite awhile, but with Google Docs, familiarity with Microsoft Word and being able to ‘share’ the document are all you need to get information out that is updated continuously. Some great resources are shared here but it might also spur people on to share or collaborate with others to make their own document.
3. Nine Dangerous Things That You Were Taught in School – Although this article was not shared in the links, I did find it by clicking on the “Creating Innovators” link from the keynote. This short and sweet article would be a great discussion piece for any staff meeting on the continuous changes that are happening in schools. Here is one of the ‘dangers’ that was listed:
There is a very clear, single path to success.
It’s called college. Everyone can join the top 1% if they do well enough in school and ignore the basic math problem inherent in that idea.
One of the final things that I would like to share is this hilarious video on the Video Rental industry and how things have changed significantly. Again, this would be a great discussion piece for educators to talk about some of the out of date practices that are happening in our schools. Check out the video below:
Thanks to Alec for sharing his links with the audience as well as the world. The world is becoming so much smaller and it is amazing how easily we can all learn together.
