Standard 1 – Vision of Learning – Facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.
- Creating a school Twitter account to share our school’s vision, student work, and teacher practice with a wider audience
Leadership Opportunity
I began the school year feeling a bit out of place. Having taught for the past eleven years, all of a sudden finding that I did not have a particular classroom to set up, nor did I have twenty eager students who would all be awaiting our class gathering on the first day of school, was all a bit unsettling. I thought quite a bit about how I could contribute right away to the amazing culture of my school in a very celebratory and purposeful way while also taking advantage of my opportunities to be present all around the school.
A passion of mine for many years has been the concept of being a connected educator. When I made the move from a large district school to a small, local charter in 2009, I noticed immediately that I missed the daily opportunities to share the work of my classroom and receive feedback from my grade-level partners. In my new role, I was the only English teacher for grades seven and eight; I knew that I would need to find ways to connect with other educators to inform and push my practice. I began seeking out opportunities to connect with others, share the work of my classroom, and move my learning beyond the four walls of my school. Some initial steps included meeting with teachers outside my school, joining the National Writing Project, and creating a Twitter account. I had a deep desire to celebrate the work in my room as well as connect for feedback and seek out additional methods for impacting student learning. In many ways, I desired connections to my classroom and the learning taking place within it- by both my students and me.
When I was a teacher outside of the High Tech High organization, I always wanted to know more about what was happening here. I was deeply curious about how the vision of the school was carried out on a day-to-day basis in classrooms, particularly at the elementary level, where I had the most push-back from teachers at my school. In considering this idea of connecting with teachers outside the organization, sharing our school vision, and my desire to contribute and celebrate the work at my school, I decided to begin a Twitter account for our school.
The use of Twitter levels the playing field in many ways. In many ways, it is one of the most equitable ways we have of providing teachers with rich learning experiences. “Twitter gives you the opportunity to stay relevant and get resources that wouldn’t come around until you took the trip to the state conference or county meeting,” (Zalaznick, 2014). The connections and personalized professional development available through Twitter are available to all, regardless of school budgets or travel limitations.
It’s a very intuitive service, where one can participate as actively or passively as they prefer. It’s also easy to access accounts and hashtags through an Internet search. One can view all of the happenings on Twitter without signing up for an account, making it a very friendly way to share the work of our school with the parent community. Some teachers may not have time for pursuing all of their professional interests, but Twitter allows one to get a taste of many different aspects of teaching and learning in small snippets. From here, the learning can be personalized by diving deeper into those interests.
Setting up the account was easy for even the most novice computer user. It took about three minutes to get a handle, password, and pictures to show our space. I wrote a quick bio, identifying us with the High Tech High network of schools and then the tweeting was set to begin. I knew a focus for our school account would be documenting, sharing, and celebrating student work.
Evolution of an idea
I began sharing our work on Twitter as a fun way to connect, build an audience for our work, and share the day-to-day activities of a PBL school. I hadn’t really thought about the wider implications of what I was doing at the time. The school account supplemented what I share on my personal account and felt like a simple way that I could contribute to my community.
My first few tweets were in teachers’ classrooms- pictures of project process walls, students creating norms for their room, peer critique in primary classes, and students enjoying our playground. We started to build an audience. After about two weeks, we had 100 followers, and were consistently getting favorites and retweets from other educators.
Soon after, the teachers at the school began tweeting their work and tagging our school account so I could retweet it. An energy emerged of teachers sharing their work and making their practice very public through Twitter. We had a core group of five teachers who were using Twitter at the start of the year. Soon we had twelve teachers and the momentum continues to build. A curious buzz was beginning and I wanted to know more about the implications of sharing our work with a wider audience. The way teachers are presenting learning opportunities for their students here is unique, and putting that out into the world for the larger educational conversation feels noteworthy.
Nicholas Provenzano, @TheNerdyTeacher on Twitter, is a technology specialist in Michigan with a specific focus on social networking platforms in schools. “(Twitter) has been the best professional development I’ve had in my life, and I’ve been a teacher for over ten years. It gives me 24/7 access to some of the smartest people in education” (Provenzano, 2012).
Contributing to a new Conversation
Rather, we have learned from our work with teachers making their practices public that the most powerful result of going public with teaching is a new kind of conversation about teaching. -Lieberman & Mace, 2010
I am continually reflecting on the work that we are doing as a school community on Twitter. Ryan Gallagher recently mentioned that he feels most connected to the work at High Tech Elementary North County which he notes is primarily due to following our teachers and our school on Twitter (personal communication, October 30, 2015). In addition, teachers using Twitter note that they are feeling more connected to what their students are doing in exploratory classes and what other grade levels projects are within our schools (J. Larsen, personal communication, October 23, 2015).
Amy Fadeji, principal at Penngrove Elementary, speaks to the idea of “telling the story of your school” and utilizing Twitter as a main resource to do so (DeWitt, 2014). She goes on to describe the ways that Twitter allows her school to be a connected community of learners. “As a principal, I can’t possibly be in all of these places at one time participating or even observing them taking place. However, having our staff on Twitter unites us all. It brings us together and helps us as a team remember that we’re all in this together. It brings parents and community members onto our campus daily, and it connects our classrooms and students throughout the week.”
As I post tweets from our school account and encourage a culture of sharing, I am looking for students engaged in meaningful work, joyful learning and teaching, and helpful practices that may inform the work of others. While this account was set up with an intention of sharing the school’s story, it is also a vehicle to help support all teachers as they venture into sharing their work via Twitter.
Reflections
I began this piece of leadership and community sharing because it was familiar and purposeful in my life as a classroom teacher and I thought that those two aspects of Twitter would transfer to a school account. I have been very pleased with the work we are curating and contributing. As of today, January 4, 2016, I have tweeted 396 times, have 261 followers, and have connected our school in very meaningful ways. One recent example is our class of fifth grade students who have connected with a class in Austin, Texas with their Food Truck Frenzy project. The class in Texas contacted our teachers when they had seen our project via Twitter. Now they are serving as critique partners for their presentation pitches.
Amanda and I talk about the Twitter account on a regular basis. She has set a priority of supporting teacher leadership for this year and she feels that the school Twitter account matches this goal. She has noticed that teachers are connecting and sharing on a deeper level and are using these successful connections as a jumping off point for additional leadership experiences such as presenting at the Deeper Learning Conference. She provided additional feedback that the Twitter account is in service of encouraging and celebrating connections, as well as showcasing beautiful work.
I love to think about Twitter as a low-stakes, high reward connection tool. For our teachers, access and equity are built into a tool like this. We all have access to computers and cellphones, the app takes only moments to install, and the learning curve is not steep at all. One can be a consumer on Twitter for quite some time and slowly ease into contributing after getting the flow of hashtags and other Twitter conventions.
The biggest learning piece of this work has been to let the grassroots flow of teacher interest ride and allow that energy to push more teachers toward participation. I would venture that the energy would not be the same if we would have started the year saying that I will start a school account and everyone must start an account to tweet from their classrooms. The organic, grassroots nature of the work right now has a really good feel and can be built upon with introducing ways to enhance our work with Twitter down the line. I have high hopes of teachers interacting on Twitter chats such as #caedchat, #titletalk, and #elemchat. Perhaps we can even start hosting an organization-wide #hthchat at some point. That is a springtime goal of mine.
Teachers have been providing wonderful feedback about the use of Twitter. I have received several emails thanking me for the retweets and favorites and appreciations for the work we are sharing comes up regularly at staff meetings. One of our first grade teachers, Jennifer Larsen, speaks to the way that Twitter has re-energized parts of her teaching. She loves seeing what is happening in other classrooms and feels like sharing her work has had a positive impact on her students as well.
As I began the account, I was hopeful that we would get to interact with other elementary schools and share ideas, projects, and work. I wanted our Twitter account to serve as a celebratory venue for all the great work that I had seen in the first few days of school. The outcomes have far exceeded my original vision and I am excited to see where this work leads me at the year continues.
References:
DeWitt, P. (2014, October 12). Blogs. Retrieved November 13, 2015, from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/blogs/index.html
Ferriter, W., & Provenzano, N. (2013). Today’s Lesson: Self-Directed Learning … for Teachers. Phi
Delta Kappan, 16-21.
Lieberman, A., & Mace, D. (2010). Making Practice Public: Teacher Learning in the 21st Century. Journal of
Teacher Education, 77-88.
Ryan Gallagher personal communication, October 30, 2015.
Zalaznick, M. (2014). PD finds value on Twitter. District Administration, 50(12), 20-21.