Educator Connectedness

After participating in a webinar on Saturday morning at 7 am (tooooooo early) with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, I felt inspired and validated.  I have watched some of my favorite teacher bloggers dedicate themselves to this process for a number of years and I think that I have something to offer too!

I started thinking about how I currently use social media.

Here is my list:

Facebook (personal)

Teaching and Learning with both students & teachersTwitter
Scoop It
Delicious
Zite
Google Groups
Blogger

How do I use it?

To vent about my day to my personal network of friends
To celebrate weekly victories with my personal network of friends
To read about educational trend especially with web tools and Common Core
To read about what other educators are doing for inspiration
To connect globally with teachers around the world
To gather ideas about how I can improve my own pedagogical practices
To curate articles for parents
To curate articles for staff at my school
To curate articles for students in my Theory of Knowledge class
To share resources with teachers
To foster skyping opportunities with teachers/students globally
To share, brainstorm and refine ideas 
To refine my perspective and broaden horizons
To model what I expect from students
To find book recommendations

Why do teachers resist using social media:
Fear
Lack of training
Moves too quickly
Requires a paradigm shift
Not a digital native
Don’t see the benefits

I think I am well on my way to educator connectedness!  I am an early adopter.  
Being a connected educator means building collegial relationships with teachers and fostering them for students.  Communication is instantaneous and the more people that are involved in this process, then more ideas are spawned and the ideas we already have can be refined.