Why I use Twitter…

http://technorati.com/

At some point this year I set the goal of writing on my blog at least once a week.  That is a difficult goal when balancing work and family, but writing is something I enjoy that allows me a creative outlet for my thoughts.  Lately though, I have been to my blog, but feel like I have writers block. When this happens, instead of writing on my blog I will spend my free moments searching around on twitter, reading and sharing. I have a bit of an obsession with Twitter if you ask my husband.  As I sit listening to the wind howling today, searching around on twitter I was thinking about what twitter has added to my professional and personal learning.

One year ago 3 of the teachers in my school had the opportunity to attend #educon conference in Philadelphia.  It was exciting for us to be able to send them there because most teachers in our school division do not have the opportunity to attend big conferences such as this.  They came back with many great ideas to share and prompted all of us to start using Twitter as part of our daily routine in the school, in our classes and in our professional lives.  We spent time as a staff learning from them how to set up a twitter account and  getting some suggestions as to who to follow.  We set up a school Twitter account and starting sharing with our parents through Twitter.  Each of our classrooms have a twitter account and many share classroom happenings on a daily basis.  It has been a great communication and collaboration tool for our whole school.

These are the reasons why I use Twitter

• Twitter is the best professional development I have been involved in for a long time.
• It allows me to follow my interests, passions and interact with people similar to me.
• It allows me to share my ideas.
• It helps me answer questions.
• On a daily basis I am able to find ideas and links that help me be a better teacher and administrator

@PrincipalSmart

Finished and Reflecting

I have had a few exciting things happen lately and I am not sure where to start.  First and foremost, I am finished my Master’s Degree.  I can’t decide how I should feel about it.  Should I be so relieved that I am jumping up and down, should I be proud of such a big accomplishment or should I be feeling sad that my journey is over.  For right now I am feeling a combination of the three.  I had no idea that it would change my philosophy of teaching as much as it has or turn me into such a reflective practitioner. I can’t wait to see what is next.  I even find myself thinking that I could take a second Master’s Degree…Whoa now! Slow down!

The second exciting thing I want to talk about is the opportunity I had to attend the Saskatchewan IT Conference in Saskatoon this week.  I consider myself very lucky to get to attend and I came home with that familiar feeling of passion and excitement.  As I listened to Michael Wesch speak of opening up worlds to our students, posing questions, allowing and challenging them to be creative and do something about the things that are going on in the world, I couldn’t help but reflect back on my school year.  Have I really allowed my students to be in control of their own learning?  Have I challenged them with questions that take them beyond Google?  Have I opened my staff up to new thinking and supported them in ways that would allow them to change their traditional ideas about education?

I am not sure where this year has gone, but as it draws to a close, I hope I can feel confident that I have accomplished at least some of what I wanted to this year and look forward to handing more over to my students and my staff next year and taking my spot behind the stage and not on it.