Saturday, May 21, 2016

#30Goals: Teach digital citizenship


I have been wanting to write about the internet and teaching for a long time, and this year I had the chance to share my thoughts about this with wonderful educators around Greece and Cyprus. 
Going on "tour" as a teacher trainer, has taught me very interesting things, I got to know really good teachers with a lot of potential.
What is a bit frustrating, though, is that a lot of teachers are still afraid of "exposing" themselves and their students online. And this is really a pity because the internet is not only a dangerous place.
Of course, it can be, if we don't use it correctly, but, there are tons of possibilities for us, as educators and for our students, as well.
Some people also say that it is a waste of time. It's not. You can find wonderful materials for your teaching and your students can get informed about the world.
What you should be able to do, though is know where to look.
Before my teacher training job, I was really not a Twitter fan, but I decided to give it a try and see if is something worth mentioning in the sessions with the teachers.
Yes, it can be really confusing and you need to devote some time to organize yourself in there, but you can come across really useful links, quotes, videos, articles, blogs.
  • All you have to do is use hashtags (#) with the subject you are interested in and there you are! You have a wonderful material for your classes.
  • You can also use it with your students in #classchats , students can communicate with each other about their projects and simultaneously create a thread for students around the world. 
  • You can organize various projects and find students from other schools and communicate 
Another "tool" that you can use online is Facebook. Although it's a bit more "friendly", you can create your own PLN (personal learning network), find groups about teaching and learning (and anything else you want), get to know other educators, talk about problems and projects, share your ideas.

So, you have all these ideas and you don't know how to organize them? Share them maybe? Blogging is the answer to that. Keep your archive, help other teachers with your ideas, read ideas from others!

Yes, you need to devote some time into it and somebody to show you how to get started, but remember how much you will gain by this!
 #keeplearning #keepmoving




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