Monday, April 18, 2011

A Rising tide lifts all boats.

I have been lucky enough to work with some tremendous educators.  One teacher I worked with loved naval analogies.  When I left one school, he gave me a tremendous book and inscribed it with a quote about how the US Navy judges the size of it's ships by the amount of water it displaced.  The first time I read the quote, I thought it was a fat joke.  Later, it became clear that he meant it as a compliment. 

This master teacher constantly was sharing ideas and discussing ideas.  He often stated " A Rising tide ifts all boats."

This is one of the reasons I have come to love twitter and my PLN.  The chance to share and steal with other colleagues means so much to me.  After attending TSETC with Andrea Mystrena, we became convined of the need to share and colloborate with our collegaues.

We have tried numerous efforts some successul and some unsuccesful.  I am proud of the way we have gotten web tools into every weekly principal message.  Andrea and I planned a Web Wednesday - where we hosted a web sharng meeting after school.  We have hosted 10th pd  (we have a 9 period day and pd a play on prof development).

Here is my new idea and new challenge.  We need a way to engage more educators and spread the word about the power of twitter.  It is too easy to speak to like minded people.  I want all of us to send emails to co-workers with the title "I got this from Twitter".  Hopefullly by sharing the great resources and the great ideas available we can excite those teachers in our buildings who could enjoy having their pilot light re ignited.

Here is one of the problems; I wanted to call it Word Out Wednesday but #wow is claimed by Opie and Anthony and let's just say we can not afford that confusion.  OandA have female fans use that tag on wednesday - awkward.  I tried #WW but that is also writer Wednesday.

Do you have any suggestions?
Who on your staff can you reach out to?
What should we call this initative?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I started doing something similar to this which I call Teacher Tech Tip. Every Wednesday I post a technology tip in the faculty rooms or locations that I know a lot of people do their work in the hopes that more will start using some of the Web 2.0 tools that are out there. The first tip I used was Wordle. I found something called "Starter Sheets" on a link from www.cybraryman.com's Web 2.0 page. Gave me a bunch of tips that will carry through to the end of the year.

Now, this idea came from @eolsonteacher who started Toilet Tech Talk where she puts tech tips in the bathrooms. Apparently really popular in her school. We have too many bathrooms in my building so that was just not feasible.

I would love to have a better name than Teacher Tech Tip so keep me posted if something better is suggested.

Ms. Mystrena said...

I think that "Word out Wednesday" is a great idea! I think we should email our colleagues with links from twitter any day of the week, perhaps with an emphasis on Wednesdays. I have received some "thank you" emails from colleagues who I've emailed, but I think we still have a lot of convincing to do about twitter. Even some of my closest teacher friends are still resistant despite the case I have made for how invaluable my twitter PLN is. I will keep trying!

Brad said...

Funny story that I should have added but did not think about. In addition to being a teacher, I am a closet foody. Every cooking show int he world fills my DVR at home.

One of our neighbors is a frequent dinner companion and we travel to numerous resturants and try all types of food.

During one outing, the neighbor went on a rant about twitter. His rant was the tired - "I eat breakfast" rant about twitter.

I calmy disagreed. I told him how twitter allows me to follow all the famous chefs that I admire on twitter. I told him that all the Top Chef guys have a twitter.

2 days later, he invited us to a tasting menu cooked by Eric Reipert and Jen Carroll. I am so excited for this meal. Eric's resturatn is #18 in the wordl- if you bu those rankings.

My neighbors wife and my wife took our sons out to lunch and she shared that he loves twitter and has his own CN - cooking network created via twitter.

I only wish my co-workers would have ears that open. I think the other lesson here is use twitter to hit them where they live.

Find thier interests and show how twitter can enhance their undestanding of or appreciation of said interests.

--sme said...

hashtag thoughts:

#wowed (but people use that already when they've been wow-ed, like for sunsets and stuff)

both #wordwed and #wordout produced nothing in my searches and could be options.

vr2ltch said...

I love this idea! I agree with you that we have to encourage more educators to join the twittersphere. It can be tricky to get them on. One thing I have found helpful is to tell people that it's okay to just sit and watch. Jump in and tweet when you are ready.

I like the previous suggestion of #wordout :)