So I’m a little late with my blog post about this PD, but better late than never!
The Twitter PD I put on for teachers was broken up into four parts (Understanding Twitter, Creating an Account and Beginning, Classroom Uses, and Building Your PLN) over three weeks. Teachers were given objectives for each of the four parts that had to be approved by myself or the Director of Technology and then turned in to the Principal by the end of the three weeks to hold everyone accountable.
Resources for all four parts were loaded into our LMS (was Edline at the time, not we’ve moved to Schoology). Each “part” included links to other websites, articles, blog posts, and basic tasks to complete on Twitter. All the resources I used can be found on my website by clicking here.
Teachers could work on their own to complete the objectives during the two weeks leading up to the faculty meeting. At the faculty meeting teachers were broken up into stations based on their level of knowledge or by which of the four stages they had not yet completed. If a teacher had already completed all of their objectives by the faculty meeting, they were allowed to leave when we got to the Twitter portion of the meeting. If they did not finish by the time the meeting was over, they still had one week to complete all the objectives.
I was thrilled by the amount of teachers who admitted to finding a use for Twitter (whether for themselves or with their students) after the PD. Of course, there were still teachers who felt skeptical or chose not to use Twitter, but they at least understand Twitter now. Every little bit to connect ourselves as educators and to meet the students “where they are” with interactive activities is a step in the right direction.
I’ll leave you with something I heard at ISTE13,
We must prepare students for their future, not our past!
Tech To You Later!
-Katie
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