I’ve been thinking about the role Twitter plays in my work as a Literacy Consultant for a few weeks now. As an avid user of Twitter for my own professional learning, when something interesting comes across my desk, I instinctively want to tweet it out. But something always stops me–I look at the time and I wonder, would teachers resent the fact that I am tweeting during the school day while they are busy teaching students? Would someone walking by my desk think I’m being unproductive?
So, I often resist the urge. I wait until lunch to tweet or I schedule my tweets to happen after hours. This is probably best, because of course teachers are busy in class, but what about the teacher who goes to Twitter for a lesson idea on their prep? Or because of staggered lunches, might have lunch earlier or later than me?
Should I really feel guilty? Isn’t the purpose of my role to provide resources to teachers who might not have time to find these? I would have no qualms whatsoever about uploading a resource idea to our Conference or emailing a group of teachers with whom I am engaged in an Inquiry… And, is it realistic that a Curriculum resource teacher or Consultant only provides face to face support?
The fact of the matter is, there are too few people working in Districts to be able to support all teachers effectively. For many teachers, having release time to engage in Collaborative Inquiries in a supportive face to face environment is the ideal. But what about schools who have not been selected to participate in Board-wide initiatives? What about the teachers who prefer to engage in professional learning whenever they want, based on topics in which they are interested?
Twitter, to me, provides the opportunity to collaborate with many more people than I could possibly go out and visit, and it allows me to create a professional learning community within my own District. So perhaps the question is then not whether or not to tweet, but what to tweet?
George Couros, in his post, What should a networked leader educational leader tweet about? provides an excellent list that applies to any leader. Consider the following additions specific to Curriculum leads:
Extend Face to Face Collaboration
Often, groups meet a few times a semester. Twitter may be a way to continue to share resources and ideas in order to stay connected in between the face to face sessions.
Suggest and Support
Kathy Schrock shared that Twitter was a place to get lots of information quickly, but not necessarily to go deep (and perhaps as a testament to this, I could not find the tweet in which she said this). As a Curriculum support person, it is possible to Direct Message a colleague to offer additional support or links if the person is interested (As of July 9, there won’t be a character limit on Direct Messages). This could also result in some co-teaching and co-planning and therefore an opportunity for deeper learning.
Connect teachers to other knowledgeable others
How presumptuous to assume that teachers would benefit from the support that only I could offer? Teachers learn from each other, and sometimes, the best support might be to simply connect teachers to one another. Because I am aware of the various initiatives happening in my District, I make suggestions and create lists so that teachers benefit from the ideas and experience of someone else in the District or in the twitterverse.
Not really proficient on Twitter? What a great opportunity to demonstrate that despite the “Curriculum lead” label, that we are all learners together. Get started here.
What do you think? Should all Curriculum Resource Teachers and Consultants use Twitter as a regular part of their support to teachers? Should it be an expectation of the role in today’s digital-rich, connected world to use this and a variety of digital and traditional platforms to support teachers?
