Week 29 Professional Online Social Networks

Step 1 (Descriptive stage):

Before completing activity I was under the impression that I was using limited amounts of social media platforms for teaching or professional development.   After reflecting on what I put down on the survey it looks like social media is having a bigger influence on teaching and learning and professional development. 

I believe that social media is currently having a bigger impact on my Professional development because of my role as assistant Principal overlooking school wide professional development.

I am currently using the following social media platforms for professional development;

• Facebook
• Blogger
• Google+ communities
• Youtube
• Ted talks
• Vimeo
• Google sites, doc and slide
• Snapchat

Step 2 (Comparative stage): 
When comparing the social media forums that I use compared to my peers I am consistent with my choices.  The one platform that was popular that I don’t currently use is twitter.   This has been something I have been pondering for a while whether or not to join twitter.  My fear is that twitter could be another time waster, where you spend a lot of time looking through content that's not helpful.

Christina Zimmer makes this interesting statement about Twitter from an educator's perspective.

“Using Twitter can be an overwhelming experience for some educators, but the time investment in learning how it works pays huge dividends. There is no better platform for networking with other teachers” Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015)


Step 3 (critical reflection):

I believe there are a lot of positive implications using social media for professional development, including networking, problem solving, finding resources,recommendations from other professionals.  Essentially it connects us with educators not just locally but also nationally and internationally.

I will continue to use social media when looking to enhance professional development opportunities.   I may also join Twitter  and see if it pays huge dividends as suggested by Christina Zimmer.

Reference

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com Created from unitec on 2018-05-30 20:30:22.