Ch 1 - Digital fluency - Ch 2 - The fear of social media in learning - With alec couros

Ch 1_ Digital Fluency _ Ch2_ The Fear of Social Media in Le.mp4 Alec Couros Discusses Digital Fluency So, so I think one of the biggest ah, struggles for teachers is first of all, understanding what's out there, and there's so much out there, I...I... it you know being close to this for so many years you know I... I often ah, find it difficult myself, even to get a sense of, what's out there what's new, what should I be paying attention to. So... its .... it's important first of all to get a sense of what is out there? And here's a number of places to go, for instance there's The Horizon Report, which allows ah, sort of a sense of some of the major trends that are coming down the road. Um, one of the major trends that we're seeing ar... are these massive open online courses, and so there' a number of provider such Coursera, Audacity, and X, that are providing these massive open online courses, and theses courses are around different disciplines. Now, no... not every single massive online course is, or Mook as they call them, is created equal, but taking a look... at what's of.......... out there, finding a topic that's interesting, and actually going for it. Registering for a course, seeing if you can participate, som... sometimes they last a few weeks, sometimes a few months, but I think, um, as we see learning change, I think I... it's increasingly important that we actually spend time learning, as a online learner does. And ah, the complexity of learning in the... Dig Digital Age um, means that we take different opportunities, so for instance being able to be part of a massive open online course, it gives the ability for teachers to look differently at information, or how information is given, it looks, it provides different instructional strategies, to take a look at. And so, those... you know......... that's one place to start, and I think once you've done this sort of thing, it's also important to get a sense of who's out there, so for instance, you know, who at your school, has ah, is you know, is on Twitter? There may be someone out there, I... just simply asking someone to be your sort of mentor, your buddy, perhaps looking at the department, being able to provide someone out there, who actually can connect you through Twitter to other educators, and once you've been provided with some sort of a mentor relationship, or a buddy, or someone who can take some of these risks with you, I think you'd feel much better about connecting. Ah, the thing with um, tools such as Twitter for instance, is there... there can be very isolating, they don't actually work without a network, and so a lot of these new tools because there social networked based, if you try to use them on your own, you just feel empty and isolated, and you won't even know where to start. So I think it's increasingly important to find a peer, someone who can support you in different ways, and for schools to actually create peers, people who are actually knowledgeable about the subject, who can be these team leaders, subject leaders, someone they can turn to, who... your teacher who is willing to learn, but doesn't know where to start, and so providing the support is increasingly important. Alec Couros- discusses Social Media in Learning. So, so one of the of the biggest fears around schools use of Social Media is... is you know Cyber Bullying, and ah, you know Th... Th... the abuse of these types on new tools, an... and it does happen; you know there are countless cases of bullying, and so on. But this pro... problem happens, whether we acknowledge it or not, so i... it's increasingly important to develop leadership in ou... our schools, and it's not leadership as in; here's the Admin, that person is your leader, it's about creating distributer leadership, which includes people right across the entire school system. So that would mean teachers of... of all callibuar, ah, ah......... th... of all subjects for instance, it would mean students, who actually know first hand, some of the new technologies, and how to use them, but perhaps ah, don't know how to use them wisely. But getting a sense of who's using Social Media, scanning the environment for hash tags that are being used for instance around your school, doing a Social Media scan, how is your school name being used in Social Media? Finding... getting a sense of that. So I think then... then moving towards creating an identity, ah, creating identity of your school, having a Twitter account a Facebook account, ah, something that actually is accountable for your particular identity, because identity is not just simply about individuals, it's also about our institutions. So I guess in leverging, and taking a risk on um, you know your own schools identity, um, using and jumping into some of these Social Media tools appropriately, finding the appropriate guiding documents with the department, um, around Social Media use, there's also um, beyond Australia, there's a fantastic documents from for instance, the University of Alberta, ah, which talk about ah, B.O.Y. D environments, Digital Citizen Policies, and so there's a lot of places to start. Um, you can also look at hash tags, such as CP Chat, on... on ah, Twitter, ah, ask something ah, ah, a question around that, there are a countless of administrators who. who have already done this, and connecting to that expertise, is a really important deal. So there are schools that are successful, in Social Media, but those schools are always ah, distributed leadership, about know how around Social Media, and about taking risks, and I think if we just ignore it, this is going to happen to us, rather with us, than with us, and it's really important to get started, and get started as soon as possible.