Why I love #CHAedu #coffeeEDU

Education and educators are a segmented lot. A classroom teacher teaches their students and comes into contact with maybe 5-10 other educators on a daily basis. Most others are just passing conversations in the hallway unless they are on your grade level team/dept and you can add another few hours a week. The point I'm trying to make is that it's really easy for educators to fall victim to no new ideas for their classroom. We can easily sit in silos and echo chambers, only hear the rumblings of discontent around us and the supporting rumblings. We can easily find ourselves in a culture of acceptance of "this is the way, this is what I've been dealt, bloom where I'm planted" and lose our visionary outlook.

The above is the reason I am passionate about being a part of the monthly Chattanooga area coffeeEDU. I didn't dream up the concept of coffeeEDU but I did see the value of it in the Chattanooga area. Chattanooga is uniquely located in an area that easily accesses 3 states. It is a private school heavy environment and has several colleges/universities in the area. As I helped with Edcamp gigcity for the past two years I stood amazed at how many different school districts, schools, and states were represented. I also immediately saw the value of being plugged into some of these schools because they were doing things my school wasn't doing. Trying things I knew educators at my school were interested in. 

So, I decided to do a social media invite to #CHAedu #coffeeEDU. The first meeting took place at a donut shop and I had no idea who would actually come... imagine my surprise when 2 higher education professors from two different colleges, 2-3 different private schools were represented, and public school educators from both Georgia and Tennessee showed up! We've met every month since then (taking the summers off) at different schools. We've shared our struggles, asked questions about things we want to know more about, shared transparently about things that worry us in education, celebrated things we've seen as triumphs, gotten to know each other better, grown the group, eaten lots of donuts, and thought outside our normal spheres of educational banter.

For me it has been refreshing. It's nice to hear I'm not the only one feeling overwhelmed at times. It's nice to have a network of people to engage with and ask questions. It's nice to have face to face interactions with people that see education differently than I do. It's nice to listen and gauge and reflect on what others are doing. I am thankful for this group that is always changing because who has a Saturday each month to always give up? But I am thankful to the core of people, that like me, see this as worthy of carrying on. We spend 1 hour in discussion of whatever topics come up. It is participant driven, like an unconference model. One hour is it...we all have things to do on Saturdays but I always leave glad I participated.

May I always see the importance of both hearing and listening to the pros and cons of educational speak from others around me so that I may continue to grow. 

p.s.- Next coffeeEDU is December 10, 2016 at Girls Preparatory School. All area edus are always invited.

What if Chattanooga's Connected Educators Were Even More Connected?

                                                            

In the last 3 days I have posted 3 tweets that look a lot like the one below. In the 3 different ones I have tagged #CHA #hcde and #ccslearns in hopes of getting a few more noticed. So what were the results?

I had 17 unique educators notice the tweets and respond- three of them were superintendent level educators, a few were edtech edus, at least three were principals or assistant principals and the majority seem to be classroom teachers but I do not know for sure. I know for a fact that we have more connected educators in the Chattanooga area but for whatever reason the tweets weren't noticed. Which leads me to the WHY of my postings. 

Lately I've been wondering just how many connected educators were in the Chattanooga area and how I could make sure I was connected with them on Twitter? I've been wondering what these educators are doing that our school might benefit from seeing? I've been wondering who in my area is leveraging the learning ability of social media for their school practices? I've found myself wondering if the teachers in my city know about the upcoming Edcamp Gigcity and how could I make sure they know about this awesome opportunity?

Last week I had the opportunities to co-lead a session at the Administrator's Technology Academy (ATA) sponsored by the East Tennessee Education Technology Association (ETETA). While speaking to a packed out, standing room only crowd I realized there were only two attendees that I recognized - Allison Fuller-Mulloy and Amy Myhan. It dawned on me that there might be quite a few more educators from Chattanooga in the room but I just didn't know them.

What if there was a way that connected educators in Chattanooga could connect more readily? At Edcamp Gigcity last spring there was a session about citywide collaboration. Many in the room wanted it to happen. To be honest I took lots of notes, had grand plans and they all fell through in my lack of vision. But what if we all started following and creating locally based tweets that might be of interest to other educators with the hashtag #eduCHA? With #eduCHA we could let each other know when opportunities for learning are taking place, we could check to see if there is truly enough interest to create "lunch and learn" opportunities in the summer, or #CoffeeChatCHA opportunities at that cute little donut shop on Frazier Avenue one Saturday morning a month. We could connect and share triumphs, dissect failures and learn from each other more.

What if I knew that a local educator was doing something that I want to see be done at my school? We could hop in my car and head over and see it in action.

What if more educators in our area were using social media for professional development opportunities? One thing that keeps coming back to me over and over in my very small "test" was that almost 30% of the educators that responded to my tweets were administration level. What does this say? I think it tells us that many school system leaders at least see the value of Twitter for professional development. They may not expect connected educators but I think we can make the assumption they notice them.

What if more of those teachers that clicked that like button became more than "lurkers" on Twitter and actually shared things? I was a lurker for a long time before I started adding things to Twitter. There is nothing wrong with lurking and learning but each educator has a voice to share. Take a chance, model good digital citizenship skills (don't bash others or your school) and bump up your twitter involvement to see what you can add to your PLN (professional learning network).

What if more administrators took part in Twitter conversations? Some of my favorite twitter chats to participate in include Dan Lawson, superintendent of Tullahoma City Schools. Dr. Dan adds a viewpoint to chats that many teachers overlook. I am thankful for his use of Twitter because it has grown my own personal views as I have listened and learned from his viewpoint. That being said, administrators should make sure that Twitter is a safe place for teachers to be transparent and real in their sharing. Voicing opinions should be allowed. Obviously if someone is bashing the school or an individual that has to be addressed but teachers shouldn't be scared to share their fears and discouragements safely. There is too much goodness to glean from Twitter, Google +, Voxer, etc not to give teachers the power to feel free to discuss!

I am not trying to start a movement or create a subculture. I just want to be able to look beyond the four walls of my school for support and my global community starts the moment I step out of the front door of the school. Let's connect and collaborate!