After a long hiatus, I’m back.
This summer I joined twitter and imagine this: I was pleasantly surprised. Pay no attention to the mindless chatter of celebrities, there’s a wonderful world of exciting contributions to all dialogues educational. I don’t follow many and am not sure how I feel about being followed, yet I have made some excellent discoveries and come across too many great resources to count.
And still I find myself returning to my central belief: it’s the people who count. All the technology in the world will not save us if we fail to respect and appreciate the wonders and weaknesses of being human.
Below is a response I wrote to Tom Whitby regarding his post: Flipping Connectedness to Circumvent Resistance. http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/
Tom,
Thank you for this thought-provoking post among many others I have been able to read here. Like Jill and TMVine, I am new to twitter and PLNs and have been delighted to cull so much wisdom from a variety of sources. I appreciate your idea here that maybe our students can lead the way and perhaps many already are – whether we as educators acknowledge it or not.
I understand your frustration about essentially “preaching to the converted.” What finally got me to join twitter was an invitation from a trusted colleague. Which leads me to believe that the key to relevance of PLNs is an emphasis on personal. When colleagues reach out to other colleagues, the critical elements of empathy, compassion and care are ultimately what make the difference between genuine connection and potential disconnect. Connecting people takes much more than technology and even as we widen our perspectives to further our learning, may we remain mindful of the human elements we all need to best serve our students and our societies.
I am grateful to Tom and those like him who invest substantial time and energy into making education better for kids now by adding their voices to the conversation. To my own surprise, I find that I, too, have a few words to share.
edifiedlistener 