Communication is a large part of what teachers do and it is important that we consider how we communicate, what we communicate and with whom.
- With: students, parents colleagues, administrators, community members and the larger education community.
- What: we communicate (or deliver) curriculum to students and, at the same time, we communicate about this curriculum and our assessment of students to students themselves, to parents and to specialist teachers and administration as needed. We call this ‘communicating student learning’ (or CSL).
- How: Professionally! Considering how we communicate is an imperative. Considering how we communicate in today’s digitally enabled world, I believe, is equally important.
Working with Dawn Allen and her EDUC 450 Inquiry classes provided an opportunity to consider professional communication from different standpoints. Dawn and I discussed how communication as a BEd student might look different from communication as an undergrad and definitely looks different from communication as a Teacher Candidate on practicum (and later, we hope, early career teacher).
To that end, we engaged students in a session we called “Professional and Practitioner Use of Blogs and Digital communication platforms” – a real mouthful but, really, more an opportunity to co-create our understandings through discussion about online communication and the potential value of developing a Professional Learning Network (PLN) and a professional online presence.
We looked at examples of how BEd students have shared their inquiry using various digital platforms including Twitter, Blogs, Tumblr, Instagram and even Facebook. As we looked, we discussed the inquiry process and how we evaluate digital technologies. Following this, students had the opportunity to work in groups to design their ideal class blog using copies of the existing cohort blog in UBC Blogs WordPress. Students took this opportunity to ‘play’ in wordpress and consider what kinds of design features they (or their own students) might want in a class blog. I appreciated the willingness of students to learn in a collaborative, playful way! Thank you!
Below are some resources from our session.
Some info and Brief video tutorials to help you if you decide to set up your own UBC Blog.
Inquiry posters from Trevor MacKenzie
The SAMR Model Video – evaluating our use of digital technology in the classroom.
