One of the biggest things I learned this week was how essential it is to become connected as an educator. Along with the blog pages, I read an interesting article on Edutopia called Ten Tips for Becoming a Connected Educator. This article was a great read and I got a lot of takeaways from it. The first tip on the page really stuck out to me and it was "Embrace Making Mistakes" I know personally, this is something I struggle with sometimes and I am sure other people can relate. When it comes to being connected, or anything dealing with technology, we can sometimes feel out of our element and that can be scary. Making mistakes is a great way to learn and grow! I have a personal Twitter and I think Twitter is a great way to connect with other educators. One of the tips was to follow people who think the same as you and also people who don't. I really want to evaluate the people I follow on Twitter and follow more pages that can benefit me as an educator. I really like this tip because although following people who may have different view points as you seems strange, it can really help you grow as a person and maybe reevaluate your thinking or why you believe a certain way. It is important for us to see different view points and also expose our students to this.
Social media is an awesome connection tool if used correctly. I think it is really important to use social media tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc, because it is a way for educators to collaborate and share ideas. For students, a school social media could be beneficial in connecting with other students or seeing what other classes are working on. Overall, social media is a great way to collaborate and communicate with a wide variety of people.
Personally, I am connected, but maybe not in the way I should be. I do have Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and a class blog, but I am not following the right people. In the near future I want to reevaluate who I am following and follow people in the education world. For me, this will be the first step of connecting with other educators.
I can definitely relate to use with struggling with "Embrace Making Mistakes". It is hard for me to admit when I am wrong and I hate when I make a mistake. But as we become teachers and are a role model for 20+ children, it is important that we do not stress with making mistakes, because then they will to. We can learn through our mistakes and share what we learn with other people. Being a connected learner also allows us to learn from others' mistakes.
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