Going...global.

Are you all ready to go POSTAL?  AAAHHH!!

...hold the phone...

              ......Freudian slip......

                                      .....this is embarrassing......

                                                                 .....one second......

I am clearly a little excited about my post today.  Allow me to try this again...A-a-a-hem!

Are you all ready to go global??  

I am proposing a challenge to all of you today.  It may take some of you out of your comfort zone.  That's ok.  I am calling it the "Punxsutawney Phil Challenge."  It's time to come out of your little hole that you are so comfortable in.  If you see your shadow, don't be like these professional scaredy cats.

Embrace your shadow, and what you have to offer.  But you also need crawl out and see what the world has to offer!  Let's all take a step back from your own classroom, team, school, district, etc. and see what other professionals are doing out there.  After all, didn't we enter this biz to better the world by bettering our students?  We can't grow successful students if we are scared of our own shadow.

How do you do this, you ask?  I'll do my best to explain.

We all have professional learning communities.  Let's maximize the potential of this concept.  "They" call it a

Personal

Learning

Network.

Think of your PLC, on a grandiose scale, and of course combined with the inter-webs.  Oh where, oh where would we be without the inter-webs?  We'd be stuck in our Punxsatawney hole- that's where we'd be!  So, what exactly is this glorious PLN that I speak of?  Take a gander at this video. My very own teacher created it, I love how it is clear and easy to follow for the novice.  She may or may not be reading this right now- I'm hoping for brownie points.  uh-wink!  It tells of all the different ways we can connect to other professionals using different avenues online.

Need an idea of how to teach rhythm vs. steady beat?  Want to know how other teachers are teaching recorder?  How do other teachers handle students that do not show up to performances when you can not require it in your district?  How do others get parents involved in creating sets for your elementary performances?  A parent called again about how you did not give their child the lead in the play.  How do you deal with it?  Need a good unit or lesson on the instrument families? So many questions!  Well guess what-there are so many answers!  You can connect with others and communicate with others using some of these avenues:

• blogs
• facebook
• twitter
• nings
• social bookmarking (which I'll talk more about later in this post)
• webinars

Now, how do you connect with others once you have chosen your avenue of choice?  Start with this list of PLN resources.  Then, narrow it down from there.  Once you get started in one of them, it's almost like a domino effect.  You will find more and more groups/people to connect with and before you know it, Bob's your uncle and your new best friend lives in Thailand.   

If you're a music teacher like me here are a few of my go-to places to get you started:

Blogs:

• http://mrskingrocks.blogspot.com/
• http://www.mrsmiraclesmusicroom.com/p/about-me_10.html
• http://www.musicalaabbott.com/
• http://www.soundscapemusic.net/blog
• https://techinmusiced.wordpress.com

Facebook:

• Feierabend Association for Music Education

Social Bookmarking

Everything is so social these days, right?  There is a reason for it.  In order for our students to be successful, they need to be comfortable in social settings.  Everything they do is social. We need to train ourselves and be comfortable in this "social" world, because that is all they know.  We don't want to hold them back

 *** Shout out to all the helicopter moms out there: if you complain to the principal that your child did not get a band-aid for a scrape that could barely be seen and was not even bleeding, you are not setting your child up for success.  However, I am doing all that I can with my social bookmarking skillz to further your child in music class.  Yes, that was meant to be spelled with a "z" for emphasis.  

I am so glad that you are questioning what social bookmarking is.  I had not heard of it until the class I am currently taking.  So, get this:  social bookmarking is basically an amped up bookmarks list- like the one you keep on your toolbar.  You know, the one that holds only a few of your favorites.  So you click on your drop down menu to show the other bookmarks, but you have to scroll down for days to find the exact one you need. Then, you forget what the site was called, so you scroll really slowly in order to find it. Or heaven forbid you go in to work tomorrow morning; find that your cute desktop background is that ugly, plain, blue color instead of your adorable little girls; go to find that video you saved in your favorites and...

You see that your lifetime collection of bookmarks is gone, because IT came and reimaged your computer over night.  Did they notify you?

No! They did not!  But I digress...

Social bookmarking allows you to keep your bookmarks out in internet space, but with so much more organization and connections than before!  Let's be honest here folks.  We are always searching and learning as educators-we can't help it.  We are always coming across 'life-changing' sites on the internet.  Sometimes, or most of the time, I don't have time to really dig in to looking at what all the site has to offer.  In the past, I would bookmark, so I could come back to it later.  In reality, did that happen?   I'm sure you already know the answer.  Let's reset the stage so we can be successful ourselves as teachers.  Close your eyes and imagine this:

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.

.

.

.

Ok, sorry.  Open your eyes so you can read what I am writing and imagine this:

You are preparing a guitar unit with your 5th graders and you just aren't happy with how it has developed in the past.  You are starting to build up an amazing network with your PLN to go to, but you also have some of your own resources to grab from.  As you came across these life-changing sites, you tagged them with some key terms for quick access later.  You go to your social bookmarking site and find your key term "guitar."  Voila!  

You have some amazing resources at your fingertips that you had forgotten about, because you were too busy rocking at life to create a guitar unit when you came across them the first time.  I like these videos that Common Craft creates.  Watch this to intro yourself to social bookmarking.

Let's talk about...

Let's be clear.  It is not Dingo with an n.  When I saw someone type Dingo in one of my class posts, it made me think of this and I got a good laugh.  Oh Elaine!

Isn't this concept of tagging amazing?!  I wish there was a way to do this with lessons that I find and like in my good ol' fashion books and magazines that I get.  And if there is, please share with me!  Anyhow,  as you come across sites, tag them with all of the things you know you'll search for in the future.  Diigo does so much more than just tagging.  Check this out:

I love the bookmarking tool and that you can tag sites.  Often times I will find a great site, but do not have time to fully explore it.  If you are like me, and have a life outside of work, you will use the "read it later" tool a lot. You can use the sticky note to give yourself reminders on how you would use the website later.  If I do not write things down, I will forget them immediately.  When I come across an amazing resource, if I do not write down how I would use it and when I would use it, and place it in the right place in lesson plans, I will forget it.  With the sticky note tool, I can quickly write the idea down on the sticky note and will have it for when I need it later.  I like that the highlighter portion can help me organize certain topics within a website.  I can also add notes to a certain highlighted portion to remind myself of certain things.  Fun fact: the highlighted portions are added to your Diigo home page.  This is nice to see all of your highlighted portions condensed in one place.  They must have had the teacher in mind!

One thing that I worried about when finding Diigo is that I would have 2 sets of bookmarks until I entered them all in my Diigo page from my personal computer.  Check this out:  https://www.diigo.com/tools/import_all. 

Twitter?  Yes, Twitter!

Full disclosure: I did not grow up in the twitter world, and I could have cared less about what a hashtag was.  As far as I was concerneed, it was a sharp in my sheet music.  UNTIL I had to create an account for a class I was taking a while back.  So, yes, it forced me to be hip and cool.  I know...the torture of being the bomb-diggity.  I'm sure that phrase is still used amongst the youth.  If you are as clueless as I once was, try this site out.  It will get you up to speed.  How can you use Twitter as an educator?  So glad you asked!  Here are just a few ways that I use it:  

• following hashtags that pertain to topics I am in to
• Ex:  #musiced, #elemmusiced, #teacherwellness, #proudteacher
• posting happenings within my classroom. (I like to be transparent with parents)
• Ex: drumming videos, music games that we are playing for understanding
• performance promos
• connecting with fellow music educators to see all of their postings
• connecting with professional organizations
• participating in chats

If you are anything like me, I forget all the possible hashtags that I like to follow.  So, I subscribed to twitterfall.  You can add everything you like to follow in one place, and it will continually update you on just what you are looking for, rather than searching for it every time.  Chats are something that you can participate in, in real time.  Find a schedule here of some that may interest you.  One idea that came to me, but I have not presented it to my principal is starting a "movement" at our school using Twitter.  I think it would get the community more involved in following the teachers's and school's twitter feed.  Our school is big on promoting kindness.  Shouldn't we all?  We could beef up what happens outside of the school day with families by creating a special hashtag or handle that the families could tweet to.  For instance:  #kindnessIScontagiousatCHE or @CHEkindness.  Families can post pictures, videos, or ideas to either of these and get the ball rolling.  I'll keep you updated on the outcome.

When we started our chat today, I Punxsatawney-challenged you.  Do you accept?  

    OR