One Small Tweet for Teachers, One Giant Blog for Teaching


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Stirling Scotland STEP conference

@TeacherToolkit

Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2010, and today, he is one of the 'most followed educators'on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the '500 Most Influential People in Britain' by The Sunday Times as a result of...
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On Saturday 21st March 2015, I attended the STEP (Scottish Teachers for Enhancing Practice) which incorporates the Association of Chartered Teachers Scotland and is their 3rd Annual Conference. 

The theme for the conference, was ‘Exploring Partnerships.’ The event was chaired by Doctorate student and Associate Lecturer at Edinburgh University, @AndrinaInglis. The full programme is here. You can also download the workshop programme here. I attended as keynote speaker.

The event was organised at Stirling Court Hotel in the wonderful grounds of Stirling University. As stated on the STEP website; their aims are:

  • To create an open and welcoming community of enquiring practitioners.
  • To lead professional dialogue within and beyond this community.
  • To promote reflective practice in the teaching profession.
  • To sustain the development of professional learning for the benefit of all learners.

You can listen to the entire presentation here, courtesy of EduTalk.

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Stirling

During the planning stage, @RealDCameron had me asked to present my own journey in CPD, particularity since the inauguration of my own Twitter account, @TeacherToolkit and how this has heightened my own professional journey. The allure to attend a CPD conference in Scotland and speak about Twitter and Blogging was just too hard to resist! If you have never been to Stirling, then you must go. It is probably a place I would like to live. It is beautiful …

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The university campus is equally stunning. A far cry from my own personal experience at Goldsmiths College, University of Arts London. Much to my surprise, the weather was incredible. A perfect day to engage with teacher CPD.

Presentation

In my presentation, I discuss several issues for blogging and tweeting teachers;

  • How blogging and Twitter can enhance your professional development.
  • Resilience and failure.
  • Establishing a Twitter account.
  • Establishing a blogging account.
  • Twitter and blogging statistics.
  • Twitter and blogging insights.
  • Managing work/life balance.
  • Tips for teachers.
  • @SLTchat, and little-brother Twitter accounts, @SLTcamp and @SLTeachMeet.
  • Moving ivory towers. For example, the DfE, Ofsted and the TES.
  • Writing, HTML coding and guest posts.
  • Debretts 500 and selfies.
  • and much, much more …
  • In one slide (below) I ask bloggers and tweeters to have patience. I remind everyone in the audience, that I once too once sent out my first tweet, had just one follower and one reader of my blog. If you are new to blogging, give it time. One of the common personality flaws of any blogger, is impatience. Here are my 10 key blogging rules and reminders:

Colleagues

It was great to meet colleagues old and new. It was also warming to meet Gillian Hamilton, CEO of the Scottish College for Educational Leadership. who is driving forward leadership development in Scotland. She is very keen to host @SLTchat. This will be a huge step forward for SLTchat in the drive to connect school leaders across the UK. You can follow Gillian on Twitter at @CEOscel. I was also delighted to finally meet @cijane02 after several years on the phone and online. It was like meeting a best friend after years apart.

Download

You can download my presentation here. In the resource, I share my blogging strategies and insights.  The resource takes you through my own professional (social-media) journey since 2007.


9 thoughts on “One Small Tweet for Teachers, One Giant Blog for Teaching

  1. Pingback: One Small Tweet for Teachers, One Giant Blog for Teaching by @TeacherToolkit | Uxbridge College Teaching and Learning
  2. Pingback: #TwitteratiChallenge! by @TeacherToolkit | @TeacherToolkit

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