How a New Generation of Teachers Will Change Schools

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

In September, I wrote about unprecedented opportunities for mass collaboration and action and how students can be enabled to be smart a group that, contrary to usual connotations of mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links (Rheingold 2002). It's almost common that youth use social media to share information, collaborate on projects of shared interest, organize, and socialize. But we often overlook how teachers are using these media to link up through loose networks of peers to develop their own teaching skills and to extend their reach beyond classroom. Many see social media as passing fad or something one does for fun. Social media are communications channel that opens world of possibilities and, in many ways, will become new operating DNA of incoming teachers and some of our current teachers. The web catalyzed ability of adults over age 45 to search and retrieve information and become informed consumers, citizens, employees, educators, parents, or learners. This was, and most often for me is, sufficient. But for those under age 26, web is no longer about idly surfing and passively reading, listening, or watching. They want to use web to share and socialize within loosely connected communities. Adults between ages 27 and 45 primarily use e-mail but are migrating toward using some social networking tools for communication (MediaBadger 2009). And according to Rapleaf, an Internet software company, women are at forefront of using social media (Hoffman 2008). Therefore, it should be no surprise that teachers are yearning for some form of connection by using social media. Teachers are self-organizing to share curricula through open educational resources (OER), educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and, under some licenses, to re-mix, improve, and redistribute. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been sponsoring high-quality open academic content, breaking down barriers to open educational content, and encouraging people worldwide to use OER because the world's is public good and ... technology in general and World Wide Web, in particular, provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge (Atkins, Brown, and Hammond 2007). Open educational resources include such content as course materials or content modules. While this field is growing, some web sites with open content include Connexions, The National Repository of Online Courses, Curriki, WikiEducator, MIT Open Courseware, and OER Commons. Connexions (www.cnx.org), for example, is web site where anyone can and share educational material made of small chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute. Connexions provides collaborative environment for developing, sharing, and publishing scholarly content on web. At OER Commons, teacher or learner can search open content by level or grade, subject area or issue, such as classroom management. Some of these sites make available curricula and other learning resources whose quality has been vetted by members or partners, while others encourage or rely on member contributions and depend on community to manage quality. OER can also include software or tools that facilitate using this open learning content. For example, some teachers are reaching out by using videos. TeacherTube (www.teachertube.com) allows anyone to upload and share personally created video about any topic or lesson without any external assessment. Teacher-Tube's goal is to provide an online community where teachers can share instructional videos. Online groups at TeacherTube include Math Geeks and Proud of It, specific high school groups, or districts. This is an example of establishing new digital medium through which to create learning experiences. …