The story so far………..

by Lim Kok Hwa

Principal First Toa Payoh Secondary

MY FORAY INTO THE NEW MEDIA OF LEARNING

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL LEARNING IN THE DOLDRUMS

• Scanning, rather than reading, books for personal and professional development

• Learning on the surface

• Professional discourse depended mainly on face-to-face interactions

• Resources for reading and professional development mainly in hardcopy & not well organised for future use

• Difficulty in organising and compiling learning points and references

PERSONAL LEARNING RE-BOOTING…

• Using Twitter to follow connected and networked thought leaders in education

• Curating relevant educational topics of interest using Zite

• Joining community of learners in Google+

Digital immigrant awakens…….and ventures into the world of the digital natives

PERSONAL LEARNING RE-BOOTING…

Digital immigrant awakens…….and ventures into the world of the digital natives

Twitter – online social networking & micro-blogging• To follow thought leaders on education from all over the world• To tweet interesting educational news/stories to followers

Zite – news aggregation apps• To filter news on educational issues of interest • Allows sharing of good articles on twitter & Google+

Google+ – social networking & identity service• To join community of learners in area of common interest• To create my own community of learners in school & cluster

PERSONAL LEARNING RE-BOOTING….

Digital immigrant awakens…….and ventures into the world of the digital natives

• G+ Communities I have joined for my personal learning

CHALLENGES, DILEMMA & TENSIONS……• Overwhelmed by explosion of information & resources from

new media of learning

• Evernote to the rescue

• ‘Discomfort’ zone of using social media during school hours

• Designation time zones e.g. lunch breaks and end of the day routine

• Slow buying-in of G+ platform as PD from colleagues and staff

• Be patient and working through advocates who see the value of this platform

Evernote – a software for note-taking & archiving which can be synced across multiple mobile devices

SMALL SUCCESSES……

• ‘Lurking’ for a period of time before starting to tweet

Think BIG, start small………..

SMALL SUCCESSES……

• Building community of learners in my school and cluster

Think BIG, start small………..

IMPACT ON PERSONAL LEARNING……..• Current in my learning on educational aspects of interest

• Following thought leaders in education such as Tom Whitby, George Couros and Jon Bergmann on twitter

• Up-to-date news and information on educational area of interest through news aggregation apps such as Zite & Flipboard

• Following the discussions of professional learning networks in Google+ e.g. Flipped Learning and Google+ Resource

• Better organised in archiving personal learning materials and resources for future use and reference (using Evernote Premium)

• A connected learner who contributes to the learning of others e.g. tweeting & moderating in Google+ learning communities

THE ROLE OF THE 21ST CENTURY SCHOOL LEADER…….

• A Connected Educator

• who is part of the larger network of educators and

• who is constantly learning from and with other fellow educators around the world

• An Advocate of Collaboration

• as a way to work and learn I this increasing complex world

• A Lead Learner

• is in the fore-front of professional development in the school

• role-model the type of learning he wants to see in his school