// Langwitches Blog

Re)Imagining Social Media & Technology in Teacher Education with Alec Couros and Dean Shareski.

Conversation Description:

Dean Shareski and Alec Couros have been teaching technology and social media related courses in a teacher education program at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Over the last couple of years, we have focused on social and participatory learning strategies as we have “opened” our courses with the assistance of the individuals in our respective personal learning networks. This has meant connecting our students to passionate and knowledgeable educators from around the world, and also, allowing our students to become mentors in distant classrooms. The courses, based on student feedback, have been very successful. We hope to focus this conversation on both the specific and general. First, in what ways can we improve our course experiences to ensure success for our students (and hopefully for the schools in which they are hired)? Second, we would like your input in (re)imagining the role of teacher education programs in the development of students who are technologically savvy and media literate. What should our programs aim to accomplish? What strategies should we adopt? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we work better with K12 schools districts to help foster innovation and ensure success for young learners.

Educon Participants

Teachers and teacher’s education is changing.

Big Question: What does teacher education look like?
Course Framework:
Learning is Social, whether that is being online or in another context. Imperative that students be together in one way or another to learn with each other. Students are required to explain HOW you learned from other and HOW you contributed to the learning from others. It is important to spell out that expectation!

Public Spaces:

Idea of private to public spaces. Student ownership of their learning. The idea of dismanteling a course learning space a after the class is over is unreal, but very normal with platforms such as Blackboard.

Assessment:

How do we help each other learn more. Co-constructing criteria. What should your blog look like. How should it look like for you. Discussion how something could look like. What would the student like to get out of it. Shifting the assessment more to the student, not the teacher.

Distributive Expertise:

Bring in expert/practitioner voices. Changes the role of professors to facilitators.

Access to Best Practices:

Mentoring by opening your classroom to student teachers (via video conferences). Very powerful experience for student AND classroom teacher. Student teachers might start “contract” themselves out to help classroom teachers.

Personal Learning Network:

Possibilities to have our pre-service teachers connect with someone who inspires them and to mentor them in their journey. How should it happen (Building a PLN)? Organically or prescribed?

Private vs. Public:

Web2.0 tools exist that might allow academics to  on and reimagine what they do as scholars. Such tools might positively affect – even transform learning[...]

What would you suggest to improve the experience for students?

Help pre-service teachers to get in the habit of integrating technology in order to LEARN. Imagine school and learning can look different, even though school has worked for these pre-service teachers. How do you prepare students that it worked well for them (since they are in college).

“We have to teach teachers how to learn.”(Will Richardson)

About Sharing...

Image licensed under Creative Commons by Dean Shareski

-Have virtual field experiences.

-Being a reflective practitioner:

- It can’t be so much about teaching for pre-service teachers, but it also has to be about LEARNING.

What parts of this framework make sense for all learners? What parts don’t?

What happens when you prepare your pre-service teachers and then they go out to their first jobs and none of the technology tools are available or desired in the new school or district? The same question arises what happens to students in K12 schools who are in a 21st century savvy teacher who open up all the possibility to connection and collaboration and then they move on the the next grade level, where they are denied to continue to learn in that way.