Her most recent goal is to share someting using Diigo. Of course, that quickly led to a discussion about where to find that something that she wants to share. We talked about finding articles on Twitter and Google Reader. At this point, she got out her datebook and said she wanted to schedule a half-hour with me to make sure she was doing all of this right.
Right then I thought about a tweet Will Richardson sent out today:
Wondering: In the technology sense, is "Fix it Yourself" a 21st C. skill?I sent back:
At the very least "try *something* before you call me" is.I relayed that conversation to Susan. The light bulb turned on for her. She made the connection as a teacher that when kids come up to you with "I just don't get it" it's impossible to help them until you figure out either what it is they don't get or what it is they've tried so far.
So, I gave Susan some homework -- and if you know me, you know I don't give out homework very often. She's going to post an article to our Diigo group by Monday. We're considering it a pre-test.
She seemed so excited about trying it by herself, I brought up Twitter. She has updated her account infrequently since joining. She has mentioned multiple times, though, that she wants to be able to use Twitter to see what other teachers are doing. She wants to find resources from them. She's of the mindset that she doesn't have anything to share. As you may know, I'm an advocate for getting involved when you're using Twitter. It's not because I have anything against lurkers. It's because I think everyone has something worth sharing.
That's when I told her what's turned into the title of this post: Catch yourself doing something worth sharing. You don't have to tweet it or anything like that. Just start recognizing what's worth sharing. What are you doing that other educators benefit from?
Plenty, I'd bet.
