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eaching professionals have found ways to use Twitter to share resources and lend quick support to peers with similar interests

o build a

Many professors and higher-education leaders are struggling to strike a balance between their personal and professional lives when using online social media, a realm that encourages widespread sharing of thoughts and opinions. Often that means creating multiple accounts, one for each of the hats they wear. Some professors use Facebook with friends and family, reserving Twitter for professional observations, or vice versa.

There may be a benefit to that kind of sharing. Ms. Johnson recently conducted a survey of 120 students at the college about what they thought of a series of Twitter feeds run by professors. The majority of students found the professors who mixed in personal details with their down-to-business tweets more credible—rating them higher on measures of competence, trustworthiness, and caring. Her theory: Students want to end the semester with a connection to their professors, not just a head full of facts.

The question isn’t just academic. When related to education I think it really has some significance. Of course we have all the data driven, test score driven administrative tom follery. I’m not going to discuss this silly stuff. If you can’t see that emperor has no clothes, well, then dream on….. No, I want to look at how teachers make decisions in their own classroom. Are we like Apple, generals and experts that know and with our charts, handouts, videos, textbooks – steering the ship of students? Or are we listening to students and letting them take hold of the wheel and allowing them to steer the ship?

Of course, most teachers will say that they are the later, they are googlites, they listen to their students. This is the mantra of modern education. However, me thinks this is only cosmetic. Look deeper and almost all teachers are governing their class as “experts”. We truly don’t go down to the level of students or listen to them. We all say that we “listen” and are “data informed” but when push comes to shove – I believe we teach as we were taught. We perpetuate a worn and bedraggled and very much irrelevant orthodoxy. All the while propping up and rationalizing our methods, our job, by saying we are listening to the students, we are listening to the data. However, the facts are out there for

all to see.

It's pretty clear teachers are collaborating with each other by sharing solutions to their challenges—links to articles, resources and practical ideas: