NOTE: I invited Katie Toppel to write a guest post about a neat idea I heard about on Twitter:
Katie Toppel, Ed.D (@Toppel_ELD) is a K-5 English Language Development Specialist in Oregon and an adjunct professor at Portland State University.
If there remains any doubt about the impact of educational technology, let’s take a look at the power of an educators’ book club when transformed via the world of social media. What started as my simple tweet featuring a photo of a book cover and the words “Starting a new book tonight,” has evolved into a virtual book club bringing together educators from around the world who are passionate about enhancing instruction for English learners and excitedly talking about co-teaching, collaboration, and technology!
At some point early this school year, I discovered what a powerful resource Twitter is for professional development and despite feeling like an uniformed newbie in certain respects, I dove right in and started accumulating connections with other educators who are passionate about teaching English language learners. I began to notice different education hash tags including the word “chat” and was excited to discover opportunities to become part of these real-time discussions. Despite the draw of these Twitter chats, I came to realize that as a busy working mom with two young children, it was hard to remember the specific hour of the day on the specific day of the week that the various chats were to take place. And, even when I happened to remember a chat was happening, it was often during a time of day when I needed to get dinner ready or when I really needed to be present with my children rather than tweeting on my phone.
Consequently, when I tweeted about the book I was going to start and my Twitter pal, Tan, in Laos, responded by saying “Let’s read it together and start our own EAL (English as Another Language) book club” the seeds were planted for this virtual book club that we now call ELL Chat Book Club (#EllChat_BkClub). In my opinion, the greatest appeal of this book club is that we decided to make it a slow chat, meaning participants can post at any time using the group hash tag and a wonderful conversation gradually ensues. Another terrific feature is that after choosing our first book, Collaboration and Co-teaching: Strategies for English Learners, which is co-authored by Andrea Honigsfeld, @AndreaHonigsfel, and Maria Dove, @MariaGDove, we were able to get Andrea to chat along with us as we discussed her book! We could directly ask her questions or get her opinions and she was very active in responding to our #EllChat_BkClub tweets.
We structured the book club by posting a suggested reading schedule and then questions to go along with the content. The flexibility inherent in this virtual format is terrific because participants can truly read at their own pace and interact with the hash tag however they find valuable. Participants post photos of highlighted text, share related tweets such as articles, images, and info graphics, and also post photos from our own classrooms to illustrate how the book/discussion has influenced our instruction. Participants can easily access all of the book club tweets by searching #EllChat_BkClub and are welcome to join in or just read what has been posted.
Gradually, as we continued tweeting with our newly minted hash tag, more participants joined in and we now have quite a large group reading and tweeting about our second book, ELL Frontiers: Using Technology to Enhance Instruction for English Learners. It’s very valuable to interact with educators who teach in different instructional contexts as well as different districts, states, and even in different countries! I am constantly learning new ideas and broadening my perspective. Please consider checking out our #EllChat_BkClub tweets and joining in!
In my first year of teaching, I consumed about half a dozen teaching books. In the summer after my first year of teaching, I consumed a dozen more.
Reading teaching books have been a reliable form of professional development.
Now that I am more familiar with teaching, I’ve recently stopped reading teaching books, but I know that’s not improving my craft.
That all changed after I started my Twitter account and began reading books about EL instruction. However, this reading experience is significantly different than reading during my first year of teaching because now I’m reading WITH a community of educators.
We share ideas, ask each other questions, and force ourselves to beyond our comfort zone to try new approaches.
I am so grateful for Katie and the #ellchat_bkclub community because of the transformations they’re providing me. I look forward to learning with you and along side you in #ellchat_bkclub.
Thank you, Larry, for inviting Katie to share her idea on leading this new form of collaboration. It has been most rewarding to follow along and jump in as people around the US and beyond read my books. I know this will be a sustained effort as interested members choose their next book and expand their exploration to all topics related to ELs.
There wouldn’t be such of a lively and active conversation if you didn’t co-write the book. We appreciate the vigor and excitement you bring to the conversation, Andrea! I hope you continue to join in the conversation in future bookclubs.
I’m an active user of Twitter for professional development. Expanding the network of people I follow and interact with has been one of my top benefits. I have done that primarily by following the #ELLChat hashtag and participating in #ELLchat live on an almost weekly basis. For example, I came across the first #ELLChat_BkClub conversation because I follow both Katie (@Toppel_ELD) and Tan (@TanELLclassroom).
The structure and consistency of participating in a chat like #ELLChat was a big factor in helping me see the value of Twitter for professional development. However, a one-hour chat on a different topic each week can only go so deep. Having a slow chat about a book that you are simultaneously reading takes the learning to a deeper level. There is still the structure of the questions to guide the conversation, but the common text as a foundation means you can discuss ideas at an application level.
I’m excited by the interest and participation in #ELLChat_BkClub. Hats off to Katie, Tan, Andrea and her co-authors of our second book selection, @ESLTechies Lisa Estrada & Heather Parris! And thanks to Larry for publishing this post about the book club.
Hi, Shaeley!
You brought up a great distinction between the once-a-week chat and the book club in slow-chat format. The slow chat does allow us to sustain focus on one topic and explore it through multiple avenues. I enjoy both greatly, but I prefer the slow chat because I’m a slow processor, so I don’t feel the need to fire off a response like in the weekly chats.
Thank you for contributing to both chats where you bring a depth of experience!