One of the things I liked most when I was a classroom teacher was collaborating with other teachers. Co-teaching in a mainstream classroom, designing lessons and projects with regular and special ed teachers, discussing the progress — or lack thereof — of ELLs, and jointly figuring out what grades to give the English Language Learners we shared were just some of the ways I and the SPED and mainstream teachers worked together at my school.
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| The #ELLEdTech Twitter chats resume August 20, 2017! Source: The ESL Nexus |
Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to find the time for collaboration. Without common planning time, which was only feasible for one of the multiple grade levels I taught every year, I had to find other ways to communicate with the other teachers of my ELLs. Most often, I sought them out in their classrooms during my lunch period or after school or I resorted to sending email messages and hoping they’d respond quickly.
These were not always the quickest or most effective ways of discussing the needs of our students. For the first Twitter chat of the new school year on Sunday, August 20, 2017, Laurah and I are going to discuss Tools that Facilitate Collaboration between ESL & Mainstream & SPED Teachers. We hope you’ll join us and share your ideas for promoting collaboration among teachers who work with ELLs. Below are the details:
Schedule and Questions
7:00 = Introductions: Tell us your name, location, level and subject taught #ELLEdTech
7:05 = Q1: How do you collaborate with the teachers you work with? (ESOL, SpEd, Mainstream) #ELLEdTech
7:13 = Q2: What tech tools do you use to facilitate collaboration? #ELLEdTech
7:21 = Q3: What’s important to consider when using technology to facilitate collaboration? #ELLEdTech
7:29 = Q4: Are there any challenges teachers might encounter when using these tools? #ELLEdTech
7:37 = Q5: What advice do you have for teachers who want to use technology to facilitate collaboration? #ELLEdTech
Directions for Joining the Chat
1. Log into Twitter on Sunday; the chat runs from 7:00 – 7:45pm Eastern.
2. Search for tweets with the hashtag #ELLEdTech in the search bar. Make sure to click “All tweets.”
3. The first five minutes will be spent introducing ourselves.
4. Starting at 7:05, @ESOL_Odyssey or @The_ESL_Nexus will post questions every 8 minutes using Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. to identify the questions and the hashtag #ELLEdTech.
5. Answer the questions by prefacing them with A1, A2, A3, etc. and use the hashtag #ELLEdTech.
6. Follow any teachers who respond and are also using #ELLEdTech.
7. Like (click the heart icon) and post responses to other teachers’ tweets.
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| Share your favorite tech tools with other educators; source: The ESL Nexus |
You can schedule your answers to the questions in advance by using an online scheduler such as TweetDeck or HootSuite (and remember to use A1, A2, etc. and #ELLEdTech). Links are encouraged, but use tinyurl, bitly, goo.gl or ow.ly to shorten your link so it can be included in your tweet. Just click one of those links, paste the longer link in the app’s box to shorten it for Twitter, then paste the shortened link into your tweet. If you have relevant images, we encourage you to post them, too.
Is this your first Twitter chat? Here are our rules:
1. Please stay on topic.
2. Please do not post about paid products unless explicitly asked.
3. If you arrive after the chat has started, please try to read the previous tweets before joining in.
4. Feel free to just read, like, and/or retweet if you prefer — we know the first time can be a little overwhelming!
5. Always use the hashtag #ELLEdTech when tweeting.
6. Make sure your twitter feed is set to “public.” (And do remember that Twitter is completely public; that means anyone–students, parents, administrators–may see what you tweet.)
You are welcome to let your teacher friends who might be interested in joining us know about this Twitter chat. We look forward to chatting with you next Sunday!
August 14, 2017
