Monday Musings - January 28

We work hard to collaborate and be on same page across the grade levels and building, but when it comes to getting into your classroom each day, it can feel like a lonely job.  Having come from a large school district (of 23 schools), I was in quite a shock of feeling like we were isolated in our rural school district.  It can literally feel like being on an island.  A fellow principal friend of mine, Curt Rees, has coined the term "Gilligan Syndrome" for the idea only having a few close people to rely on for collaboration/feedback or even feeling "stuck" because you don't have good resources to turn to for advice and help. 

We have been fortunate to build strong connections through our new DART network with nearby districts, whether we are sharing our ideas with others or bringing new ideas back into the building.  You all know that I'm a huge fan of twitter, because it is an easy place to check when I have time and get ideas that I didn't even know I should have been looking for (just like Pinterest, but without the pictures).  I have followed several regularly scheduled chats on twitter, such as chats for individual grade levels (ex: #1stchat, 5th chat, or #kinderchat), one for daily 5 (#d5chat), one for great book recommendations for students (#titletalk) and have recently joined in the newly created chat for Wisconsin Educators (#Wischat). 

It's ok to set up a twitter account and just "lurk" without sending out a tweet. You can follow people and just follow chats.  Or you could also go to tweetchat.com without an account and put in a chat hashtag up in the top search bar like you see below:

Here's a glance at a few recent chats: (remember that if these images are small in the emails to you, you can  just go to my memo blog to see them larger)

#Wischat

#5thchat

#titletalk

Here's a little "cheat sheet" to see how to read the tweets.  Since what I am showing you are just screenshots, you won't be able to actually click on the links in any of the tweets above.

Do you feel like you have Gilligan Syndrome at times?  Help yourself get unstuck!  

Image from Venspired