Duluth Teachers Learn Social Media and Technology

DULUTH - With their students having so much technology at their fingertips, some Duluth Public School teachers are learning how to get in on the action. When almost all of these teachers first started teaching, a tweet was just a bird call. These days, it’s also a message sent using Twitter. "I tweeted my first tweet yesterday, thank you very much,” Ordean East Middle School sixth grade teacher John Pokrzywinski said. “You can follow me." Northland teachers at the Tech Camp are learning how to tweet and use Facebook to help better equip their classrooms with 21st century instruction and tools."Things change and if we don't know how to adapt with our students we're not doing our job well," said Pokrzywinski. During the two day seminar, teachers learned how to bring technology into the classroom that is creative, collaborative, critical and community-based, with sessions on things like building websites, blogging with students, interactive presentations google apps and docs."Google docs can be shared so that students and teachers can work on the same thing, can look at the same document together in real time at the same time," Duluth Public Schools innovation coordinator Tammi Wilkins said."I'm going to be a much better teacher come September because of the time I'm spending here," said Pokrzywinski. Getting a stronger grip on social media and other technology outlets may also produce better online manners."I would see it being discussions about being a responsible digital citizen,” said Wilkins. “That it's not ok to say something mean about someone else, it's not ok to copy someone else's work and claim them as your own." Some teachers say they will take the next couple of weeks to practice what they've learned and then hit the ground running next school year. An event similar to the Tech camp will kick off mid-August.