Learning and Leading - September/October 2009

MEMBERprofiles
Spreading the Ed Tech Word 140 Characters at a Time

T wo years ago, Beth Still was preparing for her new role teaching and developing online courses for the Nebraska Educational Virtual Academy when she decided to join ISTE.

“I wanted to join an organization that offered me a way to keep up on the latest trends in technology as well as network with like-minded educators,” Still recalls.

Who could have guessed that a short time later she would become the consummate ISTE member, rallying those around her to embrace educational technology and using her blog to prod strangers to give new tools a try.

Still is perhaps best known for her Send a Newbie to NECC campaign.

On April 5, 2009, Still embarked on a quest to send a fellow teacher to NECC using her professional learning network (PLN). It was an experiment to see if she could harness the power of Twitter to find enough people willing to cough up $1 or more to send someone to NECC who had never gone before.

“Within a few hours of posting the details of the project on my blog, it took off like crazy!” Still says. “It was being retweeted over and over on Twitter. Donations started coming in almost immediately, which was very surprising. I am not sure how many people read about the project, but I am sure it was thousands of people.”

Exactly two weeks after she announced the effort on her blog, Nebraska Change Agent (bethstill. edublogs.org), three dozen people had donated a total of $750, enough

to cover conference registration and airfare. Still was aiming to raise $1,500 to cover food and lodging as well. That’s when Voice Thread stepped up and donated $700.

Still says she learned so much from NECC 2008 in San Antonio, and she wanted to make sure others got to experience the wealth of learning at the conference.

Still was thrilled the project was such a success, but she wasn’t all that surprised by the power of PLNs. She’s been a fan of Twitter ever since she returned from NECC in 2008, and she’s been promoting it ever since.

“I tried for months to get my coworkers to try Twitter,” she says. “They

fought me all year, but finally toward
the end of the year, each one of them
started using it and seeing how it al-
lows knowledge to come to them.
It has been incredibly rewarding
watching them form their own
PLNs as they discover the value
of this amazing tool.”

Twitter is not Still’s only passion. She is also enthusiastic about online learning.

“I see more and more schools offering online classes, which will help students develop skills that can be useful in all areas of their lives,” Still says. “Online classes help students learn how to problem solve, manage their time wisely, and work collaboratively with their peers. In the future, as more educators begin to see how engaged students can be when they are collaborating with their peers, they will begin to embrace Web 2.0 tools.”

Still has one foot in the virtual teaching world and the other in the traditional-school world. She teaches social studies half-days at Valley Alternative Learning Transitioning School in Nebraska.