Christina Jackson offers an imaginative way to use Wakelet for professional development and growth!
I found Wakelet when I was searching for some new ideas on how to present the Pythagorean Theorem with my students. As I started to look into this tool, I created my first collection and was saving tweets that I wanted to review later. Now, 20 collections later (and some of the tweets still not opened), I am transforming my use of Wakelet as a way of housing resources for my review, into a professional development tool!
Creation and Curation
Making the move from saving articles to read later, to creating a collection that would be shared in professional development required not only the resources but also purposeful placement of the items. I was no longer just adding a link or a file but had to consider images, text, and the order of the resources in terms of logical placement as well. I was also planning this with another coach so we used the collaboration feature and were both able to add and reorganize as necessary!
Professional Development
After having the resources all in one place and organized, sharing is a cinch! We use OneNote to store all of our session notes so I was able to put the collection link in that month and provide access easily. This allowed for all teachers to have the resources in one place without having to wait for a slide deck to be shared later or shift through presentation materials.
Not only did we share the collection to be viewed by all, but we also used the exploration of the resources in an activity modeling a strategy teachers could use with their students. Using the text option allowed us to create “sections” in the collection. We had materials in each section and utilized the Jigsaw strategy to have smaller groups explore the resources then come back as a group to share what they explored. This not only provided the materials but also supported the ‘what’ and ‘why’ through exploration.
Professional Growth
The other way I’ve used Wakelet to share information with colleagues has been under the direction of professional growth. While this was not shared through a specific professional development session, I created collections and shared them with teams that I worked with in various capacities. These offered a way to collect and share resources out for trying new things or help tutorials for technology without having to send multiple emails or posts in a team. The collection just needs updating and then everyone with the link has access to the additional materials. The largest adjustment was remembering to check the collection weekly for the updates that I provided, or to check there first when troubleshooting a problem!
Overall, Wakelet has changed the way that I have been able to get information shared out with colleagues and in supporting our professional development efforts. We are able to create resource banks we didn’t have before and give the teachers that true hub to find what they needed.
