We are in week 5 of my eight week online course studying the best use of social media in adult learning situations. I am still struggling to find my identity and define what kind of teacher I want to be. As I journey through this teaching certificate I am suddenly looking at all the teachers and coaches around me and trying to define what makes them good and how would I do it differently.

Last weekend I took a first aid course. I found myself thinking about how the instructor was teaching us instead of the information that we were supposed to be there to learn. He involved us, he made us repeat what he said and he made us repeat it again so that it was burned into our memories. I feel that he was a very effective teacher. I understand that he has to get us to just react in an emergency and not stop to think about what to do. The reactions should just happen from repeated memory patterning. This is because the brain slows down when it stops to think and in an emergency time is often your enemy. This is what I have been learning through my other classes in my Provincial Instructor Diploma Program.

While all study and no play makes Sandra a dull girl I decided that today I would check on Facebook to catch up with what has been happening with my friends. I see that my good friend from high school is at a conference in Kuala Lumpur where he is expanding his technology knowledge. When I met my friend he was struggling to catch up to his peers in grade 11 as he had been kept back for another semester in grade 10. When I graduated he said he would be staying in high school for one more year to catch up and make sure he had enough credits to graduate and then he could also stay on the track team for one more year. At that time I was unsure of what he would choose to do with his life. Well he has made great choices and while he was a solid friend to me then - he is an inspiration to me now. He has not only excelled at learning as an adult but also at teaching. 

I would like to share a quote from the conference he is attending that is very worth sharing. +Rod Narayan has just posted the following: "Love this quote from the Deputy Minister of Education Malaysia "Doctors can save lives, teachers can save a generation" #desasia." Thank you Rod - you are certainly doing just that with your students. And yes - I am following Rod on Twitter now!!

I guess I had better get back to my research on ways to use social media to transform education...