Teaching the Teacher

Rocky - yup - that's what I'd use to describe my "Intro to Social Media" class yesterday. One of my students backed up my self-evaluation of the class. It was the first time I actually tried to teach people how to use social media. Would I do it again...Yeah, Actually I AM DOING IT AGAIN. It took me about 27 hours to sign up to teach another class. The parameters are a little different, but it's still very much a reality for me.

The Rocky Twitter Teacher Show was a learning experience for me. Since it was my first ever attempt at teaching and the student that told me it was rocky, actually did so in a very supportive email to me about his experience in my class. To quote his email to me, "...
I think you did a heck of a job, especially given that it was your first time.
Bottom line is I look at the class as being a valuable use of my time. That can be a tough standard to meet for a 2-hour time block!" Any feedback he gave me was actionable and completely aligned with my self-evaluation.

What I did wrong: I assumed. (Insert time-honored snarky cliche about ASSUME here.)
- I assumed I would be great out of the gate. (Duh, I know! But I really did assume this because I know the subjects very well).
- I assumed that my "Introduction to Social Media" class would have enough time to cover Twitter in great depth in the time allotted.
- I assumed that my students were more computer savvy. (I had a mix - some folks were right with me, others were lost more often than not.)
- I assumed the students would interrupt me - I told them it was an interactive class. (I know at least one person was lost and faking it the whole time.)
- I assumed the projector was large enough for the entire class to see how I was navigating through Twitter.
- I assumed the instances where I helped people quietly in a side conversation (only once) were not of interest to the rest of the room. (I quickly learned the room wanted to know EVERYTHING I was saying.)
- I assumed the class would truly be full of people who did not know Twitter, but have some familiarity with LinkedIn and Facebook. (I had a few people who were unfamiliar with all and I had one guy answer a question better than me.)
- I assumed I would be okay sharing my facebook account in public, but it weirded me out!
- I assumed that my class would be so savvy by the end of the two hours they would be up for the ppt slide treasure hunt on my LinkedIn profile. Here it is.

I knew I wouldn't be perfect, I didn't know they were going to force me off my agenda. Luckily there was only one time where I was stumped and I did soon find my way to answer the question.

My mother is a teacher. She has been teaching at the same school since she graduated from college. She knows how to teach - and she told me that since I was willing to teach again that I had a 'good class'. That says a lot to me.

My next steps: LEARNING. I learned from my class that I need a better plan in some areas and I need to plan less in other areas. I need to teach myself more about what people want to know. I was actually surprised by some of the LinkedIn questions I got...I need to step back and look at LinkedIn again and bring my insights back to the fundamentals and not to the accessorizing of an account. You don't get to savvy without nailing the fundamentals. I'll continue to work to get there as a teacher so my students can get there as social media users!