Do We Need Hashtags Just to Implement Best Practices or Nahh?

Someone sent me a “hyperdoc” the other day. I’ve been staring at it since trying to figure out what makes it a “hyperdoc” vs a normal google doc. You know…a normal document where you build in spaces (tables or shapes) within the document to organize ideas, share information, ask questions and often leaving room for more questions…student centered and inquiry focused.

There’s even a book about them and not to take away from its authors work and her sharing how she has used google apps effectively and brilliantly in her classroom, have we really reached the point where we look at what we’ve done in the last few years and now call it something new because it’s trending?

I mean, yes you can use a google doc to just “type” but using them to facilitate a lesson…taking advantage of tools within google like tables are BEST PRACTICES. These are things that we should ALL BE DOING…not because it is now commercialized but because it is what normal people do when they understand how google works.

BEST PRACTICES!!!!

One more thing, we aren’t big fans of worksheets right? But we are willing to take a worksheet of questions and attach it to a lock box of puzzles and call that new too? To be fair though…these are actually fun but can we challenge ourselves to not do the same old thing in a fox or as a game and call it fun because it’s in a box or as a game?

Just checking…

I’m all for how twitter has positively impacted education. I am here for it 100% and owe a great deal of our growth to hashtag edu.

But please let me add a word of caution here that if we do this…if we create new names and hashtags to the work that should effectively function without it, we are adding to a colossal mess of misunderstanding that leaves teachers in the dust thinking that they aren’t doing the right things because they haven’t mastered the new thing…not knowing that the entire time, they’ve been doing it!!

Is there where we are? Really???