10Q: Shelly Sanchez Terrell

Many would agree that Shelly Sanchez Terrell is at the top of the game when it comes to educational innovation. Just look at her profile: She is a teacher trainer, author, and international speaker, is the host of American TESOL’s Free Friday Webinars and the Social Media Community Manager for The Consultants-E. She has co-founded and organized the acclaimed educational projects, Edchat, ELTChat, The Reform Symposium E-Conference and the ELTON nominated Virtual Round Table language and technology conference. Her prolific presence in the educator community through social media has been recognized by several notable entities, such as The New York Times, UNESCO Bangkok, Edweek, Converge Magazine, the United Federation of Teachers, the 140 Conference, Mashable, English Central, Tefl.net, and T/H/E JOURNAL. Her education blog, Teacher Reboot Camp, is ranked as one of the top 10 language teaching and technology blogs and the 50 best blogs for education leaders. In 2012 her book, The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators will be published by Eye on Education. I'm very pleased that Shelly has agreed to contribute to my 10Q blog interview series:

How did you begin your professional career in education?
I began teaching in non-structured environments without any training until years later. I think this really helped me to observe how learning changes when we add too many rules and structure. In 1992, I began teaching innercity children through nonprofit programs and organizations in Texas. I was inspired to continue to reach out to these children and later homeless children and  troubled teens through creative writing, art, and literacy programs. In 2004, I became an English language teacher and taught students from 2 to 80 years-old in the US, Germany, and Greece. Now I train teachers online and face to face and get to see the incredible ways they are transforming their students’ lives.

What inspires you most about learning?
Learning is all around us and I am fascinated that there are always things to learn about the world and who we are and what makes us tick. As an educator I love to observe my students discover this about learning.

What does social media mean to you?
The ability to connect, collaborate, problem solve, and spread a message to millions is very powerful. Social media provides us the forum and we get to discover this incredible journey of learning and communicating with each other. This has literally been a life changing experience for me in the less than 3 years I began that journey with educators.

What is the Reform Symposium?
The Reform Symposium is a free online global conference that takes place over the course of 3 days and focuses on ways to transform education. The 3rd one took place this past July with over 4100 attendees from over 100 different countries entering online video meeting rooms where they could chat with each other, watch speakers on webcams, and see slides. Attendees could choose to attend any of the 80 presentations conducted by educators worldwide or watch our 12 inspiring keynote speakers, such as you, Steve! We appreciate you inspiring us. This conference is organised by educators for educators and the presentations are so moving that many of our attendees are moved to tears and say it is a life changing experience.

What other innovative projects are you currently working on?
The 30 Goals Challenge - Over 7000 educators worldwide have participated in accomplishing goals to transform their classrooms and impact their students. Educators who join receive a free ebook and have access to several videos and podcasts to help them achieve their goals. More importantly they get to reflect upon these goals on Twitter, Facebook, or on their blogs and receive the support of many educators also accomplishing these goals.
The Virtual Round Table E-Conference - another free online conference I help organize that focuses on language and technology. Participants can attend via a live video conference or in Second Life.
The Digital Storytelling for Young Learners EVO Session- a free online 5 week course that starts January 9th and ends February 12th. It is basically a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Over 200 educators worldwide have already signed up and will be playing with various tools while learning about digital storytelling.

What are the barriers to good learning?
I see many people who have gone through the rigors of the education system and lose their love for learning. They begin to equate learning to what is forced upon them in schools and forget the excitement of always being curious and searching for answers, finding different solutions, and having many more questions. I think the greatest barrier to good learning is that society tries too hard to control and standardized a process that is very individualized.

If you could change anything in education, what would it be?
I would change how education policy is decided and implemented. I would also change who gets to make the decisions about education policy.

What is your vision for the future of learning?
I hope many more teachers will become excited and passionate about learning through their participation on social networks. I think this trend will continue. Hopefully we can start some grassroots movements and inspire educators to get back to the roots of what makes learning so wonderful- having the ability to nurture our curiosity while exploring many solutions. In order for this to occur we have to get rid of standardized testing that teaches students there is only one right answer.

What important message do teachers need to hear?
Everyday that a teacher meets with their learners, that teacher will impact their lives. The choice and power is ours to decide what kind of impact that will be.

What links would you like to share?
I shared them above or in my bio :-)


10Q Shelly Sanchez Terrell by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.