I stated this fun little edtech toilet training trend called “Learning in the Loo” many years ago. Back in 2004-2008, I taught 5th grade Social Studies. I started creating these Learning in the Loo posters for my students as a kind of study guide before our big benchmark tests. As you can imagine, they were initially met with groans and awkward giggles, but the students quickly came to love them! I hung them in the student restrooms inside all the stall doors, and yes, above urinals. At first, I noticed a spike in the amount of bathroom visits, but guess what – I also noticed a real increase in student discussion about the topics, and also in test scores! With a “captive audience” and clear, purposeful information, it really worked effectively as a learning and reinforcement tool. The students came to enjoy it so much that I eventually turned over responsibility for creating these Learning In The Loo posters to them – talk about pride in ownership! I still have former students remind me how much fun we all had with that, and how they really DID “learn in the loo”!

Since then, I became an elementary school computer teacher, and am now a Technology Integration Specialist. As an edtech leader in my schools, I knew that value that these Learning in the Loo posters could have on learning, but in my new role, my ‘students’ are teachers and my content is edtech. So about 10 years ago, I began creating edtech tips, tools, and tidbits for teachers and hanging them in faculty/staff bathrooms. I still called it “Learning In The Loo”, and the initial reaction from grown-ups was just the same as it was with the kids…groans and awkward giggles. Soon enough, though, people started loving it! To this day, I have staff remind me when I forget to update them. I’ve had teachers suggest all kinds of topics. I get tons of emails and conversations with teachers all the time who tell me that they tried something that they “learned in the loo”. I’ve even recently had one or two brave souls admit that scanned a QR code to access bonus content while they were…ummm…in there.

Back in 2016, I started sharing Learning in the Loo as part of presentations I was doing outside of my district.  I had a favorite presentation called “Innovative Tech PD and Integration”, which I first shared at Bacon Bytes conference in Millville, NJ.  I think every single person who attended ran back to their schools and started creating Learning In The Loo opportunities for their own staff!  I had so many follow-up emails, tweets, and messages about it that I immediately created the now-famous Twitter hashtag #LearningInTheLoo, and soon after developed a Padlet so that everyone who was doing this could share and borrow ideas! There are now hundreds of crowdsourced ideas on that Padlet, thanks to a generous and creative #LearningInTheLoo community!

Well, needless to say, this has REALLY caught on – thanks to Twitter!  If you’re interested in trying it, take a look at the #LearningInTheLoo Padlet and help yourself to ideas that are there.  That’s what it’s there for.  When you’re ready, you can pay-it-forward by sharing creations of your own.

You can also get a lot of additional ideas by searching the hashtag #LearningInTheLoo on Twitter. ⚠️ I will say that a few folks have kind of tried to rebrand this idea with a different hashtag or two, including #ToiletTalk and even #PottyPD.  As a true educator, I think sharing in any form is great, but I also believe in proper attribution, so I always kindly direct people back to the original hashtag and the original idea.  You’ll often notice that when I tweet my standard post about #LearningInTheLoo, I immediately follow it with a tweet that links back to another post I’ve written called Innovate, Emulate, Duplicate…A Digital Citizenship Discussion. It’s just my subtle reminder to celebrate good digital citizenship among educators. Oh, and if you see a really awesome Loo idea posted out there on Twitter, no matter the hashtag, you can help the “movement” by kindly asking the poster to share it over on the #LearningInTheLoo Padlet so that we can all benefit from sharing and having a giant collection of crowdsourced resources all in one place!

I very much look forward to seeing your Padlet contributions to our #LearningInTheLoo community!

Thanks so much!
Kathi Kersznowski  ( @kerszi )