It was the first time I had presented at the Reform Symposium Conference last weekend. I found it was a nerve wrecking but also fun way to share my ideas with familiar names and new contacts. I spoke on my desire to help other teachers learn and the ideas I have tried at my school, such as my techie brekkies and more recently TeachMeets. I asked for comments on the best part of a conference; meeting new people closely followed by the food seemed to be the pick of that one! All the while as I was talking I was faintly aware of the chat and every now and then I caught a glimpse of someone’s comments. Luckily I spotted when Viviene reminded me that I was going to mention the Oz edmodo group.
What excited me the most, is that on the back of my presentation it would appear that #TMMelbourne has been born. Not to be outdone some teachers are tweeting about a #TMBrisbane and even the possibility of a #TMAustralia. I have always maintained that we need to take baby steps in helping other teachers get on board and that from little things big things grow. And it looks as if I could be right.
So my challenge today is to go to TeachMeet near you. Or better still start your own. And when you do take along a newbie, a teacher who may be keen, who may want to learn but who just is not aware of what is going on in the world of online learning.
As after all, as I admitted yesterday, two years ago I had never read a blog, never heard of nings, never used skype in the classroom and thought Twitter was for people who followed the latest pop sensation.
In case you have no idea what or how a TeachMeet runs here is some help:
#TMSydney wiki with meetings in the planning stages for North, South and City.
#TMelb wiki with names and contacts ready to start planning for a Melbourne TeachMeet.
#TMBrisbane wiki with names and contacts ready to start planning a Brisbane TeachMeet.
#TMCEO an initiative of the Catholic education office also in Sydney.
Here too are the slides from my presentation, some of them are fairly empty as they were used for participants to write on during my presentation.
If you were unable to attend my presentation but would like to hear a recording of it. Please click here.
2 Comments
Thanks Henrietta
Listening to your session was an interesting experience on so many levels. Firstly, I was able to hear your story and that was great, but the consequential chat was fascinating too!. The power of chat and people being inspired was extraordinary. I think I tweeted the first #TMMelb tweet before your session even finished – inspired by @Mr_Mitch_Hughes ‘s enthusiasm and since then he has run with it – created the Wiki and tweeted and created polls.
I guess this was a great demonstration of the enthusiasm you seek to uncover through your wonderful sharing of resources and skills. Breaking down the barriers.
The big change in my thinking since becoming a blogger and twitter participant is the amazing amount of skills that are available within the community of learners represented here. I still wonder though, how do “break the barriers …. among the other staff” as I feel we are preaching to the converted.
I have begun a program at school loosely based on the Techie Brekkie idea and they are going well. The impact remains to be seen.
So, sorry for such a long reply, but thank you, on so many levels.
Hi Henrietta,
Thanks again for an inspiring presentation at RSCON3!
I love the idea of Teach Meets and Techie Brekkies as a peer collaborative network way of learning. This is one very important type of learning that I think we need to instil in our own students for the world they’re growing up in, so it’s vital that we as teachers are able to operate in the same way.
I’m really looking forward to #TMMelb getting off the ground. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have you as a special guest?