Projecting positivity and continuous improvement...
I am a First Time Principal at a primary school in Auckland, New Zealand. This blog is to share my leadership adventures. I like to inspire learners (both students and teachers) to be the best learners they can be and promote future focussed pedagogy.
It's Connected Educators Month (#cenz15) and I've decided to be involved in a few ways. Firstly I am organising the #twitterdinner15 which coincides always with the ULearn conference. This year it is being held in Auckland, so I volunteered to organise the evening. It's no small fete organising something like this and having people pre-pay so that you aren't left hanging on the evening with unexpected expenses! I think in the last month most of my tweets have been to promote the evening! I'm looking forward to connecting face to face with many old and new tweeters!
Secondly, I've signed up to be a contibutor to EdBookNZ which is the brain-child of Sonya Van Schaijik. This year's EdBook is based on unpacking the Practising Teacher Criteria, I'm interested in PTC12 - Teaching as Inquiry. Below is Sonya's slideshare she presented at EduIgnite recently that explains the collaborative project.
Lastly, I've decided to be part of the #EdBlogNZ challenge, where each week 3 challenges will be posted to blog about. I'm doing this because I've had an edu-blog for many years and would like to try and create a habit of posting more frequently my reflections about leadership, education and my edu-experiences. There are three levels of challenges and you can choose any of the activities set from any of the levels - so I'm thinking I might ease into the challenge with this first post! I'm hoping that I might get some comments and encouragement to make me think deeper or just encouragement to keep trying!
I watched with interest the twitter race for the first person to have 1 million followers. There become a race between many celeb/webrities and I quickly watched with interest the race between CNN news network and Ashton Kutcher (a tv and movie star - I like to refer to him as Mr Demi Moore). I didn't follow at first and just watched lurking in the background while he did Live UStream TV to drum up followers... when I started listening to some of his reasons I actually tended to agree... in this world of web2.0 and instant news it is us the public that are the newsmakers, after all this is what we are teaching our students, about having authentic audiences and using social networking to communicate. I also liked that he pledged to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to the help fight malaria campaign.
I like this comment on Brian Solis' Blog "We participate on social networks to express ourselves and share a piece of who we are in the real world, online, to forge relationships with people we respect, trust, and admire and it inspires us to share, learn, and grow together. With every tweet and update, we reveal a bit of what we stand for and what moves us, forming a unique social graph that contextually connects us to others in an irreproducible network. It’s unique to each one of us, and it’s both empowering and powerful.We become media.We become influencers." I also agree that "We’re shifting into a rapid-fire culture that moves at Twitter time" and that "Twitter and the statusphere have become our attention dashboards". I only wish I had been so eloquent to write in this way... hence the copy & paste.
So how do you choose to follow? I personally have a small following (at present it is just under 200) and I follow 135 people. I do not follow everyone that follows me, and often I block people that do follow me too. I ideally only want to follow people that are in education, that I can learn and make connections with. I value the connections that I make from people from all over the world in education and find useful links daily through using my twitter network.
In my "real world" connections many of my colleagues and friends are not "into twitter", the profile of this social networking tool is definately being raised; my friends may raise eyebrows at my "virtual" networking connections, however I feel I'm at the pulse of knowing what's new and what's happening! I heart twitter!
I really enjoy using Twitter. It puts me in touch with other like minded individuals that are interested in education and the use of technology and web2.0 applications with students. Each day people in my PLN share links, problem solve and sometimes just ramble or comment about what we are doing/learning. Today this link popped up today which is really funny. One of the characters in this short 4minute clip reminds me of the reaction I sometimes face when I try to tell people about twitter... it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, and this is for all those out there that love twitter too!
Recently I have helped a good friend get "connected" in the on-line world of web2.0 applications. In reflecting upon this help (or coaching sessions) that we have had, I thought it would be good for me to record what we did together so that others who are beginners on the web can become connected too.
I am by no means an expert and still am learning and discovering things everyday, however the more you immerse yourself the more you learn. There are so many wonderful people out in my PLN (Personal Learning Network) that have already made blogs and wikis to share how to do these things too. However, by recording my journey I can add my own reflections on why and how I find things. I would consider myself an experienced novice, open to learning. I will go over what we did and in the order we did it (as this may help?). Starting out your digital footprint I use the same log in user identity so that others can find me (and I don't have to remember what I've signed up as). For my web2.0 world I have (in most instances) used digitallearningnz as my user name and then used a strong password (including letters and numbers). I strongly recommend different passwords for online banking and for your workplace computer password (as often you may have to give your work log in password to a technician). I am a visual learner and have found it useful to use YouTube.com to watch many videos to discover how to do things or what things mean. I will include several of them in the following tips. Tip #1: Open a Reader Account Watch the following video clip to explain what a RSS Reader does and why you will need one. I got my friend to set this up first so that the subsequent Tips could fall into place.
To get started I also found it useful to watch the video from Google too:
I find it quite good once I have subscribed to a blog and it is loaded into the reader to rename the front of the blog subscription with the author of who the blog belongs to, e.g. when you subscribe to my blog it with say "Digital Learning" but to make it more identifiable in my subscription list I rename to say "Justine Driver: Digital Learning" for me this is one way of remembering who the blog belongs to in my PLN (Personal Learning Network). Tip #2: Social Bookmarking using Delicious Watch the following video clip to find out what social bookmarking is and why it is beneficial for you.
In delicious my account is digitalearningnz (note only one "l" when I joined, as I typed too fast and misspelt my own user name! LOL)Please feel free to add me to your network once you have joined to see my bookmarks.
What I find really important is that you MUST put the buttons on your Internet browser (this is what makes it quick and easy to use). It is great knowing that if my computer crashes my bookmarks are not lost and I have even more at my finger tips with my network.
I also find it important that when I find a blog (and I like the content) that I add it immediately to my READER account by subscribing to the RSS feed. A good way to find out where to find interesting blogs is to look and see whether the blog has a list of blogs that author likes - follow those links and start bookmarking and subscribing.
Tip #3: Twitter I often get asked what is Twitter? or why should I be on Twitter? I find Twitter to be my most powerful learning tool at the moment. One member of my PLN asked recently "what are the 3 top reasons you use Twitter for?" 1)I have the ability to provide quick help and assistance to others and similarlyreceive help/advice. 2)I get near instantaneous connection with an extremely diverse group of people who willingly help and share; and 3) by using Twitter I have an increased ability to achieve a deeper personal connection to people in my PLN compared to normal blogging (thanks to @suewaters as this was her top 3 reasons to use Twitter and they sounded better than mine, but I agree. This video clip explains:
Again I find that once you have made a connection by following someone (feel free to follow me by clicking here) you can then follow some of the people that person follows and check out their web pages too.
I find it really important that you should fill out your BIO details in your settings section when you sign up to Twitter. Some people let anyone follow them however I only let teachers or educators of some kind follow me (so make sure you include these details in your bio). I also am selective about who to follow as time is precious and I don't want to read through stuff that doesn't interest me (this is just my personal view and others would comment differently).
I also didn't realise when I started with Twitter about two important functions 1) @replies - when someone does a post to the right of their message is an arrow that you click and your message will be put into that person's @replies box directly and it is a public message or if you want to write a message to someone specific you need to start the message with the @name symbol; and 2)Direct Messages (DM) are private messages that only you and the person receiving can read and they appear in your DM tab.
So you've done these first 3 Tips now what?
Now it is your task to develop your PLN by surfing the web; setting aside a little time each day to do some tweets (mini-blog posts) up to Twitter and make some connections. As you make connections and find websites remember to book mark them on your delicious and add them into your Reader. Ask questions and begin to make comments on blogs.
What's next? Starting your own blog and learning how to use the huge array of web 2.0 applications that there are. But this will be another post for me to write, first it is time to immerse yourself and see what is out there in the web. Enjoy and please feel free to leave a comment or ask a question.
