1) To share some of the awesome work I am a part of in our building. The power of sharing has really shown itself to be powerful for me. It confirms that we are a doing some great in our building and also is great to get some feedback from other educators. I also believe we do not have enough sharing of great resources and ideas that work within our system.
2) To get to know as many of the great people around me in our huge organization. After applying for jobs last year, I realized I knew no-one. To get my name out there and be known, I have come to realize I need to know people. For career development I think this is crucial. I don't want to rely on getting lucky (or unlucky for that matter) in my next job, I want to be in control of where I work next.
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| Twitter Handle - @stevewclark |
Utilizing Twitter as a networking tool has showed me the benefits of networking. What is weird to me, is that it's been easier to network with people around the world than the people that are geographically close to me and work for the same public school board.
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| Area III Learning Commons Collaborative Blog |
My blogs have been great to do the first of the above examples of networking. However, a lot of the time I don't get any feedback from people that read or browse my blog posts. It would be great to see the comments come in and get more interaction. To do this, I think I need to increase the amount of people that actually visit the blog to start with. Maybe over time the interactivity will increase. Maybe teachers in general don't like to comment and leave feedback. I wish this would happen more so the conversation can continue past the point of one person sharing.
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| Marlborough Mobile Learning (iPad Blog) |
So true Steve! Networking does work, and I find Twitter and presenting at Teacher's Convention a great way to meet other people who care about ed tech. This is one of the main reasons I am going to Ed Tech to network. The other reason of course is to see what others have to say on the subject matter. Maybe you need to ask a question at the end of your blog posts to get people responding? I'd bet you'd probably have more responses or Retweets on Twitter? It's faster and easier?
ReplyDeleteChelsea
Hi Chelsea, I do get get more interaction on twitter too! This is probably due to the ease of responding as well as the amount of traffic. My blogs are not getting nearly as much traffic as my twitter feed would.
DeleteI have tried the question at the end of the blog but without lots of people looking at it the likeliness of getting comments is minimal. I guess the best thing would be to try and get more traffic through the blog - All in good time I guess :)
I think the CBE needs to create and sponsor sharing amongst its teachers. I learn SO MUCH from my colleagues, but there's no real way to share this learning between schools and across the board. Maybe we need to spearhead this? How?
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty awesome that a few of us have seem to created a Twitter PLN with people we don't necessarily know personally across the CBE and even other schools in Calgary (Calgary Science School).
Hi Erin, Thanks for your comment :)
DeleteWell, as far as I understand, CBE has created, or at least been a major part of, something called Alberta CORE - www.albertacore.ca (you may have heard of it :) that is designed for its users to create and share content. I have already shared our Area III Learning Commons blog and Marlborough iPad blog successfully. So to me, this means that we will be able really unleash the power of sharing in our system as well as provincial-wide!
Also, I agree with you! It is amazing that we have created this little network of educators across Calgary via Twitter and I too have learned so much from my colleagues across the city! Thank You!