Being connected is a passion of mine. For a long time I have been using Twitter and blogging to dip into the world of social media that connects educators all over the world. Establishing a Personal Learning Network exponentially increases your audience for professional dialogue and this is just what we need to challenge our thinking and move us out of our comfort zones. I am always blown away about the amazing sharing that goes online.
Two years ago in conjunction the CPPA offered three online different options for principals and senior leaders to opt into so that we could explore the power of being connected. Paul Sibson ran a twitter challenge, there were Google Apps For Education workshops and I introduced quadblogging. Starting small with only 12 people opting in and then at least four of these dropping out we ventured into unknown territory and over two terms our small group blogged about teaching, learning and leadership. You can read more about this concept in this blog post written in 2015. Quadblogging meant that other school leaders were taking the time to comment on my posts and I was taking time to comment on theirs.
The benefits of blogging are many however the main benefits I found were: - blogging helps me clarify my thoughts - authentic audience (my personal learning network) can challenge me to think at a deeper level
Since the quadblogging exercise I have seen many other opportunities to participate in online. OSSEMOOC is a community of educators from Ontario and on their MOOC (Massive Open Online Community) they provide their school leaders many opportunities to connect. They study books on blog hops, debate topics on voxer chats, provide each other support through many different forms. We would love to have a community that we can connect on a little closer to home so after talking to the organisers of the OSSEMOOC and connecting with other educators we are stepping out of our comfort zone and setting up our first blog hop. Watch this space for how to get connected and join in the conversations around leadership and learning. Let's work together to make our schools amazing.
The two weeks of holidays just past have been a much welcomed time of recharging the batteries for me and a really good time to reflect once again. It has been great to have some time to read, view, listen and think. Interestingly enough as sometimes happens, four things that I read, viewed or listened to seemed to be all giving me a strong message ... I call this serendipity.
1. I watched the series "13 Reasons Why" in the holidays - I think this is a must watch for teachers and parents everywhere. Obviously it is not appropriate for primary aged students as it is extremely graphic in places but what the series highlighted for me was how increasingly important it is is to teach our children to be kind and to watch out for one another and that we model this in all our interactions. Also how increasingly important it is to make sure we connect with every child and parent.
2. The importance of these connections was again highlighted for me at the GAFE Summit when Marty McGauran from Edutech did his ignite talk on Every Interaction Matters. He talked about making a difference with every interaction - how something that may seem to insignificant to us might be very significant to someone else. I love Marty's mantra that he says hello or gives the thumbs up to everyone he sees when out running - it's amazing how a simple thumbs up or a smile can make you feel.
This is well worth a read - There are a couple of links at the bottom that have made me reflect more on all of my interactions. The message - Every Interaction Matters!
4. Pope Francisdelivered a TED talka few days ago and it has gone viral this week. If you get a chance to read the transcript you will see there are three key messages (much simplified), we need to work together, hope starts with us and try a little tenderness. You can read the transcript on this link and listen to him speak although it is in Italian. I love this quote:
"Quite a few years of life have strengthened my conviction that each and everyone's existence is deeply tied to that of others," Francis said. "Life is not time merely passing by, life is about interactions." The key message for me - Every Interaction Matters!
I have been reading about Quadblogging and listening to David Mitchell (@DeputyMitchell) - Deputy Headteacher and Founder of Quadblogging. Quadblogging - in a nutshell is when four classes from anywhere around the world work together to read and respond to each others blogs. It is a way of increasing engagement on blogs - a blog without an audience doesn't work. It is vital that blogs have an audience - and when they have an authentic audience it is quite astounding the difference it makes. I have been wondering about how we can use the quadblogging idea with our colleagues in order to get more traffic on our blogs but more so to create professional dialogue with our colleagues in order to challenge our thinking.
Watch this youtube clip and change Class 1 to Principal 1 and Class 2 to Principal 2 etc... This is one way of increasing traffic on our blogs, it will create an authentic audience and also will create professional dialogue - all I need now is a group of colleagues to trial this. Fast Forward to those principals or senior leaders that put their names down for Blogging PD at the PD conference held at Lincoln in June. Those who have committed to the PD have set up their blogs and finally the trial is going to start this week and will run for five weeks - people won't have to blog each week (they can if they want to though) but will have a responsibility to check in on whoever is the focus blog for the week and make a comment. I really hope we all find this useful...and not just another thing we have to do!
