Disclaimer: This post is long. Buckle your seatbelts.

In July, I made a last minute decision to take a trip.  I had no idea where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, or whom I wanted to meet; I just wanted to get away from my house in Langley and explore someplace new.  After much deliberation, my finger landed on San Francisco - a city that boasts history, beauty, and an enriched culture, and a region that gives a curious tourist like me much to do.

I contacted a few Twitter friends on the matter and the trip turned into something much more than a simple getaway - it turned into an experience of a lifetime.  Life-changing even, or so I tell people who ask.  Immediately upon hearing that, the listener’s thought is spurred: “How exactly was it life-changing?” Well, here’s what made it life-changing for me:

People I knew only through the series of tubes that is the Internet – talented and dedicated educators whom I held the utmost respect for – offered the most jaw-dropping hospitality I’ve ever experienced...  Welcome to Hotel California! They opened their doors for me, toured me around, drove me and my infamous suitcase where we needed to go, and introduced me to a world that I hadn’t imagined possible before.  I got to talk edtech with leaders in the field day after day, meet with app developers, and explore the campuses of edtech giants such as Google and Apple.  I attended CUE Rock Star Teacher Camp where I had the pleasure of assisting Drew Minock with his mini keynote presentation on Augmented Reality and met even more amazing people who I will undoubtedly continue to work with in the future.

So how is that life-changing exactly? Because my online connections became real. They turned into people that I can now confidently call my friends, and ones I will continue to work with on future educational projects.

David Malone, Alice Keeler, and Diane Darrow are now more than superstars behind a Twitter handle. Sharing the experience of touring Google and Apple with them was priceless. These people are just honest-to-goodness kind people who all have their own inspiring impact on education, and happened to include me on their journey! 

David and his family opened their home to me and made me feel like one of their own.  The hospitality of this amazing family is unmatched. Seriously. Oh, and be sure to check out his iTunesU course. Reading assessment game-changer.

Alice is easily one of the most fiery and passionate educators I’ve ever met.  From “lively device debater” to life coach, I seriously started to take notes.  Then again, I didn’t really have to take notes because it’s ALL on her awesome blog.

Diane holds a special spot in my heart. She is funny, engaging, and she LOVES kids. She is knowledgeable and will not hesitate to offer her advice on classroom ideas – of which she has many that engage higher order skills.  And playing Android action figures with her on the ride back from Apple/Google wasn’t bad, either. 

The amazingly cool Karl Lindgren-Streicher brought the most real, down-to-earth educational voice to this trip that I could have asked for. Not only did he push my standards, he also made me think about education from the stance of a content-specific high school teacher rather than as an elementary generalist.  And he gave me a nickname that may live through the ages, much to my dismay. 

Lisa Highfill is seriously the nicest human being on the planet – I could sit and talk with her for hours about edtech tools and classroom models that turn us into giddy geeks.  Efficient workflow strategies for the win! 

Diane Main was a treat - she is hilarious. Our trip to Santa Cruz with the international MERIT attendees will not soon be forgotten… And neither will #spatula jokes.

Drew – or as I more endearingly referred to him, “Michigan” - and I explored the city for days together seeing the sights and meeting app developers. He NEVER stops working for those who are curious, but he is very professional and has so many awesome ideas for classroom applications with software. I am excited to continue working with Drew and his class in the upcoming school year on some global collaboration projects. And if you don’t know about his site, be sure to remedy that and click there NOW.

Sam Patterson and Wokka Patue swiftly became a normal sight in my days, providing endless laughs and bringing oodles of fun into the Rock Star conference. The live #patue chat was a blast, too! 

Carrie Gehringer, my #patue buddy, was insanely fun to hang out with on the fantail of the USS Hornet.  She brings a laid-back, cool-cat attitude that we all need in our lives. 

John Stevens and I met at the Palo Alto #brewcue and became fast friends, relating on everything from sharing the same birthday to our awe towards the impact of Twitter as a PLN. Oh, and he hosts/contributes to a gazillion educational websites (link to one of them) and is the most talented “shredder” I’ve ever met. (Check out the "Shreds" section of that link to find out for yourself.) This guy is going places.

Scott Inman was a riot, from finding cream cheese from breakfast in his pockets late in the evening to clunking down his “bag of tricks” on the fantail. He was also nice enough to give Drew and I a ride to the BART after Rock Star was over. Amazing guy.

Erin Lunde, the girl who just happened to sit next to Drew and I in our first session at CUE Rock Star, won MVP for staying on the boat after hours despite her commitments.  Give her a follow – she WILL get excited. 

Curt and the Hornet crew played amazing hosts on this floating museum.  What an amazing place to hold an ed-conference and they made it worth every penny with their knowledge, expertise, and of course, direction-giving. (IT WAS A  MAZE)

And finally, Jon Corippo, the master mind, or as he calls himself “the baby daddy, “ behind CUE Rock Star, was incredibly generous and flexible in the way he ran the conference, making it into the experience that fit the people that were there.  He made it possible for all of us “crazy teachers” to connect with ease through this conference model.  I’m SO excited to return again next year to the Bay Area Rock Star conference.

I could continue.... I could. But sincerely, there is no way for me to scratch the surface of the impact of this trip on my view of the world of education, and my view of my PLN, but I had to try.  (And I’m sure you’re all wondering when this thing is going to end, even though I gave you fair warning with my disclaimer.) 

I am so honoured (yes, the Canadian way) to have spent time with these eduawesome people, among many more who I met on my trip.  Life-changing? Yes...

Over the past week and a half, I've been highly focused on the development of #bcedchat with my partner in crime and co-mod, Bryn Williams.  Through a lot of groundwork and endless promotion, our first chat on Sunday, July 7th was a success.  We received about 500 tweets in the hour of discussing our topic of summer professional development. Our inaugural chat played host not only to BC and Canadian educators, but many more others from all over the globe! 

As the culture of our chat begins to take shape, I've been actively tapping into resources in my PLN to help to better develop awareness and involvement in it.  Most recently, I was able to have a Google HangOut with Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark, who have co-founded #cdnedchat and #caedchat respectively. They have both been incredibly kind and supportive by sharing resources and words of wisdom as we move forward with this chat. 

If you are considering starting your own Twitter edchat in your area or about a specific topic, here is the information I've gathered so far that can help to make it successful.

1) PROMOTION

I cannot stress enough the importance of promotion as you begin a chat. Getting the word out to gain participation is imperative to a chat's success. Depending on the type of audience you'd like to draw in, the promo can look different. For a provincial/state-wide chat, it's best to get a small group of people that will help get the word out by tweeting and retweeting your posts. For a smaller chat (for example, specific to a school district) you may want to aim your promo tweets at the specific people that you want involved instead of sending out a blanket invitation. No matter your target audience, be sure to promo as often as possible (without being obnoxious) as tweets disappear down a Twitter feed relatively quickly. 

2) WEBSITE & TWITTER ACCOUNT


This step is probably more necessary for larger-scale chats that would host several participants. I developed a website for #bcedchat with a page for topic selection using a Google form which has been gathering us several new topics to choose from for upcoming chats. While I chose Google sites due to its ease of use with Google Drive, docs, and forms, there are many different site hosts you can choose from and alternate ways to run polls or topic suggestions for upcoming chats. We most recently developed a Twitter account for @bcedchat which we will use for promotional purposes as well as tweeting out introductory and closing comments in the chats themselves. 


3) CHAT COMMITTEE/COLLABORATION TEAM


This was something that came highly suggested by Tanya and Holly, as there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes of an edchat. Now that we have the chat started, it has become apparent that there will be weekly tasks of promotion, topic and question development, pre-scheduling tweets, archiving, and of course, moderating the chat itself.  Burn-out will most definitely occur if only one or two people are responsible for continuing to do all of this every week when real-life demands decide to strike hard.  Surrounding your chat with a great group of people to help run it when you can't is important not only for the chat, but for you, the founder.  Depending on the size of your chat, you probably don't need a lot of people for this job, but you will want to ensure they have a common vision in mind as you collaborate on a direction for the chat together. 



Thanks for reading - these are merely my reflections as Bryn and I have embarked on this journey with getting #bcedchat off the ground.  I'm sure that in a few weeks, I will be able to add so much more as we play with and learn about this process.  

As soon as I saw the link on Twitter for Google Teacher Academy in Chicago, I knew I had to apply. I have been working on my application for almost two weeks.  Today I pressed the "Submit" button and, I can tell you, I was in a very different place back when I read the requirements than I am now.

When I began, I was forced to put something difficult in perspective: they may not want me because I'm not 100% savvy with Google apps.  Sure, I could have said that there have been very few opportunities to showcase the brilliance of tools like Google Drive when you're still training your staff how to turn an iPad on and off, but do they really want to hear that? I should be pumping up their products in the application process, right? Yet, I'm not someone who easily compromises who I am in a selection process. If I'm not meant to be in the running, then I'm glad that I at least got to be myself while I was in it. 

So I went through the motions and answered the questions. No problem. I'm a writer. I can craft an eloquently stated answer within 150 words and still get my point across. All while still being me. Then I got to the bottom of the application page.

Uh oh.  A movie?  Whaaat?

What would I do? How would I put it together? I know next to nothing about iMovie (the available video editing software on our district computers) and while I might be charismatic in person, I'm not a big fan of myself on camera.  I decided to let myself mull it over for a few days, writing down ideas, crossing them out, rewriting, tossing ... all the things typical of an aspiring writer editing his first screenplay. Things were not going well.  How could I be me without showing me?

I soon decided that I needed a theme for my video.  I planned the movie to revolve around a spy/Mission Impossible style;  I am a "tech teacher on a mission," after all.  This began to show great promise as I tinkered, played, and reworked video clips and images.  I taught myself how to screencast using SnagIt (free trial inside link) and captured images typed on GoogleDocs, from previously made Prezis, and from my iPad on the GoogleEarth app.  Then of course, after all that comes the formatting and making sure you're within the one-minute time limit... Loads of learning.

Today, as I sat back and watched my hours of handiwork in one single minute of video, I realized how much had gone into this project.  It's almost like I had been tricked into my own professional development with all of the digital tools listed above!  But I was so motivated to polish my application and get into GTA that I hadn't even considered the learning process involved within it...  What an exciting and inspiring concept!  

For those of you who care to watch, my submission is below.  Wish me luck and thanks for reading!

Okay, I'll admit it. I came into my position as Tech Facilitator at my school thinking that I knew what was what in tech integration.  I mean, come on, I integrated SMART Technology into several subject areas and I was savvy with my devices on a personal basis.  How hard could it be to bring those things into the classroom?  Could I support other teachers in the process? No problem!  Compared to most of my colleagues around me that had difficulty with things as simple as email, I was a pro!  Beloved readers, you all know how this ends: I swiftly became a small fish in a very big pond. 

I'm not someone who takes failure lightly;  I persevere until I get it right.  So that's what I'm doing now.  My largest growth has been since I became more active on Twitter in the last two months.  I now regularly participate in different #edchats, have grown my PLN substantially, and I've even moderated a chat for pre-service/new teachers (#edteach).  I've learned about all things iPad and about many new software tools that I'm beginning to pilot in my classroom.  Things have been going really well in that world.  

But that's just it... it's a different world.  A PLN is a world where ideas are so plentiful that it's extremely easy to compare yourself to the success stories of others.  Are these wonderfully resourceful people continually posting their techno-failures? Absolutely not.  They're telling you about the times that they've innovated, created, re-imagined, and re-designed learning for their students.  If you ask, sure, they'll tell you what did and didn't work for them or their school, but when you first jump on Twitter, there's no way to see a clear picture of their entire journey in their field.  You just see a snapshot of the present.

It was in reading this article that this notion became clear to me on a personal level.  I actively compare myself to my PLN colleagues despite the fact that our school and our access to tech is severely less than most of those I read about.  I'm continually criticizing myself for where our school is at, yet I forget the staggering distance we've come since September. 

Here is a piece of commentary from the same article that inspired me to write this post:

So there it is, folks.  Don't compare yourself.  It's not worth it.  If you make a valiant effort to better yourself, make goals to progress on that continuum, and you engrain that attitude into your teaching, then people will undoubtedly see the value in what you're doing for kids. And hopefully, you will too.