#edblognz ULearn15 Blogger Selfie Challenge #cenz

If at Ulearn - Find a blogger you admire, shake their hand and take a selfie with them to post on your blog. Then find a new blogger and do the same! If you’re feeling really generous buy them a coffee! Write about it too!

This last week I went to ULearn15 at Sky City Convention Centre in Auckland.  This is my fifth ULearn in a row, and at each one I have found inspiration and met amazing people and reconnected with old friends from many areas of my life. 

This year the networking was awesome.  I got to meet bloggers and tweeters and inspirational educators who I've been connecting with for up to four years (the amount of time I have been on Twitter as I joined at the end of ULearn11).  This is how I have built up and widened my Personal Learning Network and become a connected educator through Twitter and going to ULearn, Educamps and EduIgnites.

On Wednesday night I attended the Twitter Dinner.  There were about 55 people there, not all of whom were attending ULearn.  @digitallearnin organised the evening and had us interacting with a game of Twitter Bingo, as you can see below.

First up for the selfie challenge was @st3ph007 or StephT who has the blog Four Seasons in One Kiwi.  I've always really enjoyed reading her blog posts.  They challenge me in some of my thinking.  Often I agree, at times I do not.  @st3ph007 has also supported @kerriattamatea in her establishment of the #BFC630NZ quick education chat each week day morning of term which I have participated in on occasion.  @st3ph007 also is a regular participant in #edchatnz and has been known to put her wisdom out on Facebook pages I frequent too.  It was fabulous to finally meet Steph and hear her passion for education in the flesh.

One of the Breakouts I went to at ULearn15 was presented by @Cherie59789095 and it was about networks and clusters, a hot topic currently.  It took me a few minutes to click on to the fact that I had been interacting with the presenter on Twitter for quite a while as I wasn't able to click into the online resource for about 10 or so minutes.  I had the opportunity to have a long chat with Cherie later in the evening after the Gala Dinner and I was thrilled to make the face to face connection with such an amazing leader.

During Brunch on the last day @vanschaijik who is also known as Sonya, sat beside me, and soon after we were joined by @mrehu.  Sonya is one of the admins for #edblognz and is a big driver behind TeachMeetNZ, a virtual PLD meeting space.  Sonya has also been a connected educator in many other ways too, which you can check out at http://sonyavanschaijik.com/.

I have been following @mrehu for nearly two years, I think, and at the Gala Dinner I met one of his teachers, @KNgarangione, who had come to ULearn15 with a group of the staff and she raved about working with him.  So it was a bonus to sit down with Maurice for a few minutes and shoot the breeze about our highlights at the conference.

And lastly, after a false start the afternoon before where our timing was out, @mjbuckland and I finally caught up and had that f2f meet up and chat about the conference this year and in the past, Twitter and the "take homes" we have. 

Alas, I failed to meet any new bloggers at ULearn15, but if you are a fairly new blogger and you are reading this and would like to help me out with a virtual meeting, or a f2f if you are in Hamilton, Cambridge or Te Awamutu, drop me a line at @melulater or through the comments.

It was great to meet all these people in the flesh for the first time this year, but also great to meet up with many other awesome educators that I have been meeting over the last few years, especially since 2012's ULearn.

Twitter as a Personal Learning Network for Teachers

I joined Twitter at the end of ULearn11, the same day as I started this blog.  It was a huge leap, but after three days of attending keynotes and breakouts and hearing about how other educators were using various websites, blogging and Twitter in their classrooms and their own personal learning I thought I'd make the leap.

You can see my first blog ULearn11 - learning, discovering, trying it out for myself to see the beginning of my blogging journey nearly three years ago.

I started off in Twitter very slow.  It was fits and bursts, slowly finding people to follow.  Going to Educamp in early November 2011 helped.  It gave me the opportunity to see how even though we were in the same room we could communicate not only verbally but virtually and with people elsewhere in the country who could not be there, therefore widening the discussion and learning possibilities.

The Rugby World Cup and the elections in 2011 were other opportunities to have a blat on Twitter too.

But that first year, through till ULearn 2012, I felt more of a voyeur than a participant.  At ULearn 2012 I began to use Twitter much more.  During breakouts I would have my laptop with me and this made it easy for me to write my notes directly into my blog, go straight to the websites discussed and so on.  But in the keynotes I struggled with my laptop on my knee in a confined space and was often running short on battery.  I had recently purchased a cheap and nasty tablet, so I started tweeting on that to take notes of the keynote.  That worked a treat.  It meant later that I was able to go back to my tweets (and those of others I had retweeted) to reflect on what was said and blog it as part of my reflections.

Sometime in early 2013 I discovered #edchatNZ on every second Thursday night, and I started getting involved in Twitter chats.  This is a great chat because it encompasses teachers and non-teachers from all education sectors and really gets some great debate going on a variety of teaching, learning, professional and educationally political matters.

I've also fallen into other chats at various points, but this one I Storified below I accidentally started one Thursday night that wasn't an #edchatNZ night but got people talking:  Sadly Storify has deleted itself from the Social Media landscape and none of my Storifies exist anymore.  😭😭😭😭

The key phrase that has emerged in the last few years has been PLN or Personal Learning Network.  As teachers we are developing these networks, communicating with a range of teachers we may otherwise not have encountered. 

We talk on Twitter, and sometimes Facebook through various networks, and sometimes we meet face to face at Educamps, Eduignite, ULearn, ConnectED, or at some other form of professional development.  Sometimes we meet up because we've actually developed friendships.

And #edchatNZ is actually hosting its first face to face unconference in August.  Check out this poster and go to the BlogSpot for more info or just ask on Twitter using #edchatNZ to find out more:

I talk to a range of primary, intermediate and secondary teachers as well as facilitators on Twitter, principals too, and sometimes BOT members of various schools.  I am unsure how many ECE teachers are engaged, but it would be great to get more involved.

But I also communicate with politicians, sports people, media, comedians, musicians, actors and many other amazingly funny, creative, thought provoking, interesting Twerps and Tweachers.  I may have started off slow, but I am now over 11,000 tweets into this journey and it is amazing.

Kevin Honeycutt (@kevinhoneycutt) said at ULearn12 that Twitter has your back.  I can say that you can put something out to your PLN and they will respond and an amazing conversation will be thrown back to you.  This happened to me in March, accidentally again, when I posted The Classroom Environment - what makes a class attractive?  What followed when I posted that blog up was four hours on a Friday night of people sharing great artwork and project ideas from their classroom walls!!

I saved so many of those pictures for inspiration later on. 

And that is the great thing about a PLN is that they inspire, advise, invigorate, spark new thinking, refocus, give a different point of view - and I can do it from the comfort of my bed in my pjs for free!!!