Courageous Edventures Challenge - Day 5

Twitter Chats are an awesome opportunity to engaged in some right on time, relevant professional development!  By simply searching for the hashtag of your choice, you are immersed into deep conversations with educators all around the world that are just as passionate about what you are!  They are fast paced and full of goodness so you have to keep up!  A great tool to do this is TweetDeck.  This allows you to monitor your Twitter feed, notifications, messages and Twitter Chats in an easy format!  Try it out if you haven't.  It literally takes 2 seconds to set up.

This challenge came right on time!  Last night I participated in the #squirrelschat.  This is a chat facilitated by different educators once a month that are a part of the Alpha Squirrels.  Alpha Squirrels are educator ambassadors for the Reflector App.  This chat takes place on a Thursday night at 8pm EST once a month.

I have also recently participated in the #gaetc17 chat within the past week as well.  What I love about participating in different Twitter chats is that you gain the perspective of educators all around the world.  Now that Twitter has a capacity of 280 characters vs 140, the conversation that takes place has even more content and meaning.

The list of Twitter Chats that are out there is HUGE!  Cybraryman has curated an extensive list that I can't wait to delve into and explore.  Another awesome thing about these chats is that you can start your own!  All you need is a hashtag and the conversation can take off!  Recently, I was able to train one of our assistant superintendents to host her own Twitter Chat with her region principals.  It's taken off and she's now had 2 of them!  She used TweetDeck to facilitate her chat and schedule her posts.  Doing so, she finds, allows her to be more engaged in the chat as opposed to worrying about posting the questions/prompts and then being active in the conversation.  It's really been an amazing opportunity!

Have you tried a Twitter Chat before?  What are your favorites?

Courageous Edventures Challenge - Day 2

Today's #couraeousedventures challenge was to commit to a conference.  Jennie asks that we research different educational technology conferences and commit to attending at least one.  Once we have selected that conference, we are asked to blog about why we chose that specific conference and what we wish to learn as a result. 

Every year, edSurge puts out a visual wheel of the top K-12 Education Technology Conferences.  Here is a link to the wheel.

I print this wheel off every year and post it up in my office for a few reasons:

1. To see the latest and greatest conferences that are out there to attend.
2. As a reminder to possibly present at at least one of these conferences.
3. As a reminder to hop on Twitter during these conferences to see what's going on.

Every year I make it a point to attend the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) and the International Society for Technology Education (ISTE) Conference.  I have presented at GaETC a few times as well as in the Exhibit Hall at ISTE.  I absolutely love the energy of the passionate educators at each of these conferences.  ISTE presents a global perspective of instructional technology as there are presenters and attendees from all across the world.  These 2 conferences are no brainers for me!  They happen every year!  I have toyed around with the idea of not attending ISTE and going to FeTC instead or Miami Device, but I always come back to ISTE.  There really is no other conference out there that brings like minded, techie people together!  

Hopefully, I will be attending Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) this year as I have been accepted to present on a panel with some of my fellow Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert colleagues!  This presents an amazing opportunity to share the story of how 2 districts have been able to partner together and become educational technology partners.  

This challenge did indeed force me to take a look at different conferences that are out there, but honestly, these 2 conferences provide me with something new each and every year!   I hope to add TCEA to this list of conferences this year.

Which conferences do you attend every year?  What do you get out of them?