Tech Notes

These are some of my musings/notes from today's in-person #edci336 session...

Twitter Chats
I took part in #fslchat and #bcedchat on Sunday night. The #bcedchat was about innovation, and it's on Storify here. Engaging in this process helped me to improve my Twitter chat skills, become more comfortable with Hootsuite, and grow my PLN.

Coding & Programming
I want to continue working on Codecademy as part of my work for this course in order to further my learning about coding. When I asked what his favourite Education Technology resource was via Twitter,  @abnorr shared a kid-friendly site for practicing coding: studio.code.org. I'd like to spend some time exploring that as well. Through @DW_Programs on Twitter, I found out about lightbot.com, a program for engaging kids in programming.

Blogger
My upcoming goals for Blogger are adding social media icons to this blog, and learning how to follow blogs via RSS feeds.

Personal Learning Plan
Here is a sample personal learning plan (PLP). I might work on creating a formal PLP for myself, but in the meantime this blog, Twitter, and a plethora of sticky notes will serve that purpose.

Privacy & Copyright
I plan on learning more about privacy and copyright. Here are a few phrases that will help to guide the beginning of my learning journey:

• BC Privacy Act,
• International Standards for Technology in Education,
• Creative Commons, and
• open educational resources.

Miscellany
Here are a few hashtags that I've heard about through this class that I'd like to explore further:

• #remixthediss,
• #geniushour,
• #tiegrad,
• #commentsforkids, and
• #sd61learn.

Here are some other resources that I'd like to explore:

• etmooc,
• LiveBinders,
• LiveBinder re: Genius Hour, and
• diigo.

-Britney (@MlleBallen)

Get Connected

Video Conference Tutorials
I am putting together a couple of video conference tutorials about Blogger and Twitter for my colleagues in #edci336. If you are interested in attending one (or both) of these sessions, what sort of topics/questions would you like to see covered?

I will be using BlueJeans for these video conferences. Tomorrow afternooon I will start learning how to host a session using BlueJeans. On Thursday morning I will be using it to host a meeting between the PDPPPosseRC and a local teacher. Hopefully by the time I host the aforementioned tutorials, I will be able to use BlueJeans without getting David Bowie's song "Blue Jean" stuck in my head!

Twitter
By all accounts - and certainly by my Twitter account - I have been tweeting up a storm lately. I have expanded my PLN, increased my engagement in some great communities, found some terrific resources, and just generally been quite inspired by what I have found.

Today I started using Hootsuite, and I think that I am starting to get the hang of it. It certainly didn't take long for me to tweet a pun about it.

One particularly fruitful connection was with the Royal BC Museum. Because of this connection, I have been given the opportunity to be part of a creative team for an outreach project that combines science and comics. What an incredible combination of Science Education and Art Education! 

Face-to-Face Learning
I am so excited to be taking part in these fabulous opportunities for networking and professional development in the near future:

• #yyjignite on Wednesday,
• A national science outreach conference in Ottawa in 1.5 weeks, where I will be sharing what I have learned both while working as a STEM outreach instructor/coordinator, and while taking last term's courses in Indigenous Education and Education Psychology,
• A public information session at Pacific Institute of Inquiry and Innovation (PSII) on February 7th, and
• #edcampvic on February 28th.

Will I be seeing you at any of these events? Are there any other great events coming up? Let's get connected!

-Britney (@MlleBallen)