How’s that for a title? It could well describe what’s going to happen this Friday and Saturday. OTF and ECOO have jointly sponsored a two-day workshop called “Expanding our Boundaries“. The workshop is a full two days of activities designed to help Ontario educators embrace some of the new collaborative web technologies.
The session is facilitated by Will Richardson. If you’re reading this blog, undoubtedly you know of Mr. Richardson’s stature within the online community. Author of the book “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms“, Will is a speaker of incredible knowledge and passion for using collaborative technologies in order to develop your own personal learning network and affording opportunities for students to do the same in the classroom. It really strikes home when exhibit A is Will’s two children and his desire that we become the teacher that he would send his kids to.
The event is more than that though. Success stories from online Ontario educators will be shared throughout the two day event and a portion of this morning is devoted to the union advice about keeping yourself and your students protected. It appears to be a well thought through and complete agenda.
Will’s Ontario adventures started a couple of years ago as he keynoted the Western Regional Computer Advisory’s Symposium 2007. We asked him to stick around for a second day and conduct a hands-on blogging and Read/Write Web session. Both events had huge impact on a number of people helping them see the benefits of this technology and to this day you’ll find blogs that starts as a result of the workshop and continue to this day.
I kid Will that I should get finder’s fees. Since he set the world on fire at our Symposium, he has been invited to do similar presentations in many locations throughout the province, including our Vision to Practice conference last summer. He doesn’t beat you up with his message, but there’s no denying that he’s spot on when he encourages you to find your passion and build your professional network around that passion. I know that advice has built me a terrific network in the online areas that I frequent and there doesn’t go a day where I don’t learn something new. Can there be no better compliment for an educator?
One of the keys to success in an event like this is a lasting connection to someone of a similar mindset. Beyond the inspiration and insights that Will provides, that’s what I hope I get as a take away from this event.
If you can’t join us, ECOO has set up a backchannel on Commun-it for the comments to flow.
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As it turns out, Will had created a backchannel on Chatzy. The conversation moved over there.
http://www.chatzy.com/837020922393
Thanks so much for those kind words, Doug. Your check is in the mail! ;0) Great to have you involved in this workshop.
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