Wednesday, June 18, 2014

#wyoedchat a year under its belt, and many stories to tell.

A year ago the #WYOEDCHAT discussion took off. And what a year it has been.
With a relatively small state there was no expectation as to how many of the approximately 7800 public school educators in Wyoming would participate.  What we learned was the similar mantra of edcamps, the ones who are there are the right ones. Tim Foley ( @Tim_Foley) and I took the plunge to see what could happen.

Finding a day to start on was the first obstacle, and Sunday it became.  So first thing that speaks volumes about the #wyoedchat participants is they are not just giving up time but they're giving up weekend time to talk education.

Next adventure was what grade level would find this the most beneficial.  All! We have elementary, we have middle school, high school, college, board members, administrators, students, journalist and department of education participants, that have all taken part in our weekly chats.

What would we talk about? In our first year we have tried to discuss lots of educational topics with our own special Wyoming flavor. We have tackled....Summer PD, collaboration, tech tools, TED videos, Games in schools, Digital Citizenship, Goals and planning, STEM,  Millennials,  Common Core, Risk Taking,  Tough questions, homework, activities, Parent engagement,  Gender challenges in school, Google, Media and schools, Lifelong learning, Community Resources, Nutrition, Dropouts...and some that I left out (https://storify.com/jpk38)  

In the last year we have seen the start of #mtedchat, #idedchat & #sdedchat.  All of these discussions continue to help educators build from within the expertise of our neighbors. Special shout out to @cristama, @triscicurious, @averyteach, @travislape, & @lenessakeehn for helping build and fan the regional edchat flames.  
 
A #wyoedchat book study was born through a partnership with WYTECC and @Wyotigger.  What better book to start with than Open by David Price.  

Our Wyoming Twitter list is pushing 200 so we have lots of contributors that can be brought into our discussion.  As our neighbor chats grow we look for more opportunities to share our discussions and make new friends.  And with education still finding headlines, we look to write our own story about just how great education can be. 
I look forward to another year of possibilities.
 
What has #wyoedchat (or our neighboring chats) meant to you? 

2 comments:

  1. #wyoedchat has helped welcome me into the world of Twitter. It has made me see what a wonderful PD opportunity Twitter can be. With our state being so spread out and PD opportunities sometimes being few and far between, it's refreshing to "talk shop" with educators from around the state and the region. THANKS!

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