Monday 3 June 2013

#ictHB and #educampHB



(Apologies: If you're not into Twitter yet, skip the hash tag talk. I have chosen to use it to illustrate how Twitter can help educators learn and connect together.)

#ictHB is a hash tag coined by Juliet Revell for our first Beacon Teachers of ICT meeting in term one. It has been wonderful to see that hash tag catch on a little. Nowhere has the meaning of that hash tag been more personified by the EduCamp hosted by Juliet and Matt O'Dowda at Richmond School on Saturday 25th of May. In fact, the event was much bigger than our beautiful bay (which put on its coldest, most grim Saturday of the year so far). I was amazed to see inspirational teachers travel from across the North Island, ready to collaborate and share. It came together under the hash tag #educampHB and it was for the majority of us, our first experience of an "unconference". This means a user generated conference - which Juliet explained well in the previous post.

The Smackdown below gave users a chance to choose their topics and we went into two rounds of four different workshops from there. For me, I felt proud to learn from others as well as to share and help other people learn more about topics such as Google Apps and Teacher Dashboard that they were interested in. It was also a privilege to be in such distinguished company and encouraging to see the enthusiasm of Hawke's Bay teachers and educators. #ictHB all the way!