Connecting Leaders 2013

Connecting Leaders Tidbits

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the British Columbia Principals and Vice Principal's Association (BCPVPA) "Connecting Leaders Conference - Beyond Innovation and Change".

I am often skeptical of whether I need to go to these "gatherings" when I am continuously professionally developing through my personal learning networks both online and offline. The amount of effort it takes for me to actually get to a conference with coordinating family and work responsibilities is exhausting and there is always the risk that I will come away wishing I'd enjoyed a weekend at home.

However, there is nothing quite like meeting people you've only ever conversed with online, or being able to shake the hand, or give a hug to someone that helped you out at some point or another. I also find these more "formal" learning opportunities are different than my "informal" ones that I do on my own time. They force me to listen to what others have to say and to formulate my own opinions. They don't get interrupted e.g. Often I will be reading an article or following up on something someone has shared and household distractions cause me to stop what I'm doing...and often I never get back to it. Having the time and space created for learning was a treat.

I had a lot of take-away tidbits from this gathering. It was great to see how the number of people tweeting had increased from the last time I attended and in general, the technology used e.g. YAPP greater facilitated my learning.
The two keynote speakers, Simon Breakspear and George Couros, provided catalysts for reflection and action. There was reassurance given, that putting learners in charge of their learning in a greater capacity and that taking risks to make our systems better for learners is necessary and worth it.

Simon described the student as the owner/driver of the learning, teacher as designer/activator and technology as the accelerator of learning. I enjoyed the analogy of school as a "basecamp". When we look at what the role of a basecamp is, this definitely fits for me. Pushing past the "Why should we?" to ask "How do we?" was refreshing to hear.

Some other gems...
- ask "ungoogleable" questions vs "googleable ones"
- Learning looks like pull/push
- Learning will be hard/easy

Two things on my action list thanks to Simon are:
- spending more time to find out who my learners are outside of school and what their journey is to get to school each day
- provide more opportunities for creating and sharing "crazy ideas" to promote a culture of risktaking

George had many themes in common with Simon in his keynote. I appreciated his attention to making vision and journey visible to the whole learning community and how technology can support and provide this openness. I also attended his blogging/tweeting workshop where he provided a slew of useful tips. As evidenced by my sporadic blogging and the little time I've put into "prettying up" my blog I have some work to do! As was said in the session... "Even the worst bloggers make us smarter because it is always easy to win an argument if it is just in our heads." Blogging gets people sharing their ideas and challenging assumptions.

A few action items for me thanks to George's keynote/presentations are:
- Using Tweetdeck and Hootsuite to have a more organized approach
- Providing more opportunities for kids to practice "digital being" and to analyze their online footprints more regularly
-getting better at aggregating and curating information to share with others
- improving my use of following/using hashtags 

I am grateful I had the opportunity to attend, and that I am a part of such a dynamic association that feels it is important to provide formal opportunities for continuous professional learning.