Are you ready to “Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity?” If you answered YES, then the upcoming #Educoach Book Study on the The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros is for YOU!
The #EduCoach Twitter chat is for anyone interested in leading, facilitating and participating in learning. Many, who join us each Wednesday, are in the role of an Instructional Coach. We also draw educators such as administrators, curriculum leaders and teachers to the chat. Our chat is facilitated by Jessica Johnson, Shira Leibowitz, and (me) Kathy Perret. We chat each Wednesday from 8pm to 9pm CST on Twitter. Topics are suggested by participants and voted on each week.
Participants recently submitted book nominations for our upcoming book study and then voted on the book of focus. The book chosen was The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros. We will be chatting about the book for the next five weeks. Our schedule is posted in the graphic at the beginning of this post.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
The chat will take place on Twitter. We will be using the hashtag #educoach. There are several tools that can be used to take part in the chat. My favorite is TweetDeck. Other great tools include Participate, TweetChat, Hootsuite to name a few. In TweetDeck you can manage multiple accounts and columns. I always have one of my columns set to #educoach! Here is a quick tutorial to TweetDeck. But feel free to use the tool that is most comfortable to you.
During the chat we use the Q1/A1 format. Q1 stands for Question number 1. A1 stands for Answer number 1. The moderators will post the questions using Q and the number of the question, such as Q1. Questions are open ended so that a multitude of thoughts and ideas can be shared and generate additional dialogue. When responding to a question participants use A and the number of the question, such as A1, at the beginning of their response. This helps in the formation of the automatic transcripts found at on the #EduCoach page of Participate. The answers to each question will be categorized under the corresponding question when the Q1/A1 format is used. The moderators will continue to post other questions throughout the chat. We usually have 8 to 10 questions throughout the hour chat.
FOLLOWING A TWITTER CHAT
Twitter chats take some getting use to. Rather than a linear conversation with one person speaking at a time, picture them as one large gathering with many conversations flowing simultaneously. Be prepared to “miss things” and be willing to move in between various conversations, even at the same time. The chat about The Innovator’s Mindset has gathered a lot of interest. I foresee the chat moving very quickly – even trending! I love it when I seen educational twitter chats trending on Twitter!
If you are new to Twitter Chats, give yourself the permission to lurk and get the hang of the chat. Even reading the posts will add to your personal learning around the topic of an innovator’s mindset. We will be chatting about the book for the next five weeks. Feel free to lurk for awhile, but set a goal to jump in and add your thoughts. Your thoughts matter!
AFTER THE CHAT
The hour of the chat will fly by. As I said earlier, you are going to miss thoughts, ideas and resources. After the chat, transcripts are so valuable! Participate is our favorite place to access transcripts of the #educoach chat (and the hundreds of educational chats listed here).
Take time to review the transcripts or the Twitter #educoach feed after the chat. Reflect on the conversation and your key take-aways. Did a thought shared shift your current thinking? Was there an idea mentioned that you could implement in your school/workplace? What did you learn from participating (or lurking) in the chat? What difference did the chat make in your professional learning life?
The hashtag #educoach can be used 24/7. Continue to share your thoughts, ideas, and resources with the community of learners beyond the hour chat. Share how you are implementing an idea that you gathered from the chat. Ask additional questions. Provide resources on the topic of innovation or any other resource/idea you want to share with the #educoach community.
