Presentation at BCSCTA

Last Friday I had the pleasure of presenting at the BC Science Teachers Association Catalyst Conference. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was in the block for the breakout session of the conference. I suppose you could argue it either way in terms of the audience expectations for the first session, but either way if there is going to be an organization problem with the setup and audio video it is going to be in the first session. But fortunately it all went very smoothly for me. I provided a handout to go along with the presentation since I learned from many past experiences not to try and jam all the information into the presentation and torture via Powerpoint. I spent a lot of time prepping for this presentation over the past couple of weeks.

A lot of my information I gleaned from sources such as Clarence Fisher, Will Richardson and Karl Fische. In fact if you read through my presentation you'll see many references to their blogs. I find these guys inspirational in their commitment to utilize technology to its fullest potential in the classroom. They are true pioneers in this industry. I also gathered awesome material from actively participating in the social networking world with applications such as FriendFeed, Twiiter, Last.FM, Youtube, Furl etc...

My goal was to try and open people up to the possibilities of social networking in education. These applications are certainly still not quite there yet for mainstream users, but I can finally see the seed of what will make this facet of the Internet more accessible. The presentation was well received, and I ended up talking and meeting with some very interesting folks.

All this has certainly consumed a fair amount of time, but I'm slowly figuring out how to streamline my use of the technology. As is always the case in this field, just when you think you have a system figured out, another shakedown of the field occurs and you have to re-adjust. Nevertheless, I'm now finding the technology in the social networking arena is spiraling on a saner course. Educators who utilize social networking technologies are certainly going to have to just jump in and adapt the technology to their style. Although there is no right or wrong way to do this, I believe there are enough resources out there to classify some best practices and learn from the successes and failures of others. There are many enthusiastic teachers who have led the way and are willing to share this information with the rest of us.