Recently added to the Survival Tips for Teachers and Goal: Go on an Epic Selfie Adventure
Selfie- a picture taken of oneself shared via social media.
Each year, I present at various face-to-face and virtual conferences around the world. I remember to take tons of pictures of the memories and magical moments shared with teachers I consider friends and even like family. Many of these pictures are selfies. Selfies are an important part of our digital identity and experience. They are one way we can humanize our digital experience. They let others know about us and how we view ourselves. Selfies are also a fun way to meet new people at a conference and create memories. For this reason, I’m sending you on an epic selfie adventure at your next conference. View the slides and see a list of missions and resources. I presented this 5 minute Ignite for the #NotAnEdConferences group, which virtually helps teachers experience physical conferences they wish they could attend.
The Slide Presentation
- Your first mission is to take selfies with your conference heros- authors, speakers, presenters, or friends you’ve connected with online who you are finally meeting in person.
- Mission: Bring your colleague along. Last year at ISTE, I helped Lisa Dabbs, @TeachwithSoul, with her #NotAtISTE mission to get a selfie with her in it. I had a lot of fun completing this mission and I know how much Lisa appreciated it.
- You can’t truly experience a conference unless you meet new people! The next mission is to photobomb someone’s selfie. Beg for forgiveness after. This way you get to talk with them. Chances are you probably gave them a much better selfie than they planned.
- Mission: Explore your surroundings! Don’t just hang around the building. With your colleagues go explore foodie joints, historical buildings, museums, concerts, and other sites.
- Enhance your selfies with props, mascots, or costumes! Take selfies with students or young children and let them control the camera. Change the perspective, your angles, or add filters. Play with different facial expressions and poses.
- Conferences are filled with events, often with free food and drinks, to help you meet people and creating memories. Your mission is to get selfies at a few of these events of you singing karaoke or dancing with your colleagues.
- More tips for an epic conference.
- Conferences are more meaningful when you connect with others. Make connections by asking people to join you in taking an usie (pronounced “us”ie), which is a group selfie!
- The people you meet will become part of your Personal/Passionate Learning Networks (PLN) and you can continue to connect with them on the social networks you already frequent.
- Find your #hashtag! Find a list of hashtags, Cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html and a list of Educhats that take place on Twitter.
- Get your swag on! Visit the exhibitions to receive free tools and apps for your classroom.
- Sketchnote the presentations on an iPad or tablet using free apps like Adobe Illustrator Draw, Paper 53, Bamboo Paper, and Inkredible. Use a stylus pen to easily write on your tablet. Find inexpensive stylus on Amazon.
- Use a social bookmarking and curation app, like Diigo, Storify, Listly, Educlipper, PearlTrees, Livebinder, Pinterest, Scoop.It, or Flipboard so you carry your learning with you!
- Taking selfies is much easier with a selfie stick, but in case you don’t have one, press the time delay in your camera settings to give you 3 or more seconds to prepare. You can also use the CamMe app, which lets you take photos through gestures.
- Other great selfie apps include TouchCast (make a video selfie), Aviary, Pixlr, PicsArt, BeFunky, Pic-Collage, Image Chef, Looksery, Selfit, and Group Shot.
- Don’t forget to share your memories in a slideshow, collage, blog, photo album, or video. Tag those who took part in your epic selfie adventure so they can smile at the memories.
The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers
Each year, teachers worldwide aim to accomplish 1 to 30 goals that transform their teaching. Join the movement by accomplishing any goal from any of the cycles then letting us know through a reflection or status update on ourFacebook community, Twitter (#30GoalsEdu), or Instagram.com/30goals. At our official site, 30Goals.com, find all the goals, participant reflections, badges, and get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers workbook. Find all the 2015 goals here!
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachersor my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics. Subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!
